Approaching two years already and the real life stresses are really piling it on. Still working myself to death just to barely tread water financially, while I should be cutting back on that for health reasons and I just can't. That's why I've been hitting the pinball creations hard and fast for the last two years. In the wee hours when I'm at home, once my son is asleep, I squeeze an hour it two here and there into tables. But this condition is not going anywhere, and the cycle of eat sleep work doesn't help. The energy for activities outside those three things just isn't there.
It's been my zen space, my wind down, but now, lately, it's just another stress. And I don't need that. I can't do more stress than I already have. And I'm at a spot now where I don't even know how I'm going to travel for work since I just took out a loan for a used car that promptly blew up. And that's the least of the stresses right now. But they all colour my reactions and interactions, which I'm not necessarily proud of.
And my escape has become another stress, not an escape.
I won't be posting this elsewhere, but at this point I'm looking at stepping back for a while. This hobby used to be fun. But the community's more toxic corners can poison the fun fast. It's always been this way. The ROMz debates from back in the day, the anti originals sentiment that used to pervade some corners, and now there are newly divisive attitudes cropping up.
I'm proud that I've made a lot of fun tables. I've experimented with new tools which enable some interesting stuff. I've branched out from my own art into incorporating the use of fascinating new tools, which anybody could see without the need for vitriol. New tools which I would never use in a commercial product but I felt comfortable with in a freeware environment. Shouldn't users be happy to have free things? Apparently not.
My larger majority of tables out there were made without those tools, largely before those tools existed, but also while they have. but those still get labelled and attacked by some members of the wider VP community along with the ones that do. The Murray Leinster series features artworks from the 1950s, how it can be said to be made with those tools is beyond me. But apparently every table I ever made over the last twenty five years is, which is a blatant misstatement of the situation and one I don't have the strength to combat anymore.
I have several tables unreleased on my cabinet, but I have not decided if they will be polished for release. They are largely for my son anyway, and he has a hand in them, which makes me proud. I don't know if it is worth it to see the things he loves attacked.
I'm sick of the kicks. I'm already down, I don't need the boot in my gut. I'm not going away, but I'm not giving anymore to those parts of the community that don't value my input or my legacy. I'm done. Tables might trickle out, or they might not, or I might recover my drive sooner than later. But if I seem to have gone quiet, well, there it is.
I'm still stuck in the fight for my life here, and that's more important than a minority of blowhards who can't simply contribute to show a better example of what they expect from the hobby, like we all used to do. Imagine the reactions they'd have had to some stuff in the old days...
Play on, friends.
