The blissful zen of a good side project

Yesterday, like just about every other evening, my wife and I put our kid to bed, and sat down on the couch together. But for the first time in months, I picked up my laptop instead of my Switch.

I don’t remember the last time I took a new side project at all seriously, but a glance through my projects folder indicates it’s been at least a year since I spent more than a day or two on one. I found a few I didn’t even remember starting, it’s been so long. Some I hadn’t even taken far enough to demonstrate whatever basic idea must’ve been in my head at the time; abandoned before they were even working.

So it’s been a while. I haven’t exactly been feeling inspired since…

Well, since I don’t know when.

Maybe I’ve been depressed, or burned out. I don’t know. I haven’t been at my best; that’s all I really know for sure. It’s not that things have been bad, exactly, but they haven’t been easy, either.

Whatever the reason: I realize now I’ve let it push my consumption-to-creation ratio wildly out of balance.

I’ve spent pretty much every night in recent memory burning through video games, and I finally, inevitably, hit the wall with that approach. I wasn’t interested, or compelled. The fun things weren’t even fun anymore. The diminishing returns finally dwindled to the point I felt like I had to try something new.

Something I’d been resisting.

Something I was afraid of.

I’m not sure why.

Maybe I was scared to fail. Maybe I didn’t think I had a good enough idea. Maybe I didn’t think I was inspired enough yet.

Maybe I thought it would be too hard.

But finally, the pain of continuing with my existing approach outweighed the fears of change. So, for the first time in many months, I spun up a new project.

It was a SvelteKit project, incidentally, although that’s entirely beside the point. I considered just creating HTML/CSS/JavaScript files and building from scratch. I also considered learning something new.

I don’t think what I picked matters, though; I think it just matters that I picked something.

Soon enough, I was staring at a blank white page with minimal black text in my browser; the web equivalent of a blank canvas.

I began to write the variables I knew I’d need. I grabbed some things here and there from other projects. I added some minimal CSS classes just to get things roughly laid out. Functions and event handlers soon followed.

A loose demo began to take shape.

An hour or two went by, as I prototyped the idea. I tried some things; they didn’t work; I tried some others. I changed my approach, then changed it again, free to do whatever I saw fit, free to explore in any direction I liked.

This morning, I tried a few more things. And though I’m not sure the core idea really works, or is anything special, simply allowing myself to explore it felt like being able to finally take a deep breath after a long time underwater.

I felt something in that freedom. I felt a simple, understated joy that I hadn’t felt in a long time; a candle in a long-darkened room.

Maybe you can relate. Maybe there’s an idea that’s been in your head.

Maybe not; maybe you just haven’t created something in a long time. Maybe what you’re doing isn’t working for you. Maybe you just aren’t having fun anymore.

I don’t know your situation, and I’m certainly not qualified to give out helpful life advice.

But I know that when I’m not creating something, a part of me withers. And I think, in some way, we all have that compulsion inside of us.

I don’t think what we create is the important part. I don’t even think it needs to be something “creative” to begin with.

Don’t limit your view of creation to things considered creative—or, for that matter, to things you’ve done before. These days I make apps, but I used to make entirely different things, and got the same pleasure from those.

Some days, all I want to create is something tangible and functional. Last summer, my wife and I built new steps to our patio door, and even though that was well beyond both my range of experience and the typical definition of creativity, I found the work more engaging and compelling than anything else I had going on at the time.

Sometimes it’s artistic; sometimes it’s not; other times, what we create isn’t a tangible thing at all.

What you create might be words. It might be relationships, or time and space for others. Sometimes it’s the intangible places we create together. Sometimes we create experiences. Sometimes we create homes, communities, and families, of both the literal and figurative varieties.

Sometimes we just create change.

I think we exist to bring new things into existence. If you ask me, to the extent there is a meaning of life, that’s it. We exist to create. It lights us up in a way nothing else does, putting something new into our world—and in doing so, fundamentally changing it, in whatever way, however big or small.

What you create, and how you do it, is entirely up to you. That’s the beauty of it.

It’s having a carved-out space in your life where you, and only you, get to make the choices.

Nobody else. You might have to share everything outside this little room, but everything in here is yours and yours alone.

You don’t have to listen to any other voices here, except that quiet one inside of you that’s gently urging you to do the thing you know you need to do. You don’t owe it to anyone to choose anything—except yourself, and what you honestly feel.

You don’t need to know where it’s going to lead. For that matter, it doesn’t have to lead anywhere. Nothing ever has to come of it. It’s ok if this project never even exists, as far as anyone else is concerned. Failure isn’t failure; it’s part of the process. It’s done when you’re done with it.

The important part is that you explored that little corner of the map, and uncovered what was there. It’s ok if that was nothing. The exploration was the success. Now you know better where to explore next.

So whatever your side project is: I encourage you to pick it up, and let that part of you exist (again).

Happy wandering.