My career spans almost 25 years, and throughout all this time, alongside my main job, I’ve had side projects. For the longest time, I thought pet projects were my ticket to a different life. Each new idea was supposed to make me financially independent and free from the regular job.

I even had good ideas. In the early 2000s, we built a service marketplace with ratings — like Uber for nannies and plumbers, except before Uber existed. We built it — and abandoned it. Didn’t know what to do next. Similar projects became successful a few years later, but I wasn’t the one who made them.

And so it went on for years. Websites, web services, 3D, procedural graphics, art experiments with concrete and epoxy resin. Always something, as long as I had the energy. Always hoping for a breakthrough: a successful business or making a name for myself as a super-specialist in some promising niche.

The breakthrough never came. Not enough time, skills, persistence to bring ideas to production level. Too often I’d freeze, paralyzed by the sheer volume of what still needed to be done for the project to “go public” — marketing, post-production, all those things.

Then came a difficult period at work. The job I loved, to which I gave everything. So much that I had no energy left for anything except work and sports — which helped me stay sane and functional. I relied on this job. But our paths with the company began to diverge, and I lost that foundation.

Not my company, not my product — and suddenly I had no control over an important part of my life. I felt cornered, drained, and empty.

At some point, just to distract myself and get the simple pleasure of learning something new, I started making a mobile game in Godot.

And there I am, evening, with Claude Code, discussing different solutions for some game mechanic. No deadlines. Nobody waiting for results. I can think, try things out, roll back if I don’t like something. After a day packed with calls and organizing other people’s work, I finally have time and space to just think.

And then it hit me: my pet projects aren’t startups. They’re secret bases.

Remember having a secret base as a kid? That hidden spot where you made all the rules, where you could retreat when things got tough. Not a fortress — just a place to catch your breath when you needed it.

In my game, I make all the decisions. The idea is mine. The rules are mine. What to do next — I decide that too. Every line of code, every color choice, every mechanic — all mine. And when I work on it, I regain a sense of control over my own life. I start feeling competent again.

The paradox? Learning something new, where I’m by definition incompetent, makes me feel competent. I think it’s because new knowledge builds on old knowledge and enriches it. I begin to understand things better. The area of things I know at least something about expands. Yes, I also become more aware of how much I don’t know. But the world still becomes a bit clearer.

Before, the vast amount of knowledge needed to master a new field depressed me — after all, if the goal is to create a successful product, you need to become an expert, fast. Now it seems like an interesting journey. “Look at all these places to explore.” Sounds like escapism? Maybe. But perhaps a bit of escapism is exactly what I need to recover.

Now I try to dedicate at least an hour a day — mornings before work or evenings. I don’t beat myself up for moving slowly. I allow myself to experiment, venture down unknown paths I wouldn’t take with a clear goal.

Rationally, this changes nothing in my life. Yet. But this feeling of “my own space” helps me cope with what’s happening in reality.

By giving up my ambitions, I finally got what I really needed. Not wealth and fame. But a secret base. A place to restore my strength and feel that I still control at least something in my life.

Base secured.