… since the last blog post. Everything changed, like literally – my life, my career, my face and many aspects of my personality. It is just insane to look back and just realize how much of a different person I am. I am still unable to recognize myself in the mirror, which is a bit creepy, but I got used to it.
Some things stayed the same tho – I am still a photographer, I am still in the games industry, but as a programmer now which is pretty surprising, especially for myself.
To break it down, I shot since the last visit to GDC, almost 4 years ago, approximately 23 events, almost all of them game industry related. I met hundreds of people, made a lot of friends on the way as well. I lived in 4 different cities, went through a divorce and a breakup, managed to change 2 cars, worked in 5 different offices, became a Swedish citizen, learn how to program and released a game on Steam, I had 2 mental breakdowns and I recovered from both, traveled over 40.000 km in approx. 10 countries, got a really cool tattoo, learn a bit how to metal growl, started using the Swedish snus, acquired 3 different cameras and a lot of the Nikon line of professional lenses and changed my haircut. I also became a vegetarian, then switched back to eating meat, and now I am trying to go vegan. I lost two lawsuits with a Romanian bank and a lot of money in the process, but in the end I managed to get rid of a 30 years loan that almost completely ruined my life and destroyed my sanity. None of my cats live with me anymore, and I really miss them. I still don’t speak Swedish, but my French got better…
For a while now I was considering a lot to become a lazy traveler, meaning living for longer periods of time in different countries, but I realized that I still really, really like living in Sweden from where I can still travel from time to time anyway. It is not perfect, there are good parts and bad parts, but it really fits my 50% introvert, 50% extrovert way of life. Travelling is nice, but there is not place on earth more cozy than Sweden and I became a fluffy cozy kind of person. I like to be home a bit too much lately, to have a routine, to exploit my body in the gym both for conditioning as well as for aesthetics, to have good coffee and eat cinnamon buns. I like the explosive beauty of the Swedish summers and the comfort and relaxation of the Swedish winters. I like to swim in cold water and I really enjoy metal music. And most important, I really don’t care about food.
Am I happy?! I really don’t know in all honesty. I am not really striving to be happy these days. All I want is to achieve enough wisdom, emotional intelligence and maturity to become a bit more tranquil, balanced, relaxed and humble towards my own life. I want to be able get rid of my ego, to give more to others while maintaining my dignity and integrity. And ultimately, to at least try to make the world a better place to live for me and for others.
Except for these things, I have no life long dreams, no expectations, no set in stone goals. I follow no gods, no masters, I have no strong beliefs, just a strong will to live and to give some meaning to my singular existence. …and make it fun also.
That being said, see you around ;).