Yeah, after a while of feeling like I have not made a lot of progress here. Today, it feels like I have done a lot, and I am slowly working towards building a functional site, true to my vision. Don't get me wrong, there is still a lot of work ahead of me. Far more work still ahead than I achieved. But still, today makes me very hopeful about this project. I'm learning more about HTML and CSS everyday.
Basically, most of my progress today has been around the sitemap, but I have got that into a barebones state. I have a mental image of my site, and in that mental image, the sitemap is the centrepiece. And the way it exists right now is in fact its most rudimentary state. As I plan to make some kind of procedurally generated galaxy/starsystem within it. I have some basic ideas as to how this will function. Basically, conceptualising some kind of cartesian grid (with the controls at the origin) and then providing some kind of mathematical transformation that generates a series of specific coordinates. And then once these coordinates have been generated, a style sheet will place stars there, and each will be its own unique webpage. I don't know if this possible under Javascript, let alone Neocities or the like. But if I have to move my website off site in order to accomplish this, then so be it. But there could be many other potential things to stymie this idea, but that is it in its most basic conceptualisation.
Also, the generated star system might serve another purpose in my mind. But it will also relate to my as of yet unstarted homage to The Flying Luna Clipper. The exact way in which it relates hasn't been actualised. However, I think some light can be shed on that if I provide the context as to how I envision that homage to be. Basically, The Flying Luna Clipper is a surrealist dream-like adventure across the Pacific starring a group of anthropomorphic fruit. Through the Luna Clipper's inaugaural flight, the passengers come to experience a series of mystic dreams, and each of these dreams are related to geographic locations throughout the Pacific. And basically, I wish to do the same somehow with my project. The main crux of the Cyber Luna Clipper would be a script/neural network that can analyse written input, and from that input Live Action Media would be played, much like in TFLC. Perhaps this would necessitate some large categorisation/databasing of all the media that could possibly be output to the user through this. But, after the user's cyber voyage is over. They can track their journey through my generated star system, and each media item will be uniquely pegged to an individual star within that system. That is the basic idea anyway. And it feels like the chances of that being possible (let alone probable for me) to achieve are far lower than my first idea. However, if it were done, then it could be the coolest thing I have ever done. It gives me chills just thinking about it. But alas, I mustn't get too carried away with my ambition, I must stay grounded and get the basics done first. Those problems are ones for the far future.
Now with the basic site in place for now, I am going to work on site responsivity and making sure everything works well cross-platform. And then, I am going to add some sidebars to the homepage and fill them with content, and also work on the style today. Because as my girlfriend said, it is severly lacking. Also, I might some ambient music to the site too, just to try and make it feel more immersive in relation to the desired mood and aesthetic. Also, I haven't yet made much headway into JS apart from the absolute basics. I know basic code strings, but I would have no idea how to write code. So once the aforementioned things are in place, that is where I am going to spend my time.
Yeah, other than that my life has been kind of slow since coming back from Malaysia, barring one exception which I will talk about in a sec. But yeah, that trip really improved my mental health. I was naturally sad and missed both my girlfriend and Malaysia itself; everything about it felt so wonderous and full of adventure, something which has been markedly absent from my life the past 2+ years. However, despite that, my general outlook and ability to cope with stress once back in the UK has increased significantly. I am more productive and generally happier because of those few weeks. As of right now I plan to go back in August at the earliest, and as you might expect my excitement is sky-high.
But yeah, onto the event. Basically, my mum tried to come back into my life. About a year I pulled the plug on our communications for the second time in my life. The first time only ending because of lockdown loneliness. However, this time, I intend for that decision to stick. There was a lot news about that even that caused me a lot of distress. Hearing about my mums continual spiral is never nice, and despite not wanting anything to do with her, ever, that doesn't mean that I do not want anything bad to happen to her. However, she has brought all misfortune in her life on herself, and I am through having to take any responsibility for that. Last year she put me through some awful trauma, and it took so to drag myself out from the mental fissure that carved through my brain because of that. There is no way I am going through something like that again. I am not associating with her or anyone related to her.
The first time she tried to contact me, she came right outside my house, and it surprised me because I didn't see a car or anything on the front, and I didn't even see anyone at the door because she was hidden in the entryway. Once the door was opened, she simply appeard and said 'Hello', at which point I just shut the door, went upstairs and waited for her to leave. All attempts were following that were just as uneventful. She posted a letter one time, was shouting at me to open the door another. And after all that she tried to defend it to a relative saying that they weren't harrassing me and just wanted to post a key to their house in case I ever felt the need to go to her dad's house again. Which I don't.
Anyway, I think a few months ago an event like that would have really disturbed me. It might have caused somewhat of a relapse in my anxiety. However today is a different story, it has had a very minor effect on me. Which I think goes to show the power of having fulfilling experiences, and the effect that postive social contact can have on your mental health. It has taken me way too long to come to that the realisation, but considering my loner tendencies its not hard to see why. But yeah, I'm proud of my progress today, and hopeful about my projects in the future. Signing off now, and to anyone who reads this who is struggling, I hope life looks up for you soon.