Scattered Thoughts About Random Things
July 3, 2024
3-Item Status
Current location: Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA
Reading: Uncertainty in Games by Greg Costikyan
Listening: Annabelle by Jen Cloher
Quick Notes
Buy Me a Coffee: I’m accepting coffee-sized donations again, following a weird situation in which credit card thieves in Japan (apparently?!) tested stolen numbers on my BMAC account, leading to a wave of fraudulent charges I (apparently) didn’t have any way of disputing (I had to pay a huge sum to these banks to settle all this, which sucked). That said, I’ve upped the security on my account and I’m giving it another shot, so if you’d like to support my work you can make a one-off donation, and you can also set up a monthly donation and/or buy a book on that same page, if you’d like (thanks in advance if you choose to do any of these things!).
Poll: It looks like most people who responded to last week’s poll perceive themselves to be younger than their chronological age (this lines up with harder core research on this topic). This week I’m interested to know how you jot down notes (and if you jot them down at all).
(If you have a moment, reply with your own 3-Item Status and/or Quick Notes about what’s happening in your life.)
Scattered Thoughts About Random Things
Some of the most incredible creative output of the past ten years (and arguably before that, too) has been created in support of video games and similar cultural artifacts; if you ever need aesthetic inspiration, google around for concept art, soundtrack music, and/or play a game like Disco Elysium (the writing and voice acting in this game!), and you’ll see what I’m talking about.
Many of us have trouble meeting up with friends (and acquaintances who might become friends) as often as we would prefer. Something I find helps with this is planning social situations so they’re either ultra-chill and casual (so that getting together doesn’t feel like a task) or very concrete and regimented (so everyone who’s invited knows exactly what to expect, and ideally doesn’t have to do anything—including make decisions about what to do—beyond show up and follow the plan). Anything in between these extremes is a lot easier to back out on in the moment, even for folks who would generally love to see more of you.
You probably don’t need another tool, app, or system. You probably just need to do the thing you’re avoiding (using what you’ve already got available). After you’ve accomplished that thing, you’ll be in a better state of mind to think clearly about maybe buying (or investing your time in learning to use) something new.
A lot of people say their family, their friends, or their health are the most important things to them, but then continue to prioritize literally everything else in their lives (maybe assuming that some day, after they’ve hit it big and fixed all the other problems in their lives, they’ll be able to invest in those supposedly most vital things). It’s worth asking ourselves in what ways, specifically, we prioritize these things, and if it turns out we’re actually focusing on other (supposedly less important) stuff, it might be prudent to figure out how to rearrange things to account for that miscalibration.
Habits and routines are great because they provide us with predictability and the capacity to make small investments over time, which can then compound into big, positive outcomes. Going totally rogue and deviating from our habits and routines is also great, though, as it stacks the deck for serendipity and novelty, exposing us to new things and forcing us to look at the world from different angles, for a time. Figuring out the right balance of structure and chaos is important, but it’s not easy because we have different ideal equilibriums at different points in our lives (and because we’re all different, our baselines are distinct from those of other people, as well).
It’s good to be a little bored and listless, sometimes. That means you’ve got space to just think and process, and even if it doesn’t feel like you’re doing anything, your brain is churning along in the background trying to work through all the stuff you’ve experienced and learned since the last time you gifted it that kind of downtime. Pretty much every important realization I’ve ever had about myself and my life has arisen while I’ve been bored and rudderless, not while I’ve been in the zone, feeling productive and accomplished.
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If you enjoyed this essay, consider supporting my work by buying me a coffee.
Interesting Links
Angie wanted to die in a cabin at the base of a snow-covered mountain, with warm drinks to go around. Stacey wanted to die in a cool room with a down comforter, battery-operated candles, chapstick on her lips, and absolutely no cellphones. Sarah wanted to die at her fifty-acre ranch in southern Indiana, lying on her patio, as the grandkids caught lightning bugs. Once dead, she wanted her body to be washed, rubbed with frankincense oil, and wrapped in white gauze. I lived in a small house with roommates. An awkward place to die. I opted instead for a destination vigil at my parents’ home in California.
The Time I Built an ROV to Solve Missing Person Cases / Part 1
By the autumn of 2020 the story had faded from my mind until my brother called me with an interesting missing person case. That phone call was the starting point of the most interesting adventure I’ve ever had, and it lead to us solving two missing person cold cases, which had been unsolved for 9 and 15 years.
From Infocom to 80 Days: An Oral History of Text Games and Interactive Fiction
“You are standing at the end of a road before a small brick building.”
That simple sentence first appeared on a PDP-10 mainframe in the 1970s, and the words marked the beginning of what we now know as interactive fiction.
(If you want more links to interesting things, consider subscribing to Aspiring Generalist.)
Poll
This week, I’d like you to tell me something about your note-taking habits.
Outro
It’s one of those weeks where I’m looking into / considering signing up for both CrossFit and dance classes—I have never done either (with the exception of a few tango classes when I lived in Argentina).
Thoughts? Experiences? Recommendations? Alternatives?
I’m basically looking for some excuses to get up and active with other people a few times a week, and I’m very open as to what that entails: so your suggestions (and warnings? Advice?) on this matter would be greatly appreciated!
What sorts of group activities are you engaging in / enjoying these days? Drop me a message about that (or whatever’s on your mind), and/or take a moment to introduce yourself—I respond to every message I receive and would love to hear from you :)
A tiny thought about weightlifting in general: it’s okay to do less than prescribed or to scale things to your level. It doesn’t have to be soul-crushingly difficult to accrue the benefits. I hope whatever you go for is lots of fun (and just the right amount of challenging)!
Hey, Colin! Great read this week. Re: CrossFit, I’ve done it and done a couple of projects with the CrossFit organization. Your experience depends a lot on your local gym, the community there, and especially on the coaches there. Unfortunately, you don’t have to be certified to teach CF, and the programming and overall gym experience varies wildly. My recommendation is to try a welcome series, which most good gyms offer, and see what you think. My local “box” is fantastic, but I’ve been to some that were awful. Happy to answer any questions you have. Good luck and have fun!