2022-09-08 ● Dance first, think later
I was going through old files on my hard drive, and came across some prototypes of websites I made in my teens, but never published. I was always so caught up with trying to make things “perfect” and kept putting off before they were complete (when is a website ever complete, really?). Decades later, in just this past month, I’ve since pushed three websites, and I have to say that it feels good. My teenage self would be proud, but also probably terrified?
[Image description: A screenshot of Kalawakan: a two-column layout with the large column against a backdrop of makeshift clouds, a navy blue background with golden stars scattered all over.]
Remember when there was no CSS and we had to do all layout styling via tables? Dark times. (Although I had to create an email HTML template recently and it uses the same kind of layout hacks, and I did not want to go back to there again.) Kalawakan, the Filipino word for “space” was also an old LiveJournal handle. I very much loved space-themed things. I originally meant this to be a blog, maybe. Also, these links are still some of my favourite websites! Brings me back.
[Image description: A screenshot of Edward III: the words edward iii in large serif font turned on its side, a quote from a short story by Murakami Haruki surrounded by oversized quotation marks, and an upside-down cutout illustration of an elephant, all against a yellow-tan background with white flowers and stems.]
I was a fan of Murakami Haruki when I was younger, and I was reading The Elephant Vanishes at the time, hence the elephant (and the quote, I think?) I don't know what I intended this to be, perhaps an index for a collective (another concept from the 00s).
[Image description: A screenshot of Soul in Gray: a three-column layout: the first column with the words Soul in Gray >> The Jiro Wave, the second column a monochromatic photo of Jiro except for his blond hair, the last column are four boxes that serve as navigation.]
Jiro was my favourite member (still is!) from the Japanese Visual Kei band, GLAY. This layout used iframes and JavaScript I found off of Dynamic Drive (as you do when you’re learning and starting from zero knowledge). I’d made a few more shrines (for anime series or characters), but I guess I didn’t save them all.
I was always waiting to be ready, until I never was. The emotional discomfort of pushing something incomplete or unfurnished to production never sat well with me, and that’s why I almost never published anything publicly. But now I know the satisfaction from seeing my work out in the wild, even if it’s on training wheels. The whole point of it all was to create and have fun, but I took myself too seriously. I still do. But progress is progress! I’ll try to remember more to dance first, and think later.