What I Don't Know

2022

Continuing my personal recap series from last year (two's a pattern), I am reflecting on what I learned this year, what I would like to learn next year, as well as my yearly theme¹ from last year and my What I don't Know² 2021 post.

Constructing the Foundation

Constructing the Foundation was the name of my theme in 2022. A markdown file summarizing it can be found on my codeberg¹. In short, I wanted to focus on building positive aspects of myself rather than criticizing parts of myself I don't like. I would overall call this year a success with my theme, but I don't have another complete theme year to compare it to.

That in general was an important goal for me, I was able to maintain my journaling, theme, and general mental health for the whole year. I haven't made progress in all the areas I wanted, but I haven't gone backwards anywhere, and I want to congratulate myself for that.

  • Focus more on the parts of myself I like, and how to expand them, over the parts I don't and how to cut them out
  • Build good habits rather than trying to break bad ones
  • Set realistic goals and be ok with failing
  • Building the parts of myself I want to maintain going forward

These were the goals I set up for myself over the year. I would say I succeeded in a lot of aspects, but have a lot I want to improve on in 2023. It was a hectic year for me, I dropped out of college, got and lost several jobs, struggled with a lot of mental illness, and I am leaving the year in similar health and worse finances than the start. However, I have learned a lot about myself, made some cool experiments, developed my skills, and found new priorities.

I have improved my self-image a lot, and refined an aesthetic that I think fits my vibe, compliments my body, and wardrobe. I have figured out my mental health in a lot of new ways, and even though I have not been able to find a long-term working relationship with a therapist, I am still on the hunt and proud of the individual progress that I have made.

What I Learned

Raylib

The technical thing I spent the most time on this year outside of classes was probably learning raylib. I tinkered around with it quite a bit in both lua and C, and want to learn even more beyond the basic rendering of shapes. Getting into generative art is something I've envied for years, and I think it is something I am going to prioritize in 2023.

Godot

Godot remains my favorite way to make games, and I'm loving it more and more over time. In 2023, I'm going to solidify a lot of the non 'coding-based' projects I work on to be in godot. I learned a lot about the built-in systems and also experimented with some of the Godot 4 betas (struggling to make that work on linux w/ wayland, but such is life).

Writing

I started writing a little bit of fiction with my architecture game, and it has been a fun little experiment. I am proud of what I've done and excited to keep working on it.

I also wrote 8 posts on my blog, 9 if you count this one. I've been really enjoying writing blog posts and have a lot of ideas for future ones, so I hope to do at least 12 this upcoming year.

Reading

I started reading more articles, books, and papers this year. I've found that I always want to have notes on something, but actually taking notes on them at the moment makes it harder to read the actual thing, so reading it always comes first.

What I Don't Know

Architecture

I want to really deepen my knowledge of architecture over the next year. Both as research for my potential future project, and just out of a genuine interest. I really want to focus on regenerative and revolutionary architecture from various eras, but also want to reinforce my understanding of traditional architecture beyond what I learned in art history like 4 years ago.

Genart

I really want to learn more complex and interactive generative art. Raylib seems like the easiest tool to work with in my experience, and so it is going to be something I think about a lot in 2023. I want to mess around with it mostly in C, but if I keep learning Lua or forth I might see what me options are from there. I am also looking really closely at uxn, and maybe making learning the ins and outs of its system the focus for my 2023 technical journey, who knows.

Programming

I am not as advanced of a programmer as I would like to be, and struggle with making and completing projects as obstacles come up. With that in mind, I want to make and complete several technical projects this year, even if they are just tiny shell scripts or little problem-solvers. It feels good to learn new technical things and to develop them over time, and I want to keep doing it.

Music Production

I used to make ambient music under the name cvlt_th1nk, and when I switched to Linux I stopped making music as The DAW I learned doesn't work on Linux (it was a copy of propellerhead reason my cousin had). I want to start making music again, and have had ideas for tunes all the way from hyperpop stuff to field recording ambient music. I have been looking a lot at bitwig as a potential tool as it looks a lot like Ableton which had always seemed like a sensible interface to me, but I'm not sure what I'll use. All I know is I want to make some cool music this year.


And that's it. It's been a rocky year, but I'm thankful for everyone I have in my life and around me for making 2022 so much better. I hope to have all sorts of podcasts, blog posts, games, and music coming at you so make sure to check my mastodon³ for updates! I hope you have a good 2023, and I'll see you need year with another "what I don't know"


1. 2022 Theme

2. What I don't know 2021

3. @protodrew@merveilles.town