My wife is quite fond of Frank Black's music. I've never been much into it.

My first game jam theme was PONG, so my wife suggested me to listen to Frank Black's song "Whatever Happened to Pong?". Quite surprisingly for me, it was a great source of inspiration.

What inspired me was not only the song itself, but the attitude. Yeah, I could really feel it.

The song isn't a masterpiece, but it isn't meant to be one. It's just something simple, short and furious that he wanted to create. There's not a greater purpose, no plan, no artifice: it's just a bit of his creativity coming to life, in the most genuine way.

So, after some months of troubles and with a black mood, I keep singing in my mind that munched "to the side, to the side, to the paddle, to the paddle". It remembers me of the moment when I've realized that I could be creative, regardless of anything.

In 1999 I was 19. Tyler Durden's words sounded cool, extreme and nihilistic.

After 20 years, I can say that they sound in a very different way.

At some point of my life I realized that my biological hardware wasn't improving anymore. I realized that instead of growing up, it was starting to age.

Things weren't going to be easier with time, as they used to. Time would have made everything more complicated.

It sounded gloomy, but it had an important implication: stop waiting for better times because probably the best time is now.

Nonetheless, it's hard to act according to this principle. Sometimes I just feel tired or overwhelmed. Sometimes life keeps throwing stuff at me and I can't digest it all. I'm a champion at finding excuses.

But I guess that falling apart is okay-ish, as long as I manage to pick up the pieces.

I've used to think that boredom is the feeling that I hate the most. I've always tried to avoid being bored. But there's an aspect of boredom that I didn't consider.

I've sat on a beach, with nothing to do. After a while, I've begun drawing in the sand.

I've done trivial and repetitive physical tasks. While my hands were busy, my mind started wandering and telling itself a story.

Boredom sparks creativity. If your mind is constantly focused, it has no time for anything else.

I'm what someone calls a Xennial. I've grown up in a small town, lost in the countryside, where there were far more trees than human beings. Then my life became more and more filled with people and technology. I've embraced it because it felt good. Still, that loner child with nothing to do but fuel his imagination is a part of me.

I struggle to find time to become that child again.

I am a curious person. I tend to extend my branches towards anything I find interesting.

I eventually reach a point where I don't have enough energy to sustain all those branches. That's the time to prune what it's not worth keeping. Sometimes the choice is obvious, sometimes it's not.

Pruning is an act of respect, respect for yourself. Focusing and directing your efforts means giving them value.

As you probably have read a thousands times: if you don't respect yourself, nobody else will. It's not always true, but some people have the tendency to try to squeeze out of you everything they can. Don't let them do that.

Cut branches that are draining your energy without giving fruits. Cut them with a firm hand.

...don't settle for lemonade. Make limoncello instead: it's good and it gets you drunk. Sometimes it's just what you need.

Jokes aside, it's a rough period. My job quickly became more full-time than part-time and sometimes it's quite demanding. I'm also stuck with the last areas of the game I'm working on: ideas sometimes just stop flowing and I keep doing and scrapping. This is making me quite nervous.

I've learned one thing though: getting mad doesn't solve lack of creativity. It usually makes it worse.

I don't know how it works for others, but I can't force creativity. I can gently invite it to come out and it will eventually show itself, sooner or later. But if I try to give it orders, it just gets offended and refuse any form of collaboration.

That's one of the reasons why I don't want to depend on game development as my main source of income.

I am a discontinuous person. I tend to start with great enthusiasm and get bored soon. For me, resuming something is an act of love.

Love is different every time. Its form changes, it depends on the lover and the loved. Despite this, my approximate way of measuring its intensity is based on commitment and dedication. It's just not in my nature to keep something or someone in my life when it stops being all fun and games, when I choose spontaneously to act in a different way it means that love is strong.

It's probably the fifth time I stop developing my current project for various reason and I keep resuming it. This time it's big.

I've asked myself this question many times. I know, it's a silly question, but I can't avoid feeling a bit uncomfortable if I'm at least 10 years older than anyone around me.

At least, I think I know why I'm so late to the party. Do you remember that well-known pyramid of needs?

That theory might be too simplistic and have many limitations, I'm not saying that works for everyone. But for me? It works like a charm. I needed to have a good job, the support of my beloved wife and enough self-confidence before feeling the need to embark on this attempt to realize one of my dreams.

I'm thankful to anyone that, one way or another, made it happen. Even if I won't be able to reach my goals, I feel the journey is worth living.

It is a matter of sheer logic, something rational that can not be denied: there is no success without an attempt. Not all attempt are successful. As a result, failure is a part of the road to success.

Logic. Undeniable. Inevitable.

It should be clear enough that we have to accept failure and try to learn from it. Make the best from the worst, understand what was wrong and prepare for the next attempt. From failure we can learn, learning will make us better at what we do and eventually it will lead to better outcomes.

But we are emotive beings and our reactions are not always rational.

A troublemaker is able to disagree, to say "no", to fight if necessary. Being a troublemaker means having the courage to express yourself.

The courage to be creative.

In a sense, games are problems to solve. Usually it's a matter of reaching a goal, using a toolkit, following a set of rules. Given my current skill set and inclinations, making video games is a good way to train my inner troublemaker.

I've always been a problem solver, as most human beings are.

Evolution has led us down this path, then we have turned our backs on evolution. Passing down knowledge to posterity is cheating. Since we wrote the first word, we no longer needed natural selection to grow as a species. This is one of the things that distinguishes humans from other animals.

For a long part of my life I've been seeking knowledge, because knowledge leads to solutions. Finally, I've studied how to teach machines to solve problems in a blink of an eye.

Then I have realized that being human is not just this.

In real life we have to face unknown variables, unclear processes, wild guesses. Above all when dealing with other humans, the tools of logic fail.

Sometimes things can be patched up, but almost always scars are inevitable. Sometimes is better to leave things broken and carry on. Sometimes the best choice is to break things.

I've realized I need to develop a part of me that I've used to keep silent: I need to be more of a troublemaker.