I'm Slowly Losing My Mind

Ah the existential crisis that is college graduation. Nothing quite like it. Certainly not for the clever and yet lost ones.<p>Eric is suffering from a common ailment, lack of an agenda and fear of employment. Suffering from tales of drudgery and pain that is the "9 to 5 job" he dreams of something larger, but because he has no agenda there is nothing to target, nothing to attack. I hope he avoids a game studio initally, they chew up these guys and spit them out as spent rags into the world suffering from post tramautic coding disorder.<p>Spend the summer after graduation helping people. People with real problems in the real world. Buy a one way ticket to another place and work your way back, drive from the polar circle to the southern tip of Brazil. Engage with the world, find the place where you can apply positive good with your skills and do that for a while. You'll feel better about yourself and the world will be better for it.<p>Or find someone you respect and you can learn from and join them in their quest to make the world a better place.

You sound like (younger) me and you seem to be getting some flak here from people who should know better. And if you are like me, I've got some good news and some bad news.<p>The tl;dr is: Just hold on. It gets better. Much better.<p>The bad news: You've probably got a good case of ADHD, coupled with mild depression, the usual existential angst, all made worse by a huge impending transition. The "tools" you're building (I was building) were really giant abstraction layers between myself and "the real world" (if that makes any sense). I'd start out with a specific purpose of course, but falter as the scope expanded until I was trying to encapsulate all of reality (or possibility?). I'd get excited when I'd discover parallels between the projects I'd started and excitedly think to myself "wow, when I get this thing done its going to do <i>everything</i>! Its a whole new way to see the entire creative space!" Really they were just all running together like melting crayons in the global namespace of possibility. What you're feeling about these projects is <i>inexperience</i>. I know it doesn't seem like it, but it will looking back.<p>The hard realization was that the stuff in my head just <i>couldn't</i> be expressed by any real world media, even of my own design. Reality sucks like that. Worse, I only had so much energy in a day, and only so many days to live. If I had 10 lives I still couldn't explore half of what I already wanted to. The worst of all? Lots of people felt just like I did. They were better at most things than I was too. I was no-one special.<p>The good news: I think you'll probably just outgrow it. And I'm seriously trying not to be condescending here. I think I was about 25 or 26 when I noticed that my mind was starting to get "quiet" for lack of a better term(1). I didn't feel desperately pulled in a thousand directions anymore. All of those world changing projects I'd desperately started and only built 30% of when I was young turned out to be completely useless. But the experience I gained wasn't. The soul-sucking jobs that had seemed so impenetrable were actually made of interesting little problems that were fun to solve. Soon I was comfortable enough to strike out on my own as a consultant, then start a business.<p>I guess what I'm telling you, hopefully without even a hint of judgment or condescension is to hang on, I think I was a lot like you and it got much better for me through no special effort or grand insight of my own. I think it will for you too. Its just growing up. Not "growing up" in the awful, condescending way people say it when they want something from you. Just what happens. I truly wish the best of luck to you.<p>(1) Apparently this is fairly common for many adolescent sufferers of ADHD.

Your approach to game development reminds me a bit of:<p><a href="http://news.quelsolaar.com/#post42" rel="nofollow">http://news.quelsolaar.com/#post42</a><p>&#62;Game developers Conference was a very strange experience. I used to love going to GDC sessions, because there was so much to learn. As you evolve your skills that cant last, but now it feels like I'm operating on a completely different plane, I cant learn anything because I have nothing in common with anyone in "the industry". Almost no one is talking about programming, and when they do they talk about problems i don't recognize, and techniques i don't use. My "reinvent everything" policy has taken me so far away form what others do that I can no longer relate. I was talking to someone about size of code base and realized that their games code base was ten time the size of mine, yet we couldn't account for the difference in what our engines could do. Am i missing some point? Its like we have developed two completely different branches of evolution to solve the same problem. I found my self sitting in session after session thinking that I would never do anything they would do.<p>&#62;What strikes me the most is how complicated they have made it. There are managers, producers, directors, scripters, leads, and assistants yet noting seams to become easier. Everyone agrees that's the way to do it, yet no one seams to prove it. Is no one asking why? We are doing the same things in games that we have always done, just now we make it so much more complicated for ourselves. Since what we could easily do in the past is now hard we cant do anything new, and we become stuck. Destructible environments now are hard, yet in Super Mario bros they where easy. We are raising the bar but we less gracefully clear it. We try to tell stories, yet we still cant do better then a text adventure. If we want to tell stories I cant understand why we make games at all.<p><a href="http://news.quelsolaar.com/#post41" rel="nofollow">http://news.quelsolaar.com/#post41</a>

