A week to wind down

Autumn is slowly closing its grip around Sydney. A jacket is required when the sun goes down and its to cold for shorts in general.

My last big contract ended last Friday, this week have been spent rounding of some job I have done on the side, sorting out some domestic necessities as well as trying to wind down. I have realized i have had all these "must do" things along side work acing in my head and time for as long as I can remember.
All of a sudden i got all this time to allocate. Off course I want to use if wisely, so what shall I pick?
start writing that book I wanted to do? Learn how to build iPhone applications? Clean and rebuild my flash code library? Picing up the electronics I started with before starting the last project? Build a generic game engine based on the old panda game? Make some new music? Learn after FX? Start the philosophy blog I have registered, so I can put all my theories into print and finaly store them? Travel? Start learning that 4th language I want to learn? Start dealing with what will happen after August when my Visa runs out?
All of a sudden there is not that much time at hand any more. None of above things can be done in an afternoon, most of them require at least weeks and some even months or eternity to full fill. Discussing the issue with one of my good friends back home, we quickly came to the conclution to scrap everything that doesn't lead to anything. Such as spending time playing video games, spending to many evenings out drinking, watching downloaded episodes of TV series, maintaining social networking web sites such as myspace, facebook, twitter, linkedin etc. Well that one was easy, as none of the things on my wish list are of this caliber. Well there are a few questionable things like making music. That is not likely to lead to anything. And travel, but traveling is different. It makes life richer and something I want to do while I'm here (well, some may consider playing video games having the same effect for instance, but sorry... not for me. Not any more anyway).

So if we twist and turn the problem a bit. What would be the maxim outcome of the time spent?
As we already started talking about video games, lets compare life to one. Referring to the previous post where life is divided into segments. Lets say the largest scale of segment is like a level in a video game. Each new level you enter you gain new skills and wisdom. Its a challenge to beat the obstacles in the beginning but after a while you get the hang of it and its not to bad with your brand new weaponry. Finally you have to find the door to the next level and secondary you have to find a way to get through it. As a real life example from my life, we could take Hyper Island, that was the door. As soon as I found out about the door, I just had to find the key. But it was a bit easier once I knew what I was looking for.
Any how, I feel like I have been stuck at this god damn level for ages now. Moving to Sydney wasn't qute the answer, even though it brought a lot of the comforts I had been longing for. Well, I knew that a location change wouldn't be sufficient to enter a new level on its own. In other words. Maximum outcome would be reaching a new level. Going freelance was one of the best things I have ever done, stepping backwards and becoming an employee again is hard to consider. But I'm honestly sick of being the "carpenter" I have become, assembling other peoples dreams.
I never liked programming it self. I was always more interested in the end result rather than the work getting there. I guess that's how I started learning it in the first place. Because there was stuff I wanted to do. Like in my teens, I didn't give a darn about programming, I just wanted to make games. To make games, programming was a necessity. A higher position in the website assembly line wouldn't solve the problem either I'm afraid. Just cant put my finger on what I'm after, but I would love to do something a lot more meaning full. Something more intelligent than make some company's product sell to the masses. On top of that I would love to have time on the side of work where I can spend time on things such as making music, draw doing cooking classes withouth having a bad conscious.
I could go on ranting till the end of time. After writing all this, I cant say I have found an answer. The door remains hidden but I have come to the conclusion that I wont take on work on the side anymore unless for a particular reason. Most things on my list above are more likely to buy me time and less likely to be the answer. Many of them require to much time to investigate to be a considerable option. What ever I do its a gamble, and I wish I find a path I haven't noticed before, maybe your eyes can help me find the door. I just don't have a clue where to start. And I don't feel I have any good options that I can investigate under a graspable amount of time.

There are stuff that makes me tick, even though I cant say why. But more of that in later posts. I feel this will go on forever otherwise.

One thing is for sure though, I want to go on holiday day. The sooner the better. I was very upset yesterday when I was making my New Zealand arrangements. The options where to many and none was what I wanted or not available at the moment or for the right price. I finally found a company who will help me put together my arrangement according to the stuff I'm interested in. I hope I will get a reply from them early next week so I can depart as soon as possible, Its a shame this holiday got delayed.