A Note on Tesseract. (No, it's not going anywhere)

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Spootyone

22 January 2019

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Hey everyone. First of all, if any of you are reading this going "he must be quitting", do not worry. I'm not going anywhere. I mentioned in the last article I posted that the holidays had gotten to my free time, as they are want to do, and this was the reason for me not posting in a few weeks. Similarly, my free time has been taken up again, and so I've had to go back on my hope of releasing the next episode on the 21st, yesterday.

Now, I'm a believer that transparency is a key to trust, so I figured I'd do so and hopefully dissuade any believe the series is canceled, or that I'm being lazy, or that I've run out of ideas, etc, etc.

I want to begin by letting you all in on my life. I, like many of us, work a full time job for a living. I am media manufacturing chemist by title, and this job can certainly take its toll on me either via long hours or exhausting work. Of course, this is normal so this alone isn't enough to prevent me from writing. So let's talk about what I do outside of work.

Outside of work, I am currently in the middle of a 5-course online certification in programming that I have been working on for a few months now. I have learned over the years that constantly working on improving myself makes me happy, so this fills a huge role in my life currently. I also love learning so it's an enjoyable experience and I absolutely have to make time for it.

On top of that, I have friends who are all just far enough away that it becomes a trip to spend time with them. This means that many of my weekends are spent away from home visiting them to hang out. And if I'm not visiting them to hang out, I'm typically having to visit my parents or my fiance's family. And quite frankly, when I get a free weekend at home, I love to just chill out for once haha.

And speaking on my fiance, I would be remiss to not mention her. She is very important to me and there are many evenings where I try to make sure I spend that time with her. Or if not, doing chores around the house to help make sure I'm doing my part. Basically, normal adult stuff. You adults reading probably know the feeling! And none of this even constitutes relaxing and having me time.

Essentially, what I'm getting at is that there is only so much time in the day to write. And even when there IS time, it's not as easy as doing data entry. I have a lot of pride in my work and I try very hard to make sure what I write is not just cookie-cutter content or mindless dribble. I really do try to spark interesting conversations and make the reader think critically. And this means that I MYSELF have to be thinking both critically and thoroughly to make that content. 10-minutes breaks at work don't really allow for that brain-space like they do for just typing up cube updates!

Because of all of this, I've been kind of worried about what I need to do to make sure I continue with the series, because I adore making content and this article series is important to me. I have a ton of ideas. The problem is that many of the ideas I like to talk about are a bit out of the box. And if I do not do my due diligence in explaining my point of view and persuading the reader to listen to what I'm saying, then I'm not really getting anything across, now am I?

And so I've had to really reconcile with myself what I want this series to be. What do I want out of it? Successful content of the internet is regular, easily-digestible, and wide-reaching. But if I were to make that content and especially FORCE that kind of content, then I wouldn't be being true to myself or to my audience. I am a man who prefers quality over quantity. I am a man who prefers substance in content. And I simply do not have the time right now to make content of the caliber I want to make if it is going to be weekly.

When I went into this project, I knew weekly would be the best but might be hard. It is, indeed, hard. Perhaps if I wasn't taking online courses I'd have the time to make weekly content, but that absolutely has to take precedence, as do most things in my life, over this series.

Okay, so let's wrap this up before someone accuses me of taking more time to write a "where am I" post than an actual article!

I am not gone for good. I am not gone for long. I have a partial article written that I want to get right and it isn't ready for release yet. I will try to have it released this coming Monday (the 28th), or if it is NOT ready by then, another article. I plan on making my scheduled releases BI-WEEKLY moving forward. This will probably mean sacrificing growth for quality, but I have made that decision after much thought. I would rather be known for deep, creative, and thought-out pieces than pithy hot takes and pandering to trends.

I hope you all have been well and are enjoying the new year, the new set, and everything life has to offer you. I'll be back soon.

• Spooty