Honestly, it just sounds like you need to practice the art of <i>getting things out there</i>. It's a really hard skill to learn, but you only learn it by releasing little bits as soon as they are at least usable, and never a moment later.<p>After awhile you'll be more content with imperfection, and you'll realize perfection isn't really worth it (or feasible). And if you do start putting price tags on things, you'll learn how to make your dreams a financial reality.<p>You are just graduating, many people <i>never</i> learn this. Start shipping something now, because it takes a good amount of time to learn and improve this process.

Word to the wise - just stop. Get a life. Do something else with your time. Go see movies. Spend time with friends. Just sit outside in the sunshine and breathe the air. Do exactly nothing for a while. What are you trying to prove, and who are you trying to prove it to? In all likelihood you are not going to change the world one little bit. Enjoy yourself, it's later than you think.

The good news is that there is a demand for and opportunities for those obsessed with building entire tool chains from top to bottom (or at least with coming to grips with non standard stripped out libraries).<p>The typical application areas are bespoke high performance robust instrumentation; satellite communications, downhole radar systems, autonomous civilian drone projects, scientific instrumentation. Even gadgets like the recent leap motion device benefit from having custom drivers developed for it that seamlessly and compactly fill the layer between raw hardware and a clean and simple device API.<p>Erik may never get to reuse and apply the bulk of the code he's already developed but he can leverage the fact that he has built his own components as opposed to simply banging together existing library routines.<p>One way out of this particular hole might be to join a team with greater breadth and take on their demands as an external driving force.

Eric, I think you need to find your other half. Not a wife or girlfriend but your "Non-Competing Non-Biological Brother". Jobs had Wozniak, Brin has Page, and the list goes on and on from YouTube to Yahoo to Microsoft to Valve. A lot of big things are built when one man finds his non-competing other half. Men need other men to serve as a balancing force for their weaknesses and strengths. Otherwise you're going to end up like Nicoli Tesla and all the other brilliant people who died penniless.

Good art comes by embracing constraints. By obsessively building your own tools you are desperately trying to remove the very constraints that will cause what you create to be amazing.<p>Try embracing the constraints you so fear and see what you can do with them. Only once you have truly hit the barrier can you truthfully tell yourself the constraint is real and not imaginary, anyway.

The silliest part of this whole article? "I graduate college in 2 months. I'm running out of time." Ah ha! You've got all the time in the world to practice &#38; hone your craft, why the rush? Graduation is just the beginning, not the end.

This guy needs to build something with the tools he's making. How does he know his tools are going to work well if he doesn't ever use them? I've built many tools in my day, but never in a vacuum.

A normal job <i>will</i> kill you. Source: I have a normal job, and it's killing me.<p>It's not really fun in the way that hobby programming is fun. What I really live for tho is composing music. So I'm considering either working part time (because I can't compose any more at all, due to tiredness from my job, so maybe I'd relax enough to do it), or switching career entirely and eking out a living doing composition for movies/games/whatever. But then that would turn it into a job, which would probably ruin it for me.

