How to be remarkable when the world’s on fire
Words of Healing for the Weary, and Courage for the Hopeless
It feels we are on the cusp of several things unknown about to unfurl, the fruition of several forces in the past several decades.
The violence in Gaza is top of mind in current events
The downward economic forces, forcing the hand of owners and workers in standoffs, in games and out
The upcoming (axial?) election year in the U.S.
The upward arrow of technology, social media, and AI
The climate clock ticking away
I had two reactions to this daunting look at the future.
One, for people who need to heal from the current circumstances.
Two, for those who are looking for some encouragement to approach the challenges of the future.
This is going to be more of a personal essay blog rather than more games focused, so I hope you’re here with me on this journey. Afterwards, we’ll have the usual news roundup, filled with stories from across the flames.
The world is burning, and we’re on fire, and it’s fine
The following bullet points are more for those who are tired and need to heal.
It’s okay to be burnt out. It’s okay to not be at the forefront of suffering, and take a step aside, to take care of yourself, to be “selfish/self-serving” and not care about others. Take a step back, recover, be stronger.
Resilience is not just a matter of enduring pain, staying in place and bearing suffering with gritted teeth, but also a series of strategies and moves, a versatility, a range of motion, a collection of spaces and orientations. It’s hardness and softness, it’s independence and interdependence, it’s connecting with what heals and disconnecting with what dysregulates. Resilience is doing what you have to do, and also being okay with doing nothing at all for no reason at all because that’s okay as well.
One of the images on my wall says, “An optimist is someone who figures that taking a step back after a step forward is not a disaster, it’s a cha-cha.”
One of my favorite games liked to say, “When one door closes, another window opens.” But you have to be aware enough to notice when the breeze rolls in.
An overnight movement happens when years of groundwork is laid, and the soil is rich, and not overwrought. And when a windfall harvest season finally comes, you must be ready with enough baskets to carry the fruit to market. And then be ready to rotate out to another field for the next cycle if you have to.
Be open to the idea of get a job you care nothing about. Something solid, a bedrock to plant your feet on, so you can dedicate your free time to what you love, even if it’s 2 hours a week, a page a month for 5 years.
When the future is uncertain, it can be a source of anxiety, but it also means the future is not yet written, and we can be the ones who create the future. To draw an analogy from games, in a pile of jigsaw pieces (or LEGOs or Minecraft blocks), the jumbled mess of a thousand jagged edges looks impossible to resolve. How can a painting come from this? But you always start somewhere, some basic pieces, the vague outlines, the recognizable landmarks, sort by the colors, the corners, shapes, and edges, and work your way through piece by piece. Progress starts slow, but over time, the picture becomes more clear.
Remember, when you see suffering, remember to look for all the people who feel for them too. See how they empathize, and they cry with you. There are so many people who are also filled with love, and cry for others they’ve never met. We weep together. We’re angry together. We’re in this together. Feel emboldened. All dreams start with a feeling that things could be better. And that’s how we begin to dream of a better future.
One of my virtual mentors, who I’ve only seen in talks and books, once said, “You have to bring something to the table.” If you want to achieve your dreams for yourself, or for others, you’ll encounter the brick walls. What to do now? Take stock of what you have to bring to the table and doors might open for you. You have skills, experience, perspective, or even the ability to be present as a human being with a heartbeat to witness another. (We have that on the machines so far, don’t we?) Hearts might open for you. People might hand you the keys to the castle. And if you’re someone who doesn’t have much, so long as you have breath in your body and can lift a finger, you can develop something to bring to the table.
If you think you have nothing to contribute, here’s some advice on how to be a remarkable person.
How to be a remarkable person
Remember the birds
Most everyone is capable of doing something remarkable.
The journey of a 10,000 miles begins with a single step. If you can’t draw the Mona Lisa, doodle for fun. Are you still having fun? Keep doodling. Not fun anymore? You can stop. I hope no one’s forcing you. But do you feel an urge to draw even when you “shouldn’t”? That you might have something to say? You might already have the soul of an artist.
