End of workation no 2 of 2022

Train in a farmland (cyberpunk)

End of the second workation we've taken this year. Always kind of a sad feeling, cuz the travels are really refreshing. Plus we spend a lot of alone time together, away from all the noise of the city, so we get a lot of time to think and figure out our future plans. 

For now, Mangalore was quiet as usual. Indore was a bit hectic, but it's a different kind of jam (with the big family and all the amazing food and drives we go on). Hyderabad was unexpectedly good - work wise, faith wise (more on this later), friendship wise. 

The stresses of the past still tag along, and some of them may never really go away. And I don't even know if the right approach to dealing with them is by 'making friends' with them or what. So much remains uncertain, and that's just something that's hard to deal with.

As I write this, Amma is sitting and sewing shut a tiny rip in one of my backpacks. Aditi and mom are packing dinner for our train journey. Papa is on his phone. It's lovely outside, a bit cloudy and super breezy, and the wind is blowing in straight through the living room windows. 

Beautiful Sunday evening. 

Took lots of pictures. Shot a bunch of stuff for the channel, which we're now going to go back home and line up and get edited. Had a bunch of important meetings and calls, and wrote a bunch of important emails to people. Definite progress has happened, but it's real slow, so it feels like not much, but it's definitely there. 

Yesterday we crossed 5K followers on Spectrum Instagram. Which is a big milestone for us, and quite poignant to have it happen when we're here considering the whole idea of pivoting to a neurodivergent media practice happened on our last workation here. 

Lots of big ideas have come to us during this time. But compared to the last big idea we had, these ones seem small in comparison. But maybe comparing ideas is not the smartest thing to do. We have accomplished quite a decent amount for a fully bootstrapped company with a small team - right from setting up a content channel to shooting our first series and networking a serious amount within the community.

The small difference this time around is our third workation is already planned before the second one even ends. We're back some time later this year for a short trip to a place close by. 

God knows how much would have changed by then. How many more conversations would've happened, how much more our Insta would've grown, how many people we would've connected to, and how much we would've grown. 

Was part of a Zoom webinar today on Autistic Community and Belonging, led by this guy called Zack Siddeek. Pretty informative, and great that so many people are talking about their neurodivergence. Excited to see what all these voices together may be able to accomplish. 

Last - the piece of art above is AI generated and has been made on Dall-E. Read this piece about how AI generated art is not "your art" so not claiming it's mine, just saying pretty cool what we're able to do with image generation nowadays. Is this the future of video too? Not complex storytelling type stuff, but maybe simple product videos and all? Pretty sure it's already happening on some level. 

Anyway, it's raining heavily now. Full beach vibes sitting in my living room. Going to leave for the station around 8.30 pm or so. Maybe will cram in a Headspace session. Feeling pretty lost. But hoping for a turnaround of the mood as we get closer to the place we call home. For now, at least.