Erik, you commented that you want to do these things before you get tied down by marriage and kids.<p>In my experience, it does not tie you down; it gives you the most important, defining reason of your existence.<p>It is a lot easier to change the world when you have someone to change it for.

the phrase i see uttered time and time again throughout his posts (i've read three, now) is "then i realized that &#60;library/component&#62; sucks" followed by a self-indulgent pursuit to make a better &#60;library/component&#62; that ends in failure.<p>i am the type of programmer who loves to reinvent the wheel (albeit, mostly as a means of exploration) but i never approached it like this. this seems to be very self-destructive behavior rooted in the cop out of the yet-unvalidated claim, "i can make something better."<p>it seems as though many of his judgements are made before gaining an intimacy with the subject he wishes to work on. i would suggest an investment in actually refining his skill set. he may be able to see the need, but doesn't seem to understand how things got to where they are — an important step in moving forward.<p>i wanted to sympathize with his plight, but it seemed as though a lot of his suffering was caused by an unchecked ego. i think he'd be happy undertaking and completing some VERY simple projects — perfecting them before moving forward.

Let's spill bit of hatred on the rooster's nest: "...box2D physics integration,..." Why not make 2D physics engine by yourself? The answer: just because it involves real research and development to make it. Do it well, and you will be praised, and nobody will call you insane. And what the author really does is a poor cock-a-doodle-doo with a custom string class.

Hey Erik,<p>Once you graduate, take a silly job for a bit (something not brain related) save every penny and then travel for a while. More perspective will help and you can't get that from sitting in one place.

What I read into this is a feeling I have to fight in my own work: it's easier, in an emotional sense, to fiddle around with your tools than it is to face the real problem. The amazing things you're imagining creating don't really need a replacement for std::vector to succeed -- people make great art with all sorts of tools way worse than the STL.<p>The way I fight this urge in myself (and balance it against the real need to occasionally improve a tool or library) is to occasionally make a project where I make a point of doing everything the most straightforward/simple/least-clever way possible, even choosing the hackier way when available as it makes me uncomfortable. I find it helps me reset my acceptability meter. Usually I find the project works out just fine, and all the things I imagined needed improvement were just avoidance.

I'm coming really late to this thread, but I'm going to comment anyway.<p>What I'd like to propose is the idea of the "success loop". It seems to me that you are stuck in this place where you get no positive feedback from your work.<p>The other way to work is to throw out a lot of small things, and then build on the things which work, and people find valuable. All of my large hacks have turned out to be the result of small hacks, positive feedback and collaboration.<p>Consider not focusing on the whole vision, but choosing a kernel, just one novel contribution.<p>The best ideas will attract other people. Once you have a bunch of minds working on things, it becomes like a relay where your analysis paralysis gets "routed around" by someone else.<p>If you can create this environment for yourself and roll with it, I promise you will have the time of your life.

Some technical advice, since most of the comments here are life advice:<p>Use higher-level languages like Java or AS3 or Haxe to flesh out new ideas wherever possible. You'll kill yourself using C++ to fully vet crazy new game engine paradigms from scratch, even if it's just the compile time you save. Once you've gone through your umpteenth refactoring in managed code land and are happy, you can do a source to source compile or something similar.<p>This strategy has really helped me in the past. In fact, one time I wrote a quick 2d Flash application before writing the full 3d C++ version that was my goal (for a haptics-based viscous fluid simulation). It really helped me get a "mile-high" understanding of the challenges before diving into the lower-level jungle.<p>EDIT: Oh yea, and never write your own GUI library.

Tools programmers for games are in demand. If you ever need to work for the man to pay rent you'll be okay.<p>Realize most people, probably 99%, just go to work ever day. That's it. They aren't revolutionizing industries, they aren't creating a new company every six months. You've been in school getting an applied mathematics degree and you are absolutely despondent that you aren't also running your own successful games company by now. By your senior year of college?<p>Not all companies are the same BTW, don't generalize your experience at MS to everyone. Apply at Valve: <a href="http://newcdn.flamehaus.com/Valve_Handbook_LowRes.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://newcdn.flamehaus.com/Valve_Handbook_LowRes.pdf</a><p>Or DoubleFine or TellTale games or Majang.

