Monday, 10th of December 2023, London, my desk.
I woke up normally, with fear of the day. It was hard, I was having a rough time and was not aware. But I just came back from holidays, right? I have to work.
A week before the accident, I had too many projects at hand, and Omash was taking care of the other half of them. Omash, he saved me.
As blunt as the flying ghosts can be, but with the tuning of working together for years.
"Look, I understand. Just, I can see your burnout, but sometimes man, I do want to click your ass and say okay, breaaaaathe"
29th of December, 2024. Before the holiday break, and the reason why I took it.
Good friends life puts you.
back to the day
My hands were trembling since I woke up, but I thought it was normal already. How many years have they been trembling? I am an artist, for goodness' sake.
Few understand today the fear of waking up for work, the anxiety of one more day. To live that one day.
We take it as normal, stress, society, life, decisions. We don't understand that we are animals, and our bodies can not exist in this fight-or-flight state forever. At least I thought I could until I couldn't.
That day I managed to do the whole routine, woke up at 8, cleaned the kitchen to make myself a coffee and had breakfast, that's my win, I need to start the day with a win, if not I lose it.
I sat on the computer at 9 am, a normal day.
I am both on my PC, and sitting on my chair, which is just perfect, a lovely white chair, one of those chairs that have way too many handles, those that if someone touches it, you know.
Post-its, too many post-its to count, that's when I know I am under stress, I need post-its to keep track of the number of tasks, I have way too many.
My two screens are full of them, they look like a madman Christmas Tree, the Post-its are on my desk, even with notes, numbers, lists, and tasks.
It's already busy before starting, Windows loads, but on my old computer, the one I bought last year broke, I haven't had the time to fix the new one, I am still working with my same old 7-year-old computer, that same one that brought me here. It has been with me forever now, on 2 continents, 3 countries, 4 times, it's my companion, the same one that has been disconnected since the day of the accident, the same one that I am still scared of turning on.
Fear, the same burn behind the eyes that you know is announcing the torrential flow of tears. Pain, we fought wars together. It's like seeing a companion die over and over in front of you. PTSD. I hope when the book is done, I can give you life again.
The meeting is at 9:30 am, why? Because some people are just maniacs, why on hell would you put a meeting before 10 am? I am slow to wake up, they know it, and I don't function on those. But I should have known, I was not functioning already.
Sorry, my brain is blurry.
Blurry, that's how I described it, foggy. It's hard to focus, but we have to pull it off; my character is an important one for me; I have been working endlessly, and this one has emotional value. I need a win, like my kitchen routine.
This character was started by one of my proteges. We trained her, but the industry is in shambles due to AI. The Union's strike was one more bullet to a dead man; my friend went away, unclear how. RIP my friend, I hope you are with a ton of possums now.
We had to let her go, this project is using the character that she started under my wing, it has a big emotional value for me, and I am killing it, it's looking amazing, but internally it's a mess. That's one of the 8, 8 projects, I am a mess.
I built these tools, I wrote the code, and I designed this system. I learned to code years ago, but have been using it more and more. I have my daily feedback to go on and have been delaying it for a week already due to the holidays.
But I just have today to make it work, tomorrow to solve it, and then another project is pushing because we have to show things to a client. busy.
I load the VPN, and I connect to my workstation, Linux, because Windows is too slow for this. I see the terminal, `/jobs/CODENAME`, we always work in code names, this is a secret project, and it has a celebrity on it.
`Houdini`
I launch the software that we use for my work. I am a character artist, specialising in doing fur hair and feathers. yeah 3D.
Normally, you have to wait a bit, but this took time, not sure how much, my brain is already losing track of reality, and the sense of time has been gone for months. I don't know what day is each day, or what time. My daily routine exists in this office, wake up, eat, sleep, office.
"Every day is Monday" 100 years of solitude.
Oh Gabriel, you knew, you knew this pain, if not, you would have never written about it, tight the madman to the tree, because he is more sane than we.
Our system is amazing, loading its beautiful, well-designed, easy to use, I find my character the last iteration, but I know its a mess, the last time I tried to fix it I ended up at 4 am, trying to solve the string mess of nodes and connections that I had made, it was holding up with chewing gum. I knew it.
I managed to make a list of everything that needed to be done to be fixed. 8 points.
The first one was to clean it and remove the trash. Just leave the things that are being used.
Nothing major, delete everything that is not connected and organize it.
We can do this right?
I looked at the screen, I am sitting on my comfy chair, the standing desk has been on the sitting setting for a whole year, the blanket over my legs, the same blanket that I have on while I was writing this, it gives me comfort.
I take the mouse and zoom into the nodes, those boxes connected by strings that make the hair grow on the surface of a 3D model. The model is beautiful, it has a lovely history, the model has won several awards, it's a work of art. Its volumes, the muscles, the surface, the fat and the veins. Part of the job I have done is to make the fur follow all these beautiful lines, and also to make it as amazing as I could.
Right, the nodes, I need to clean them.
The mouse, I take the mouse. I move the mouse, and see the cursor starting to move,
....
Right, the nose, I need to clean it.
The mouse, I take the mouse, I move the mouse, and see the cursor starting to move,
....
Right, the mouse I take the cursor, and it's starting to move.
....
Right, the screen, I take the mouse and move.
....
Right…..
...
…
…
.
Focus
I know this, I just need to clean them
The nodes
take the mouse
I take the mouse
Breathe, you can do this
The screen, the nodes.
...
Time
...
but I don't feel time, how much time has passed. What was I doing?
right, the screen.
...
the screen…..
…..
Gone
Back
Gone
Back
Gone
Back
Like the moment of the jump, I was happy then too, I knew I had to jump to the black river in between the two mountains and that I would be safe because I had safety measures and the string would bounce back, that was the whole idea of bungee jumping, right?
Gone
Back
Gone
But this time I had no string, this time I had no mountain, I had no bounce of adrenaline and safety net. This time my mind jumped.
It jumped into the river, without a string, I had no connections like the nodes I was trying to clean. My mind jumped.
Connections, time.
I had no time.
The river is black, the river of the mind, that soulless lake of conciseness that drives the body. What am I? What are we, if not flesh driven by the impulses of our minds?
Driven, like the string, like a boat on the flow of time.
What do you do if you don't have a string and don't feel the time?
Silence, like a blip in the story of the self.
Gone
Back
gone
Back
2 pm.
I asked for help, I need help.
Monse is with me, she is looking at me with concern, she is seeing it, my drive, I want to do it, how can you describe the face of a man that is unable to?
Fear, angst, disgust.
Why? MOVEEEEEE
FUCKING MOVEEEE
Pure terror, the tears, oh the tears, but how if your mind does not cry, it jumped, how do you feel!?!
MOVEEEEE FOR GOD SAKE MOOVE
Her eyes were calm. that helped.
I kept it together.
Stop. You need to stop.
Joaco " You think too much"
I called for help, I am a trained mental health first aider, something that I fully recommend to everyone. That still works, my brain functions.
Something broke, but not me.
I spoke with the Mental Health Service, a private service we have a work, 24 hours, and private.
I requested not to record my call.
He replied with a calm, soothing voice, and the recording stopped.
30 minutes, I have time sense.
I got a letter to engage from them. He agreed that I need help. I send the letter to work.
10th of December 2023
The day of the accident.
My last message on Slack was:
"Sorry for the mess. If I were still in control, I would honestly say it"
Time was gone.