Fighting off futility

I read a lot of Lovecraft. If you’re not familiar with his work, his core concept of “cosmic horror” revolves around mankind’s innate ability to blissfully ignore the obvious fact that on a cosmic scale nothing man can do will matter. We are a speck of dust enjoying a lull of quiet in a swirling, endless, uncaring void. In Lovecraft’s time, before the internet shrank us all down, when even the weight of a man’s home town could utterly dwarf him, this notion was enough to drive people absolutely bonkers.

Lovecraft, an atheist, had no such shield as religion to instill in him a sense of significance. He was a fearful prejudicial man. You could argue that his ambitions as a writer was a grasp at immortality and significance, and in a way, he has succeeded; We still read his work, and will for a long time to come. This is the classic conceit of the starving artist. We grasp at creativity and produce to expand our existence enough to hopefully touch enough people to matter. As a musician and programmer, I see literally no difference between development and art.

So I’m struggling, as I do periodically, with the cosmic horror of Flash development, or indeed, with web development. On general terms, the absolute fewest of us have the luxury of working on a large project; something intended to last beyond the span of a client’s advertising budget. The last time i wrote something special -a role-playing game for kids funded by a well-paying client that still gets significant use, years beyond its intended lifespan- was years ago. I look at the work I do slip between my fingers and vanish into the uncaring void of the internet.

How do you cope with the sensation that nothing you do outlives the common housefly? I return to this subject on at least a monthly basis, and it can be absolutely devastating.

Outside of the money, what really keeps us in this industry? Anyone have any inspirational stories of transition? Goals met, the future changed?