After reading your article, my friend recommended a pertinent Venkatesh Rao column, which you seem to personify to an extreme:<p><a href="http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2010/03/18/the-turpentine-effect/" rel="nofollow">http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2010/03/18/the-turpentine-effect/</a>

this is the blog equivalent to someone blubbering in front of the camera on youtube

I thought about doing this as well when I was younger in high-school and even in the beginning of college with starting my own company upon graduation where I'd actually get freelancers who wanted to do it just for themselves. It almost completely enveloped my life reprogramming a game to match ideas. I had this mindset that the people who really want to see great games are the players and the players so hellbent and fed up with crap games that they are willing to go to great lengths to program their imaginations.<p>I was much more on the analysis side of searching for projects that could do things better. I looked high and low for tons of platforms, libraries, and frameworks comparing them and seeing how they implemented the ideas. I came to the conclusion that some of them are pretty decent but almost all of them are rather bulky. And the ones that are not rather bulky in implementation aren't as separable/modular as they should be.<p>In my opinion it's not necessarily an ADHD thing as it is an creativity with games thing versus the constraining realities of programming (for corporations or not). I don't think I have ADHD I just tend to obsess over certain things for certain periods of time. In fact I like the way I am because I have an undying determination when I am focused on certain things that I do have some control over.<p>I still like reading programming concepts a lot, just not so much into spending hours upon hours rebuilding everything. Many companies just want something that will work. This is irritating to me as it is to many people, but it's the reality of the situation.<p>If your still hell bent on releasing some games my suggestion is to open source good parts of the tools you are developing if you haven't already and ask for support from people who really want to make games. I will definitely consider joining in on working on some projects for free if it means that better games are developed.

I took a 10 min break from another all night programming binge to check out HN, found this, realized it sounded like the story of my life, then realized that the majority of the comments are saying "yea that sounds exactly like me". It should make us all feel better to know we are not alone!

I suggest looking at Common Lisp for additional programming power.<p>May be relevant: <a href="http://www.lambdassociates.org/blog/bipolar.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.lambdassociates.org/blog/bipolar.htm</a><p>"He can see far; further than in fact his strength allows him to travel. He conceives of brilliant ambitious projects requiring great resources, and he embarks on them only to run out of steam. It's not that he's lazy; its just that his resources are insufficient.<p>And this is where Lisp comes in. Because Lisp, as a tool, is to the mind as the lever is to the arm. It amplifies your power and enables you to embark on projects beyond the scope of lesser languages like C.<p>Writing in C is like building a mosaic out of lentils using a tweezer and glue.<p>Lisp is like wielding an air gun with power and precision.<p>It opens out whole kingdoms shut to other programmers."

