Growing up, adults would consistently regale me with stories from their past. A recurring theme was how time passed faster, increasing in speed with each year. Looking back as I near thirty, and several years into the largest venture I’ve undertaken thus far, I understand.

Settle in, dear reader. I’m here to share a story of frustration, unbelievably offensive customer service, and ultimately, a brand gone astray. It was mid-2012. I was preparing to launch The Machine, a broadcasting network for listeners interested in artisan goods, intellectual conversations, and spirited debate.

A few weeks ago, I gave a talk at the Chicago Node.js meetup about our technology stack for The Machine. I’ve only been working with Node.js for a couple of months, but in that time, I’ve learned many difficult lessons.

One of the major challenges I’ve had to overcome with Node.js is a task that’s relatively simple in Ruby. You wouldn’t think this would be difficult, but serializing JSON can be frustrating, even though you’re working entirely in JavaScript.

In a previous life, I was a professional web developer. I’ve used JavaScript extensively throughout my career, but I always saw it as the necessary evil: a weird little language that existed solely to provide interactive features in your web browser.

Launched in 2004, Feedburner was a once popular tool that re-formatted often messy RSS feeds, prepping them for mass consumption. Over the years, it became a trusted platform for bloggers, podcasters, and anyone else with something to say.

If we’ve met — online or in person — I’ve probably spoken to you about radio, and my endless love for the medium. This American Life, Radiolab, and Freakonomics Radio are staples in my weekly soundtrack.

Co-created in 2013 by Joshua Wentz and Nicholas Young, Dispatch touches almost every aspect of the modern artist’s career. Wentz, a label-owner and musician, brings a unique perspective from Chicago’s underground.

Tweet. Post. Comment. Like. This era has it’s own lingo; a jargon-addled psuedolanguage that sometimes barely resembles recognized speech or written words. Children, teenagers, and adults alike all speak it; as everyone desperately tries to capture fleeting memories with short blocks of text, a blurry photograph, or an unlistenable audio clip.

Doubt. It’s something we all face, but rarely discuss. Artists stare it down daily, in a power struggle between beauty and the absence of it. Between light, and the dark, soundless, matterless void.