This piece has been sitting in my head since August and attending Packy McCormick’s workshop helped to form the words to my jumbled thoughts.
Packy wrote back in May about this Great Online Game that we play on the Internet. The idea that the lines between work and play are blurring and how crazy is it that we manipulate objects on our screens (excel sheets, google docs, emails, etc.), cross our hearts, and hope that one day we will get enough money to buy a house? The mechanics of what we do for work resembles what we do in a game. My favorite example to illustrate this is Stardew Valley, a game I poured in countless hours for.
On Hearts
In Stardew Valley, there are multiple things to consider and tasks to complete but you get to choose what you want to focus on first.
Community is important in a small farming village. You can build relationships with the fellow villages (gain hearts) through chatting daily or giving them gifts that they like.
Stardew Valley unlocks more content or sends gifts from your fellow villagers if your heart count with them is high.
Similarly in the virtual space, communities form the basis of you can build relationships with internet friends — this can happen on any medium but more often on Discord, Twitter, and Telegram. You can imagine every chat as gaining EXP with the other party and bringing you two closer. This can open doors and unlock opportunities in the form of being included in decision-making & future initiatives, career opportunities, or gifts like cute jpegs. Caveat: if you are doing it for pure benefit, people can sense it and nobody likes fake friends.
Where do you find such communities? Packy suggest to ask: “What am I nerdiest about?” and then go find your fellow nerds. Twitter has become my new search ground instead of Google/Facebook. You will find more people than expected with similar interests.
On Heads
You choose which area of skill to focus to level up. This is akin to your goals or strategy for the game.
If your goal is to capture all fishes to complete the collection, you can ignore other skills and just max out your fishing level. Or you can be a generalist and train in every pillar. To progress in the game, you select your niche.
As you do more of each repetitive task (chopping trees, fishing, battling), they become easier and you get more benefits. Many people change their strategies and goals depending on the stage of the game they are in. Broadly categorizing: early-game, mid-game, and end-game. Everyone usually starts off doing a little of everything to gain a sensing of the benefit of each action before deciding. You then iterate as you encounter more unlocked pathways.
Virtually, we level up our skills by exploring new knowledge domains. Again, you choose what you want to learn and build a stable foundation in. Each domain knowledge can be so specific I found myself googling every other word when reading articles. I see myself as starting from level 0 and building my base. With every article, the progress bar fills a little and the content gets easier the more you read. Your brain gets more intimate with those intimidating words and concepts.
There are a gazillion topics of interests these days. I hear lots about how I should look into coding, trading/investing, personal branding, side hustles etc. All is said with good intentions in mind but I feel as though I was dragged in multiple directions. It took me a while to decide to explore a few topics broadly until I landed on something that I care about. And it’s fine if you spent some time on something and discovered that it’s not for you (even if the whole world preaches the upside of that something); move on and find something else. You are not missing out. Your character will grow and evolve in the way it is shaped.
On 2021
This year was alot about rethinking and getting my hands dirty in areas I never expected. I gained a small online niche community who is more nerdy about the different topics than I am. I felt like my own avatar, jumping into different platforms, and engaging with the game. This meant changing my profile picture, following social norms of saying good morning at any time of the day, and being okay that there’s so much more that I don’t know about new topics.
Here’s to exploring more lands, lores, and games in 2022 🎉