5.5 months in

I've got a video I edited this morning playing in the background while I work. I know it's funny to say this about my own video, but I'm focusing pretty well and the sound isn't bad either. I actually put it on to check the audio — see if it sounds okay, if there's any noise mixed in. I don't get many chances to play a video all the way through, so today is the day for that. I'll listen to the whole thing, then render and upload.

The video I'm filming today, I'm not going to add subtitles. It's the weekend so I'm feeling a bit lazy, and videos without subtitles seem to get better reactions, so I want to check that too. But I don't really know if the reactions are actually better. Views and watch time on YouTube feel like they go up at random. The video that went up today got over 4,000 impressions, which is a number I've never had before, and I genuinely have no idea why.

The filming setup at the new place is still a work in progress. The video I shot without blinds had way too much light, so I scrapped it. The one I shot with only half the blinds up got too bright when it hit late afternoon. Today I finally put up two blinds (there's room for one more), but I'll have to wait until the afternoon to see how it goes. On that note, I think it would help to put a screen bar on the monitor. A desk lamp might be the more typical choice, but my desk is small and there's no room for one. The one I want is the BenQ screen bar. It's nearly 200 dollars though. It should fit on top of a 27-inch iMac, right? If I do end up buying it, that's the first thing I need to check.

And then, the keyboard. Oh keyboard, my keyboard. Do I have any complaints about my current keyboard? No. Do I want a new keyboard? Yes. For something with an interesting sound and a reasonable price, I've got my eye on the Aula F87 Pro. And on the pricier end, the Dygma Defy.

My younger brother keeps asking what I want for my birthday. (Probably because I got him a Switch 2 for his last birthday.) I'm wondering whether to actually answer with one of these. The Dygma Defy is too expensive, so maybe the BenQ screen bar? But as the older sibling, even that feels like too much to ask him for. I could just get a nice cake out of him and call it a day.

I think the Aula would actually be more helpful for the videos, but I told myself I'd only spend on video upgrades once YouTube starts making money. It isn't yet. Buying the keyboard now would mean breaking that promise to myself. Of course, keeping that promise means I won't be able to put any money into the videos for at least the next two or three years. But I don't know if this is the right call either. Telling apart a spend with nothing coming back from an investment that works as leverage is always hard in the moment. If only I could see the future! Anyway, with my current keyboard, when I'm typing fast, the sounds between keys kind of blur together. They say swapping the keycaps helps, but the keycaps I want and the Aula keyboard cost about the same.

There are a lot of things I need but haven't been buying because not having them isn't a disaster. A desk drawer, for one. And a clothes rack. Both are around 100 to 150 dollars, but my hand doesn't quite reach for the buy button. And like with the keyboard, what stops me from spending is the thought that having these things isn't going to change anything dramatically. Switching keyboards isn't suddenly going to push my YouTube watch time to dozens of hours a day. But this comes down to probability too. The chance that a keyboard makes a meaningful difference isn't zero. The chance that I buy a new drawer or rack and end up really satisfied, really happy, isn't zero either. But what about the expected value. I guess the way to read this is that I get more utility from keeping money in my account than from whatever utility these things would give me. And I seem to like not betting on long shots. But why would someone who doesn't bet on long shots quit their job to start something unfamiliar.

I stopped here, had lunch, and now I'm finishing the rest. I still like writing. But I can't focus the way I used to. If I used to have both feet inside a certain circle, now it feels like I've stepped into a circle I drew right next to it and I'm looking at the old one from there. Could that have been a kind of leap, in some sense? Maybe that circle was my comfort zone. Maybe I've stepped outside of it for the first time and I'm struggling. Is this daily struggle just growing pains. I remember whining about my knees hurting. Growing pains went away once I stopped growing, so will this process end someday too. I keep thinking I don't really know how to do anything properly. Like everything in my head is worthless. Which is why I can't make any choice with confidence. But then again, mid-May is when it'll be six months (and YouTube doesn't even hit that until early June), and weighing in on the value or results of something I haven't even done for half a year is a stupid thing to do. Maybe it all comes down to impatience. The impatience comes from a lot of places, and all of it goes inward, and the names always thumping at my temples are Rilke and Nabokov.

I'm working through the weekend trying to finish the Sumof update early. If I can wrap up the coding today, I'll do testing tomorrow. I want to read a bit, and there are other things I want to work on, but the problem is I keep wondering what the point of any of it is. I keep feeling small to myself. It would be easy to chalk it up to money, but I know that's not really it.