In corporations this is a classic prisoner's dilemma: If EVERYONE agreed that they'd be sane and work optimal 40-50 hour weeks, it'd be great. But someone always 'defects', going to 80+ hours in an effort to show off. The result is actually lower efficiency, but since most corporations do very little track efficiency and results (they track effort, instead), it doesn't get caught.

I believe that this sort of sentiment is a symptom of not having answered for yourself the question: "what makes a good life good". spking is likely operating on a temporary definition imparted by his upbringing that goes something like this:

  "a good life is a life which, when seen from afar, appears to include a string 
   of successful and well-respected achievements, each one better than the last".

This perspective is, according to some of my friends from other continents, very "American".

An alternative definition that is more conducive to well-being and productivity is one in which your subjective experience of life is considered more important than your life as seen and judged from afar (i.e. by others). To build such a definition, you must first analyze and become aware of how most decisions that you make are made with respect to how they are perceived from afar. Once you see this, you must realize that you are simply mistaken in privileging this perspective. How other people (and systems) judge what you do should only be of consequence to you to the extent that it impacts your life concretely. These judgements have no intrinsic meaning. For instance, spking's post is lamenting a self-inflicted anxiety about how his life appears from an external perspective. He does not mention how his failure concretely impacts his life, only how it impacts his feelings (which are based on his unconsidered and ultimately mislead beliefs).

Following the recognition of this, you can then begin to make sense of the question: "what makes a good life good?" A good life is not a life that appears good, it is a life that, to you, feels good (i.e., you may remark "life is good"). So, to answer this question, you can begin by finding out what activities, situations and dispositions lead you to this sort of feeling (i.e. things you enjoy). You can then re-structure your life so as to maximize these things (rather than structuring it around only externally visible achievements).

(A quick hint: more than 50% of these things have to do with your past, your friends, your family, significant others, significant locations, food, music, art, etc. You have a career and you do projects in large part to support these things. Taking a vacation and doing psychedelic drugs are two great ways to remind yourself of this.)

That said, spking's projects are failing for a simple reason. What he truly desires is not for his projects to succeed, but to connect with people through his projects. The solution to this problem is to first focus on making a connection as soon as possible. A successful idea is one which takes a life of its own before you get bored of it. In the case of websites, people must begin using your project before you feel the desire to give up. Given this insight, it is best to start with a simple idea that can be deployed in a useful form quickly. Once a platform has been established – ideally with money coming in – more complex projects can be executed within that framework (if you're lucky, with the help of friends and investors)!

I was on a conference call w/ Zoe Lofgren (CA congress woman who is on the Judiciary fighting the hell out of this bill) and a bunch of NYC tech companies last weekend and she said petitions are essentially ignored, and instead to make phone calls to your reps and directly into the capital.

This isn't to say don't sign this, but if you are really concerned, the absolute bottom line is phone calls. Anything you can do to funnel phone calls in is what counts.

Edit: Let me add this, which makes it absurdly easy: http://fightforthefuture.org/

Amazing art is rare at any age. It is better and healthier to focus on improving your eye and your craft.

I find encouragement in the quote by the painter of "The Great Wave off Kanagawa", Katsushika Hokusai:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hokusai

"From around the age of six, I had the habit of sketching from life.

I became an artist, and from fifty on began producing works that won some reputation, but nothing I did before the age of seventy was worthy of attention.

At seventy-three, I began to grasp the structures of birds and beasts, insects and fish, and of the way plants grow.

If I go on trying, I will surely understand them still better by the time I am eighty-six, so that by ninety I will have penetrated to their essential nature.

At one hundred, I may well have a positively divine understanding of them, while at one hundred and thirty, forty, or more I will have reached the stage where every dot and every stroke I paint will be alive.

May Heaven, that grants long life, give me the chance to prove that this is no lie."

I turn 30 in 5 months and can completely identify with how you've felt. I too have the dozens of domain names for long-abandoned web applications for some idea that I thought was a radical spike of insight at the time.

It's a vicious cycle. I get the idea. I register the domain name, already imagining a brilliant fully-featured yet astonishingly-easy-to-use product. I start cranking out code. But it takes some time. I realized some problems I thought were easy are harder. That takes more time. I realize a certain problem is exceptionally hard and will take me longer than I thought, so I hack together something that works for now. I realize yet another problem will take me longer than I thought, and a few weeks pass and I begin to feel my web application is just a series of hacks. If we're using the art analogy, rather than the beautiful and crisp design I envisioned, my canvas is filled with ugly smears and smudges that doesn't look anything like what's in my mind.

And it's always a lot easier to just throw out the canvas and start something new, than to tediously work out improving those smears and smudges.

So, perhaps one hopeful anecdote I can share: earlier this year I did start a project that I've finally been able to focus on. The only difference with this one vs. the others is that I saw a tangible return relatively early on. Two months after I worked on it, I made $72. That's basically a laughable number, except it's the first tangible return on the dozens of web applications I've started and abandoned for the past 5 years. From then on, there's been a mostly-positive correlation between "hours put into project" and "dollars earned," which has completely shifted my mentality.

I've begun to take pride in those smears and smudges, knowing I'm already succeeding to some degree and it could be especially rewarding if I continue. I have no idea if this would work for you, or anyone else, but like others have said, this is a process. Everyone designs and creates at their own pace, and age seemed pretty meaningless to me. In fact it's now that I'm older, instead of 5 years ago, that I can begin to appreciate my limitations and have the patience to work with them, instead of ignoring the fact that they exist.

And above all, be proud that in a world where many are content to maintain and manage (literally and figuratively), you have the desire and the ability to create and produce. Best of luck.