Overwhelmed
-----------

Right. Well. My last post did not age well at all.

I was _not_ "back in action", and in fact the gap between that post
and this post was longer than the previous gap I was apologizing for.

Sigh...

Where have I been?

Well, nowhere really.  Definitely in the literal sense.  Like most
people I've been +/- housebound since March 2020.  I have been quite
busy with work (I'm lucky enough to have a job that is compatible with
lock-downs), but really not much more than usual, at least on average.
I've worked on a few other hobby projects - my actor model machine, my
redcode simulator, an elisp IRC client (yeah I know there are a tonne
already, but I had my reasons), and a few other odds and ends.  Why
couldn't I find the time to phlog or at least answer some lambdalab
email?

Looking back, the real reason behind this twice-extended hiatus has
been the (perceived, almost certainly illusory) pressure I've felt to
keep on top of things with Elpher.  When I was just hacking on it for
my own sake it was heaps of fun.  It was also heaps of fun to see a
few people start to use it and the download counts creep up on MELPA.
But somewhere along the line the pressure to keep up with pull
requests" (to the extent that my crummy system allows) and respond to
feedback started to feel like, well... work.

Which is fine, I don't mind work, but it's not always what I feel like
doing after putting the kids to bed.

And so, I kept putting it off.  And the longer I put it off, the
harder it became to pick it up again due to my fear that my inbox
would be full of email from people (rightfully) annoyed at absence...

...Which leads me to today, where I have literally thousands of
unread messages in my lambdalab inbox (most of them from mailing
lists, but doubtless many from real people), heaps of unread feedback
comments on my gopherhole, and lots of unreviewed commits to elpher
and other projects. (Honestly, thank you - and sorry!)

What to do?  I derive a tremendous amount of pleasure from interacting
with the indie-net, and I've really missed this over the past year.
I also feel terrible for the people whose emails/patches have gone
unanswered for so long... but I'm trying hard not to think too hard
about this, as the fear of discovering just how pissed off I've made
people is what's been keeping me away.

Thus, I have the following plan for getting things back on track:

1. Start phlogging again. Slowly, and in drips and drabs.  No pressure.
   (Last part is important!!)

2. Slowly start peaking at "scary" parts of my gopherhole/gemini capsule.
   These are the guest books. :-) Breathe.  Say to myself, "I am an adult."

3. Look for easy project patches to merge and thank the authors.

4. Look at the bigger patches (that are probably forks by now), thank
   the authors, think about the patches and whether I can integrate
   them.  Part of making peace with all of this might involve simply
   accepting that not everything can be integrated into my master
   branch, since I can only maintain what I can maintain.  More
   complex things may have to continue to exist only in forks
   maintained by others.

5. Find a way to be happy with my email again.
   This may involve having to do a purge.  If so, I'm sorry in advance to
   anyone who's put time into writing to me during the last year!
   
Has anybody else experienced this kind of grid-lock?  (No doubt you
have, you were just "grown up" enough not to let it overwhelm you!)
Hopefully I'll be able to learn from this and become less ridiculously
fragile.

Here's to future stress-free interneting!