Vlog 20161203 - Final Days of WT! (Patreon)

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There's that light! (Let's try to get this light too... very high-tech) Hello patrons it is Saturday and unlike last week I decided to stay home like a rational human being and get some stuff done. 

I don't know what to say! It's the last week of my Kickstarter.... Kickstarter wraps on Tuesday and the last comic goes up on Monday so that's... a big deal!

I don't really know what to feel about that... it feels very big, it feels very... "just gonna leave that out there and see how that goes". It's already drawn, it's already done so I feel like I'm just kind of sitting here waiting for something to happen and I don't know what... I's going to be very surreal I think to post it and-- you know what, I don't know how it's going to feel, I don't know what it's going to be like! So let's just focus on what I'm doing now and... I'm just trying to take care of myself, I'm just trying to relax.

I turned on the heat which has been kind of an ongoing saga between me and Trevor for the past several weeks. We don't turn on the heat which I-- I don't know how it started and I don't know why we do this, it's more like a battle of wills between me and Trevor where both of us suffer and there is no real consequence but it's kind of a way that we prevent ourselves from turning on heat too early I think... like you know October 1 rolls around and you're like "ooh! it's slightly chilly" and crank up the heat, and that can waste a lot of energy, it can cost a lot of money. So what started as this mild "let's see if we can get to the end of October without turning on the heat" and then I think "let's see if we can get to the end of November without turning in the heat". We hit December third today... so we got to December. I can't remember whether we've beat December before but we are almost at this point where... well you know you swing higher and higher and then theoretically you could just go all the way around and then what. So I don't know if the aim was to go all the way around the calendar without turning on the heat at all-- that seems silly. But I think we've accomplished our goals. And anyway "I lost", I guess that's moral of the story is I lost, I'm the one who turned on the heat. And now there's heat and I'm hoping the feeling will come back to my fingers and I hope that will help me be more motivated to get things done!

And yeah so other than turning on the heat I'm just chilling out today and trying to take it easy... trying to keep myself centred for what is going to be a very emotional week ahead with the actual final conclusion of wasted talent. The Kickstarter's going fantastic...  (I'm spacing out again because I just I don't know how to process this type of information). You put so much energy and effort into preparing for something like this and I don't know what I expected, I tried to go in with very tempered expectations and my ultimate goal was to have the box to complete the set. And we hit the box goal, so I'm good! I don't need anything else to happen, that is what I wanted. I wanted all five my books offset printed with foil and the box, so I'm good! We did it guys! And it's thanks to people like you who come out to support it who make this happen. And it's really overwhelming every day when someone just like me who just likes drawing and likes putting my stuff out on the Internet for people to read... I can get enough support to really realize what is my dream for the series and have it concluded in a way that makes me happy and satisfied. 

But I do have to steel myself a little bit because even though ending this project is the right thing for me to do in a lot of ways... the last weeks and months I've been really struggling with what it is I'm doing with my energy, with my voice... What is the best way to apply myself to maximize the impact... Maximize helping people for the great challenges that we have ahead as a species, really. I mean, climate change is always an ever present threat and I have been thinking about it a lot lately. You know... I wrote about a little bit in the comic, but inequality and automation... And it's very strange for me to be in this position where I'm working on technology that I do think is helping people, but it is that same technology, that same kind of automation that is displacing workers and I have to make sure that I do it ethically, that I am applying myself to an ethical outcome. And I think so far I've done an okay job, but I need to do more of it. That was really one of the biggest driving forces behind me wanting to end this comic: it's every week I have to take myself out of what I was doing and put together something funny and colourful and really quite involved for what it was. And now I'm really excited I'll be able to take a step back and apply myself towards these goals that I've had and I've been working towards. I know will be able to put more effort towards it and hopefully see even greater outcomes. That was basically the big conclusion of me sitting and thinking for several hours today of like "God, what I do, what do I do about ~this~". 

And yeah the conclusion being I need to keep doing what I'm doing-- you know I've made the decisions I've made for reason and I have been moving in a direction that I think is positive, but I need to do more. And so yeah even though I do think it's the right decision, Wasted Talent is obviously a huge piece my life it is a huge work and ending it is going to be hard. It's going to be hard on me and I have to, you know, acknowledge that it's gonna take me some time to process the ending of it. Even though it's ending on this super positive note, even though it's ending the way I want to end it, it's going to be hard! It's going to be hard for me... And yeah it's been really interesting and positive and wonderful hearing from so many of you and so many of my other readers about what Wasted Talent has meant for them.

I've gotten more than my fair share of people who've written me to say that I either directly or in part inspired them to investigate engineering as a career and some of them have pursued engineering as a career... And that's bewildering! The fact that people in the world wound up in this great career that I think is going to make the world a better place in part because of my work. That's an outcome that I never would've predicted it is not an outcome that I set myself to... But I think it's it's a really good outcome to aspire to. And I'm proud to be responsible for that. So yeah I'd like to do more in that vein, I'd like to do more drawing, and reaching out and connecting with people, and it's all gonna start! It's all gonna start next week.

This is getting a little bit heavy so I'm gonna stop this vlog before it gets anywhere else. I think I'll have more to say obviously as time ticks on and we get into weeks and months ahead. But I think it's it's all goin'... it's all goin' good :) hope you guys have a great weekend and I will see you on the Internet.