And the answer is ...

Enthusiasm. You have to be enthused about something to have the drive. Something you hold dear enough not to give up even if the powers that be frown on you for it and that's putting it mildly. If something connects, go for it. It may not be the wisest choice nor the most respectable by the standards of the straight and narrow. But eventually you will experience building up expertise, making connections in your field of interest, playing in a team, learning the values that are relevant to you and most importantly do what matters to you rather than others. (The latter has the notorious tendency of leaving you with a certain inner emptiness anyway.) So here I am, meditating over a mild tangle of word games and associations marveling at how far back my first entries date to, knowing now that my current motivation was out there already and yet, back then I wouldn't have been ready. Nothing left for it than to say "better late than never."
...
There's one more thing: I'm not done living yet.

Murphy Strikes Big Time

Where do you go when nothing seems to matter, nothing seems to work out your way, and there's nothing but trouble ahead? - Depends. --- It really depends on what kind of temperament you have and what your current disposition is. My disposition right now: abysmal. My temperament: "sigh". You get the picture?
I've been working --- correction: I think I've been working really hard these past three months ever since my first blog. I started an online journal - elsewhere - hoping to get my spirits up. For three months I made and entry almost every day. I was hoping to find the energy for bigger prospects while at the same time non-committally giving friends an opportunity to know I did not fall off the face of the Earth. There were more urgent things to do, really, though none of them were me, but things people wanted of me. And all I wanted was a time and place to myself where I could be what I liked being, do something I enjoyed doing, something that would generate something called "flow".
And now? My body is developing strange little signs that something is not well. Lack of sleep? Lack of certain vitamins and trace elements? Too much coffee? Too much strain? It could be anything and everything. And now my wallet is gone. I wouldn't even have had the small cash to do my laundry tonight, if the housekeeper hadn't lent me a couple of coins.
Hey, I'm living in a so called first world country! And I can't even get my act together.
What could I possibly do? - I'm seriously contemplating leasing a trailer truck, reducing my lifestyle to the bare necessities and then see if I can't get a life. There's got to be a way to get a decent job somehow! I'm clean, I'm what passes for bright, I know languages, I like science, I can work hard even at an office. What does it take that I don't have to live well?

Hello World

Duh, ... Witness a demotivated, cranky, dull, resigned, self-centered, easily distracted, good-for-nothing-never-gonna-make-it-anywhere-in-this-world with a thing for daydreaming enter upon the scene. That's me.
Had it all, well not quite. Lost it all, well not quite either. Idling about in the bogs of mediocre insignificance. Gifted? Pffft, who cares? OK, yes. All right?! YES!!! And incapable of putting it to any good use. Artistic, multilingual, discerning, analytical, open-minded, witty, resourceful, independent, honest, of high integrity, ... and yet, ever unable to integrate, complicated, disorganised, underqualified, barely able to make ends meet, a problem that's just good at taking care of itself.
That bad? - Yup! - Give up? - Nah! - Why not? - Because. ... Because that'd only make matters worse. Although I am in a tie, have been for quite a while. Doing things I never really cared for, but which I did anyway out of a sense of duty and respect. Staying sane by creating worlds only one synapse away where life would be hard, true, but predictably surmountable. Oh, and a million times more adventurous and exciting.
So here I am now, doing something with zero prospects for the future, barely allowing me to make a living and be a good, harmless citizen, while dreaming away and dreaming of making a living of my dreams. "Talented though you may be", a fellow underpaid colleague at work told me. "You have to realize there are thousands of talented people out there dreaming of doing the same things you dream of doing." Hundreds of thousands, millions even, would have been more accurate. "Yes", I relplied. "And there are just as many (if not more) doing just the kind of job we're doing."
To be fair, my colleague is making tracks at her job. She is motivated, says she loves her work, stays up late, takes on duties that I tried and was all too glad to be rid of. Last week she attended a course for which I'm lacking the financial means. I never would have known, if she hadn't told me about it. There was a company report we free-lancers got by snail mail. I still haven't read it. Now she has this written assignment to turn in. She expects to spend a night or two on it. She'll be done before this weekend. I wouldn't be done in a month! The last time I tried, I still had writer's block. She goes jogging. I doodle or surf the web. All right, I also do Irish Dancing - when I get to it!
I once read a book about what to do in order to be get paid more and get on with a career. The very first advice was to decide exactly what I wanted and dedicate myself to it entirely. It's not the end all and be all of all advices, it’s just the first in a row of more. Mozart and Van Gogh I'm sure knew what they wanted. Neither of them lived long or prospered. As a matter of fact, I can now proudly say what Tom Lehrer once said: "When Mozart was my age, he had been dead for 2 years." As for a comparison with Van Gogh, I'd just about be due.
But I'm no Mozart and I'm no Van Gogh. In fact I'm nobody. Well, not quite. I'm one of over 6.3 billion. Pretty infinitesimal, but not quite zero. So what do I want to do? Design and/or implement websites as long as I get to run the project, draw comics, write stories. That's what I can stay up nights for. I guess I could consider this a start. Something along the lines of my first day of the rest of my life, instead of my last.