You like to make things. Good. Now you need to <i>make things that people want to buy</i>. Or go to work for someone who does. That will give you money, which will keep you alive.<p>And do not underestimate the value of staying alive. Food, insurance, housing, clothing, and the like is very good to have, and many people in the world don't have have enough of it. Your constantly decaying state is what will keep you sane, it's what will keep the pressure on to connect back with the world. Because to <i>make things that people want to buy</i> you have to pay attention to the world, and to other people's problems.<p>Right now you're consumed by your own problems. If it wasn't for the need to stay alive, I'm sure you'd stay in that head space forever, pretty miserably. Luckily, you get hungry and have to pay rent or the cops will come and force you out.<p>So you gotta make some money.<p>Money is not evil. People who give you money of their own free will are usually happy to do so because their other options are worse (such as, for example, not getting their projects done). Pay attention to that when you get a job: they are giving you money so that they can do more projects. That's it. Nothing existentially deep or particularly horrible about that.<p>The tough thing for a programmer with integrity is to learn to execute projects the wrong way, on purpose. There is a fear that coding the wrong way (the wrong language, wrong architecture, wrong idioms, heck, even the wrong code formatting) will somehow sully you. Nope, it won't. The codebase has momentum that is encoded in this structure and in the processes and people around it. It adds unnecessary, arbitrary complexity to even the most trivial of changes. Almost all installed codebases are this way or will get to be this way at some point.<p>Don't worry about that. It is not your problem. Your job is to learn to do it the wrong way to the best of your ability, to navigate (and perhaps mitigate) that complexity as best you can. (And don't worry, you'll be figuring out ways to sneak in 'the right way' soon enough.)<p>This job is going to take 40 hours of your life every week. (If you work for a game company other than Valve, double that.) That leaves about 8 hours of time on the weekdays and all day on the weekends free, plus vacation days. Learn to put your work down and do what you like - work on your pet projects, or your pets. Learn to ski. Buy a dog. Get a girlfriend. Outside of that 40 hours, it's your life, and as a programmer you'll be making good money. Spend it! Buy me a beer!<p>I would recommend strongly against a startup, given your level of agitation. When you are able to control your own mind so that you are able to focus on work, and then put it aside, then you might try a startup.<p>There is no need to give up your dream, kid. You just have to learn how to stay alive while you chase it.

" By the time I had gotten enough money to "pursue my dreams", I would have gotten married and be tied down by kids."<p>Dear God, I hope this person never has children; or before he/she does that they have a <i>serious</i> change of heart.

Blackhole, I have the same problem (slightly):<p>I once coded std::vector and more why ? Bad education mostly, turn out that stuff is rather good :) Took me the hard way to find that out. I still need to replace all that code.<p>What I mostly learned: pick ONE thing, and assume you will spend 10 year to complete it as life will keep interrupting.<p>Also if you ever decide to code an audio engine again, could use some help :p (from a person like you) (find me on freenode.org)

I don't understand, why post this on Hacker News? "This is the blog equivalent to someone blubbering in front of the camera on Youtube"

I also often start but never finish a game programming project, and reinvent the wheel a lot (though not as far as reimplementing C++ strings, more like 3D and UI libraries and such).<p>Don't forget to open source everything, and maybe one of your reinventions of the wheel may land you a good job.<p>And maybe this means you're meant to be a systems programmer, not a game programmer.

With your amount of passion you can still work on your ideas after marriage and kids.

This story reminds me of the story of Blender <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blender_(software)" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blender_(software)</a> now one of the best 3D software packages available.

Brings back memories of <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0383028/" rel="nofollow">http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0383028/</a>

So you created your own string class?<p>Wrapped all the operating system's APIs in your own custom classes?<p>Built a lot of infrastructure on the theory that you might need it later?<p>Obsessed over the best way to shave some efficiency yak, without ever measuring whether it mattered?<p>Relax. You're a normal C++ programmer. I did all the same stuff, years ago. Now get a job at a company that doesn't suck, and relax. Try to get hired at Valve, or Blizzard, or some indie company. Don't work for the people you know suck and you'll be fine.

You sound terrifically smart blackhole, but you took on too big a project. Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe you can get the project outsourced (in pieces or as a whole) to get it done that way and become famous :)<p>Or continue doing it yourself (not recommended, but hey, if you are deriving some kind of joy from it...).<p>But whatever you do, take care of you for awhile. Love yourself. You are a good person.

Sounds fun, you are doing what you are enjoying and some aspect of collective consciousness are contradicting with your definitions.<p>Continue doing what you enjoy until you can't.<p>Life will provide if you put trust in it, if you don't, heh, it will provide with it also :D

I can relate to everything the guy writes, even in his comments, even in his previous article, <a href="http://blackhole12.blogspot.se/2012/12/dreams-of-failure.html" rel="nofollow">http://blackhole12.blogspot.se/2012/12/dreams-of-failure.htm...</a><p>Fuck, it's scary.