A Willing Slave to the Living Machine

I am willing slave to nenverending machine; and in more ways than one. This Gatekeeper project that I have been working on is grinding on and on. My biggest problem is that I am a perfectionist with it. Unless it's precisely the right look and feel for the model and fluff, I continue to work and work on the same. Originally this was a simple straightforward project with clear goals and purpose. It has since expanded into so much more.

Don't get me wrong, I truly enjoy and love the Gatekeeper project. I've never had a connection with other hobbies and items that I've worked on in my personal time as this project has. I use it as my escape from everyday reality.

I call the Gatekeeper project the machine not because its some torturous task minded by some invisible task master with a whip that I must work on day after day. The fuel of this machine is my imagination and its unquenching desire to build a more and more elaborate world in which I can operate and live in. In some ways it is very much like a living machine or organism; constantly evolving into something new and exciting. With each iteration of my design the work complexities and requirements become ever more elaborate and complex.

In my mind, this project will never truely end and in that the trap is laid. The Cadian Gatekeepers will always be there; doing what they do and I'll be; the constant gardener planting, watering and monitoring the harvest as it becomes ever bigger and bigger. Eventually it will consume me and yet I do not fear it. I don't sense danger from this ever growing encroachment on my real life but instead welcome it as if it were a child of mine. A child whom I must guide, teach and tolerate through the years of its life.

Some would say its madness to say such things about a hobby. "It's only a game.... get a life" they say. Obsession is a fickle thing. You know its wrong yet you still maintain it and even assist it to grow into something more. Its even more strong when its something that you created; an idea that was concieved and planted in your mind until it overgrew its boundries and spilled out onto the real world.

In the end, maybe I will get tired of putting together those plastic models and converting them up. Maybe I'll get tired of writing and maintaining the fluff through the years and finally just let them be as they are. But until then, I am much more than the creator of the Gatekeepers, I am the Gatekeepers......