A Moment to Take a Breath

This is going to be somewhat of a free form post, since I am lying down in my bed sick, with almost 38°C fever, a cough and pain in my limbs—and decided it's the moment to take a breath and reflect a bit.

I am probably repeating myself, but there's quite a few lessons that I've received from life in the last year or so. One of the most profound was another reminder to accept the flow of life as it is and navigate through its waves, trying to make the best use of it as much as I can. Life's a surf, so don't be afraid of the waves.

Searching for a job

My job-searching endeavor still hasn't been too fruitful, though I'd consider my getting-back-to-working operation somewhat successful—not finished though. It's interesting to observe how much I am affected by the outside circumstances—in this case the current state of the IT industry and the job market in general. That had been hard to swallow at first, but later I appreciated the necessary little jab. After all, a little humility newer hurt anyone, and it for sure will do me good.

There's plenty happening that gives me new challenges almost daily, from all the various aspects of life. The job search is just one, but then there's also the @rcr.app that I build for @krolestwo. There's a room for much more growth, the backlog with potential features keeps on growing. At the same time, @hallmann keeps on pumping new ideas for marketing and promotion, which make the whole undertaking even more exciting. It all requires a lot of leading and managing skills, too: briefing, just visiting Królestwo and trying to understand how it operates, creating specifications and prioritizing the tasks... And lastly, trying to balance my more systematic and cybernetic view on the project with @hallmann's more down-to-earth and particular focus. If that's not fascinating, I don't know what is!

Whentown's Flock

It's also getting dense when it comes to the Association that I have formed in December of last year. I just came up with this Whentown's Flock translation of its name, as it somewhat reflects the original Polish name of Gromada Łętownia.

After we've solved all the bureaucratic stuff, collected some modest funds and prepared the plan for this year, it's time to get things moving.

In March we want to have a first public event organized by us—an official premiere of two short documentary films about two professions that are very rare to see nowadays: a blacksmith and a carpenter. These two projects kept us occupied in the last few months, and after hours of planning, recording and video-editing we're almost there.

But, as it usually is, the final stretch brings a lot of challenges and additional work. It's like life would like to check how big is your motivation and dedication. The amount of many people's work that has gone into it is a strong driving force, though.

It's worth noting all the different tasks that I have to do while leading this association, and the various skills that are necessary to do it right. Some of them I might have, but many of the softer skills are more or less new to me, and I am grateful to be able to work on them: managing people and projects, sometimes spending a lot of time doing various phone calls, and having to come up with a general idea of what we actually want to do, and how we want to present ourselves.

An Insight

It wouldn't be the whole story without some internal insight, too. Despite all the fascinating projects we might have in our hands, in the end we are just people—delicate and emotional creatures. At least I am.

I read my sickness as a clear sign from my body, that taking a short moment to breath and reflect is necessary. It's interesting as this is a thought that I started to have two or three weeks ago already, that I entered this year with too much speed in my wheels and need to find a time to slow down, and think about some stuff. Last time I wrote about the unconscious autopilot and while it is a utterly powerful device, it's good to have some grasping over it. Maybe my body wants to tell me: this is the time?

All this is important, because in these two months of this year some things in my life stopped lining up the way I'd like them to. I think it begs my attention, as recently I became much more stressed than I used to be (which has always been my Achilles' heel), I also have had much less time to foster important relationships with close ones. All these things seemed to reach a climax with a recent discussion with my girlfriend, where we both agreed that we feel like we've lost the direction somewhere, each of us focusing on the stuff that we have in our lives, and making it feel like the relationship is something that happens by the way.

And the state of being sick is a thing of its own, too! It is borderline psychedelic at times, confronting me with the fundamentals of what it means to live—that I might have neglected my body because all of what has been happening.

I think it's too early for any conclusions, yet. But the upcoming few days, while being sick, will probably give me some room for reflections. If you've hoped for some already, I must disappoint you. But hey, maybe at least we can all see reflections of ourselves in each other's lives and feel some gratitude for existing and being able to express ourselves.

And, in the worst case scenario, at least this post hasn't been made by an AI model. Just a simple human being like you, lying in his bed somewhere in Poland.