Who cares if it’s not good?
Do birds sing because they want to be Taylor Swift? Do they want to be the number one bird in the world or have concerts that create earthquakes? Not at all. Look to the birds, for all is provided for them, and they sing. They sing to celebrate Spring after a cold Winter. They sing for their fellow birds. They sing for anyone who will listen.
Sing for your other birds of a feather, who see something in what you sing. Something remarkable just needs to be remarkable to one person. Even if it’s just yourself. Feel pain when you feel rejected? That’s your soul telling you how important singing is to you. Sing even more then. You can start with singing for yourself. Do it until they have to accept you as you are. Then you’re really remarkable. Nothing can stop you.
If you can’t write, write a sentence, then several more until you have a series of bullet points. Do that each day for a month. Do that once a week for several months. See if you feel something after a while. See if you feel like you should feel something, chase that feeling of a feeling. Who knows where it can take you? Step in front of the blank page, and as Bradbury once said, jump on the grenade and pick up the pieces afterwards.
You can’t walk a marathon, but want to? Walk or roll a little bit each day. Start with one block if you have to. Your legs might begin feeling bored with one block. See how 2 or 3 or 4 feels. Go fast. Fast again. Just get out there. Go to the local budget gym with regular clothes if you have to. Who can judge, you’re the one paying money after all. Take a break from pushing yourself too hard. Pick yourself up again. Go a mile or two or ten or 0.2. Who says it needs to be for achievements? Go for fun. Go to see places. Go to go somewhere new. Who says movement needs to be for fitness? Move to forget problems or to remember priorities. Stretch and roll and hop and rock and dance, make up your own verbs if the language fails you. Do it all. Do it to make water taste good and to sleep well and make food taste nourishing. Move to feel good about feeling strong or set upon yourself or to feel like you’re flying or gliding. The world’s got you down? Who knows, by then, you might want to keep in motion anyway. They say sharks need to swim to breathe. For some, staying in motion is as essential as breath in our lungs. Anything less would be disastrous.
Consistency.
And if you can’t be consistent, if you can’t focus, if you don’t have drive, if you can’t do anything remarkable, do something unremarkable in a remarkable way. And advertise it as the world’s worst version of it. “The world’s worst version of [your favorite movie quote].” Show it to a few people, show it to no one. If no one cares, it was the worst version anyway. Most likely someone will say “it wasn’t all that bad”. The expectations are already at the bottom, you can only meet them or over-deliver. If 1 person decides to watch it, that’s 1 more person who saw something that only you had made. Congrats, you’re not just a watcher, but you’re someone who gets on stage. Do it for another movie quote. Maybe take a break for another year. But if it keeps nagging at you, do it again. Do it 30 times over if you’ve got the bug, and learn something new each time.
Consistency? Inconsistency? Who cares?
Do something or anything. Stay in motion. Unless you’re physically or mentally restrained, no one can stop you from doing whatever you want. People escape into our phones all the time, might as well turn it into something useful. Take a photo with yourself at Mt. Kilimanjaro, or learn about it, or read about it, or write about it. Write a book about it. Write an article about it. Write a sentence about it. Tear up the page. But write about things out of curiosity, no egos allowed. Heck, indulge in ego once in a while too. Do it for love or for spite. Feel something. Learn history. Read books. Ask hard questions. Learn about yourself better than your parents could ever have taught you. Watch something that actually feels real, and not just trying to sell you something or milking something cheap. Learn more, ask harder questions. Keep thinking, keep asking, keep learning.
Keep at it. Or not. Do nothing.
