Time for another update...

Last week I got physically sick, and the best anybody could tell me was that stress caused it. I live a sheltered life. I don't fear losing my job (thanks sanlamindie.co.za for that). I don't have crushing debt or sick parents. I have enough food to eat.

Yet, I am super stressed. I wonder what will happen when the country I live in forces the poorest and most vulnerable people back into overcrowded taxies and overcrowded trains.

Many black and brown people, with poor access to healthcare and sanitation – whose employers have to be encouraged to give them paid time off, because it's not an enforced requirement – will get sick and die.

This same systemic oppression is clearly seen and felt across the sea, with the biggest protests the world has ever seen are being met with open, unambiguous violence and hatred.

If you're the kind of person who just started thinking; "but the looting and..." then keep your mouth shut. I will not waste time babysitting your inner child. Black bodies are being killed. Black bodies are being looted. This has been going on for a very long time. Shut what I can only imagine to be your comfortable white mouth. Call me a racist for making you uncomfortable, and let's never speak again.

I am seriously stressed by fear of the unknown, and the known horror.

So, I got sick and it made me need to consider how I will cope after the anti-psychotic pills run out. How can I function when the world is on fire?

I am going to make two lists. These lists represent what I have time to work on – what I want to work on – and what I don't have time to work on.

If the thing you feel passionate about falls in the latter list, then...sorry. I don't want to disappoint you, but I have other people that depend on me and I don't want to disappoint them either.

Things I have time for:

• Being a good husband, father, manager, employee, and friend to the people closest to me. This means trying to be healthy and making sure I show up in these roles.
• Learning about how to be anti-racist. This is a lot of reading and thinking and talking with people who have a genuine interest in the life and dignity that (yes, all, but mostly in this moment) Black people deserve.
• Working on Gitstore. There are things about it that make me mad. I want it to work. This work lies somewhere in between those two things.
• Streaming my work. I have invested time and money into the idea of streaming, and when I work on things I enjoy then it is a wonderful experience. It is the outlet that regular blogging and writing were dominating; but I can try to do more of those things.
• Writing my books. I am waiting for the Masonite book prints. I am starting a second revision of the PHP MVC book. I hope to redo the async book, and write more about game dev and React Native too. One at a time...
• Blogging. I could shift much (and repeat the essential bits) of my coding and game dev efforts to the blog. I think I just need clearly defined writing time.
• Remote speaking. If you have a meet-up group, and you want to hear a topic I have spent time with, recently, I'm keen.
• Preprocess and Plus. This old horse still has life in her.

Things I don't have time for:

• Freelance work. Following this post, I will confirm with the two people who are currently asking for this that I have no capacity. Message me (probably on Twitter) if you are interested in React Native and/or Laravel freelance work.
• Going to international conferences. I love these but they take a lot of work, and currently they're impossible. I am still open to going to a conference if I can present workshops around the conference (for a bit of coin and to make the travel time worth it).
• Getting involved in more open source projects. Anything I can't crank out in an evening is off limits.
• Making video tutorial series. I will still try for the odd one-shot; but nothing Wathanian or Pociotian. That's more than I can handle.
• Many things I have yet to remember saying yes to. Saying yes to everything is a weakness that springs from the need to please people or at the very least not disappoint them.

If your thing was in the first list, that doesn't mean it's going to get a huge amount of time. The only way I could add that many things to the list was to realise that some things will only get an hour a week. I still need to work out the finer details.

If you've read this far, it's because you care about what's going on with me; or you once came to this blog to learn something. Thank you. This is a turning-point, for me. I can feel it.