Oh well. I am tired and low on ideas, at least for today. But I the world is still alive, I am alive and the blog is still alive. It is 12 years since starting the blog, and I'd like to write the usual anniversary post. But my thoughts feel like a flog of wild animals - when try to catch one, they all run away, and if I manage to corner one, the rest scatter in all the different directions and the cornered one also slips through my legs darting into freedom. Freedom, yeah, it pretty much feels like these thoughts of mine love their freedom and fear of the paralysis of being captured in the fence built of words and sentences.

So instead of chasing the thoughts I just sit still, sip a non-alcoholic strawberry-based glögg with some Huun-Huur-Tu playing in the background. Vague ideas emerge and disperse before taking any coherent shape. I let them come and go. Until, slowly, I realize something new in this emptiness of mind. Let's see if that something lends itself to a verbal description;

I remember that during the more active years of writing the blog one of the recurring themes was this "looking at my life, feeling that there are more things I'd like to do, and not enough time and energy for everything, and as this seems to be a persistent state of things, then I should change something to gain a better balance. But exactly what to change, and how?". Well, as one might guess, there hardly are final answers to such questions. But, in a way, I feel that for the past year this question has presented itself in a new light; it has been more about me feeling Ancient Savo being the main project, and most of the time I enjoy working with it - and there has been a growing sense of unbalance, as some other hobbies or aspects of my life have been either minimized or postponed.

I remember a number of days when I started coding after the morning coffee, while the morning porridge was simmering on the stove. And getting fully immersed into the abstract introvert world of coding, forgetting to eat (and enjoying the possibility to be fully focused on my own projects, without that much distractions or interruptions coming from the outside). Then, after three or four hours telling myself to have the breakfast. I remember days of 12 or 14 hours of coding, vaguely thinking that "some physical exercise and stretching would be really good, but oh how do I enjoy when my brain works so better hammer the code while the brain is functional!". I remember looking at announcements of interesting events and music gigs, and then thinking that it would be too much of interruption to go there, so better just keep coding. And, of course, I also do remember all those precious moments I've spent with friends and / or enjoying live music - they have been the essential elements to maintain the minimal healthy life / coding balance. Now, I think that for the coming months I need to somewhat adjust that balance, as I've started to feel my brain running low on long-term stamina, so obviously I need to more regularly allow the brain more time to refresh and to reset.

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Now, as my attention has been on writing about that thought, one of those free-roaming vague and rogue ideas appears, asking to be written but on one condition; no lengthy analysis, not too much background stories, just this one anecdote; It was latter autumn, I was vising Sami's place, and we all went to visit the city of Kuopio. One of my birthday wishes was that if we need to visit the city, then I'd love to spend some time browsing the second-hand stores to shop some items I need. And at one point Sami and his significant other drove the car to another spot, while I felt like walking. And we agreed to meet at a small cozy second hand store which also has some nostalgic value for me. It certainly was no more summer, there was sense of coldness in the air, and it started to rain ice cold water. There I was, walking alone the streets of Kuopio. The pedestrian traffic lights were red, I waited. Not too much traffic around, hardly anyone else walking. The light turned green, and I felt a sudden minor surge of youthful joy and energy. So I took something in style of Monty Python's Ministry of Silly Walks, hopping and leaping to cross the street. A random passer-by made eye-contact and flashed a merry smile. Then, in the second hand shop I found some of the items I was looking for.

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Oh, so, sorry for the interruption. Some ADHD in my mind yes/no/can't say ? Well, but where was I? Yes, I was describing how that long-running sense of "trying to juggle one ball too much" has changed into just holding one ball, focusing fully on it, making good progress with it, and then telling myself that "ok, once I get this done then it will again be more time and hopefully also more resources for some other things!". Ancient Savo has been out since September. And things are still looking good enough - financially speaking it looks like the sales could be enough to regularly pay the monthly bills, if I also keep most of my current odd jobs. So, not a catastrophe, but also not yet that much extra resources - but certainly bringing in some long-term stability and peace of mind. And this is the state where I feel slightly tired and in need of proper rest. Today I didn't code, but I took a nap, and then heated up the sauna in the middle of the day and spent a few hours just allowing the löyly to soothe my mind, body and spirit. It would be great to have some extra money to pay other people to make assets like (3D) graphics and musics. But, if we aren't quite there yet, then so be it. I just need to take care of my own stamina, and keep coding forward.

This much for today. Or, in other words - it starts to feel that next to Ancient Savo I need to pick up a few other balls to juggle, just so that my brain would not run dry because of too monotonous long-term effort. And, I kind of a hope that one of those extra balls would be "write a little blog post more often". Now, this is how I feel at the moment, I'm not yet sure if this is a new years resolution =) But certainly, I will nurture this feeling to see what will grow of it.