This is why the realms of art and creativity are great substrates in which to plant the seeds of your dreams in-

IF your dreams are to make/create things nothing can stop you these days except yourself with all the tools and knowledge available now- you can't control the outcome after you've made the thing- but the happiness and joy comes from the excitement of the happy accidents on the journey and the pride of completion of course-

I'm an artist/filmmaker/animator/dev/musician and the best moments of my life are still from creating things that almost no one sees- they get no acclaim- they win no awards- almost no one cares- but that doesn't matter as the joy comes from the creation- I'm happy with the works I create-

If your dream is to write a book, write a song, make a film, make a game, create a piece of software/useful tool, make a painting etc- the skill and budget required for these things is lower than ever-

That is not to say it has been cheapened- especially with "AI" tools-

Idea is always king- always use your original ideas- never "AI" suggestions and the things you make are yours, forever.

Absolutely ZERO of my dreams will be unlived, except the project I won't finish because I will die while it is progress- so I'll die happy anyway doing the work I love (shrug)

TLDR: make realistic dreams that depend on your willpower and creativity not your physical attributes and you will live all your dreams except one.

Being old enough to enjoy reading technical books/articles is a + and knowing the acronym RTFM

I learned about collection types other than array/list from reading this article by the creator of the game Project Zomboid- as he used Stacks for zombie behaviors https://ia600303.us.archive.org/18/items/pdfy-G4Wm9sq1LU298r...

Then I got this book which is a great overview of C# for use in Unity https://csharpplayersguide.com/

Remembering which ones are FIFO and LIFO helps you remember what is what for etc

But yeah- had to read an article and a book- I hated most of the Unity youtube tutorials- enough info/help to get you going but they leave you stranded in the woods without a path out because you were blinding following someone else when you walked in.

Better to read/learn and understand the small bits yourself slowly as they are the breadcrumbs that lead you out.

If prediction markets come to act as proof of life oracles- which they already have in a few cases- things get very dark very fast for everyone I reckon.

I feel compensated on a spiritual level for my work- I do other things for money and my art can stay "pure" in a sense-

It's said that if you "sell your soul" you are unable to ever "buy it back"- so why sell it in the first place? Just so you can try to get "rich" and attempt to buy it back later because you are soulless and miserable? Doesn't make sense to me.

Maybe art is something higher? A higher cause? I was really inspired by the Rudolf Steiner book "The arts and their mission" early in my career- worth looking into if you are in the arts.

Grifters will always grift- curation is what is important to sort through and ignore the slop- maybe there will be some systems with special fingerprinting algo's to "find" original human made non slop?

I just made an original animated feature film where I sang %75 of the roles by using an AI tool(audimee.com) to convert my voice into others- I couldn't do that before- we're now creating Portuguese and Russian language versions of the songs with a tool that has a $20 usd/month subscription! Couldn't do that before!

For creatives/artists- As long as we don't use AI to generate ideas we're good, human generated ideas are a must- bring on all the AI tools!

The whole built on theft thing- as a human film director I could rattle off endless examples just in cinema of human directors "stealing" premises, sequences, shots, styles etc from other filmmakers with no consequences- so why stop the AI now?

I see the "theft" as being democratized now- large studios/entities with large resources have always been able to legally "steal" so with these AI tools I guess we all can now?

I make original animated films, games, music, art etc etc and I feel no "threat" at all from AI-

I feel the opposite as I'm excited to see what things they will allow me to do next as a micro-studio with limited budgets but unlimited creativity.

Aesthetics are dead now imo because of generative AI as anyone can be any "style" so now it is all about ideas- original human ideas.

I've always been the hype person for everyone I know and have subsequently been allowed to have an amazing, thriving creative career while I've seen countless jealous, desperate, scarcity minded people fall by the wayside over the years.

Just released an original animated feature film musical where I did most everything myself with help from a few friends I hype https://www.imlivingmylife.com/