Do nothing, if needed. Do nothing better than anyone. Fight the urge for more. A body with no force exerted on it maintains its velocity. You burn calories at rest. Sitting in space, you’re working on problems you’re overburdened with. You’re preparing for problems yet to come. A battle tomorrow doesn’t arrive sooner if you’re awake, so might as well rest. Sleeping is where dreams manifest themselves. You’re sleeping your way to the top! In personal finance, passive investing outperforms most active investing. Spend less effort, and you’re already outperforming the people running themselves ragged. Say less and your words matter more.
Learn how to learn. Learn from experts. Keep challenging yourself to be the dumbest one in the room. Iron sharpens iron. “Give me six hours to chop down a tree, and I’ll spend four hours sharpening the axe,” said Lincoln. Learning how to get better at one thing in life can teach you how to get better at other things. You’ll know what it’s like to be a beginner and go through phases, the challenges and triumphs, the setbacks, the reality checks. You pushed through them all before for mastery of one field. See if you can try it again for something else. You’ve learned how to learn. That’s all life is. We get taught things in the school, the rest we learn for ourselves. If you taught yourself how to learn something, the only lesson left is to stay learning for the rest of our lives. Bodies of water that don’t flow become stale and stagnant. The moon creates the ebb and flow of the tides, which created life on Earth. Stay in motion. Don’t let the world catch up to you, because you’re already several steps ahead. Top in your field? Cream of the crop? Pivot to another specialty and climb that mountain too. Mountains are glorious and humble, but a tribe of humans can move mountains, one stone at a time, one person at a time. Make a fort on top of the peak if you feel necessary. The next hiker will get a better view.
One person can create motion.
A group of people can all move, and create movement.
And that’s how a movement starts.
But you must first be in motion.
You must first be present.
Hope begins with the self. The sparking of a flame, not the filling of a pail.
Consistency.
Nothingness.
Learning.
And when you’ve met the challenges of life head on for many years, maybe then you can rest and look back on a life well lived.
…but if you see yourself itching to pick up the pen again?
Remember the birds.
Roundup
My world
The Five Nights at Freddy’s havoc continues
Five Nights at Freddy’s 500k Views Celebration Stream VOD
Muditaheart Stream 11/7/2023 - Notion doc filled with the news of the day, references, highlights, screenshots
News
Meghna Jayanth withdraws from presenting Best Storytelling Award at Golden Joysticks - “calling for ceasefire comes from a place of deep empathy, love, steadfast conviction… I will have to decline”
Ubisoft cuts 100 jobs in Canadian offices
Nicole Carpenter working on a piece about the human impact of layoffs - Please respond if you have any statements to report on how games layoffs have affected your life
Launch of Aftermath - A new worker-owned, reader-supported website about games, internet culture and beyond. Co-founders Nathan Grayson, Gita Jackson, Riley MacLeod, Luke Plunkett. Also Chris Person and Alex Jaffe. Most from Kotaku, also at Motherboard by Vice, The Washington Post’s games vertical Launcher and The Verge.
Mass resignations after Escapist EIC laid off, End of Zero Punctuation
Layoffs at G/O Media - employees laid off without warning, 23 people at Onion, Kotaku, Deadspin, Gizmodo, Jezebel, Deadspin, io9
Uppercut Crit suspending operations for the foreseeable future (I had written a piece for them 2 years ago: Why you won’t break up with your girlfriend over Pokemon Unite)
Shout Outs
on ’s piece on FNAF captures many of my thoughts on the movie but I will have my own thoughts in response as well to comePeople Make Games - The games industry must not stay silent on Palestine
How to protect yourself as a worker while voicing your opinions
Nicholas O’ Brien (Kotaku, Washington Post, New York Times, Now Play This, Wordplay Festival) is looking for narrative design work. Support him if you can. Some slides from his recent talk at RISD. His gallery ‘Voluntary Attempts to Overcome Necessary Obstacles’ at efa project space back in Sept 2022 was a highlight of the year for me.
Moment of Zen
Words of Wisdom from Rainn Wilson, talking about advice from his acting coach.
"You must keep hope alive, or they win.”
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