Inspiration Wednesday

Taken from here:

What skills does EA look for??

There is no set route to becoming a Game Designer. However, this is not an entry level role. Game development is a highly complex, intensive process which can last two years or more, so the Game Designer must be able to work closely with teams of programmers, artists, project managers, writers, musicians, and many others. The Game Designer usually has a reasonably high level of industry experience and knowledge. EA usually expects to see a portfolio of work, which can take the form of completed game projects or written game design documents and proposals.

Game development is a collaborative process involving multi-disciplinary teams. Designers must be able to communicate their vision to artists, programmers, producers, marketing staff, and others involved in the development process, and accept feedback on their work. This involves presenting their ideas both verbally and on paper, for which they need writing and basic visual design and drawing skills. They should also be reasonably fluent in a range of 2D and 3D graphics and animation packages, such as 3D Studio Max or Maya. Good technical knowledge is required, with some programming skills at least at ‘scripting’ level and awareness of the various games platforms and technologies.

A common route to becoming a Game Designer is to get experience as a Game Tester and/or in Quality Assurance (QA) department for a games company. This offers a good grounding in the development process, access to software and tools, and insight into the different job roles in development.

When looking for Game Designers EA values a thorough understanding of gameplay theory. Excellent communication and presentation skills are a must, along with storytelling and narrative development skills. The ideal candidate possesses information design and user interface design skill. They must be able to work both as part of a team and independently. Last but not least, they must display systematic and strategic thinking as well as imagination and creativity.

As far as educational background, Game Designers can study a range of subjects, from the sciences and humanities to art and design. There are also a growing number of games-related degree programs and courses available for study, and a degree in this type of program would be a plus. Prospective Game Designers should check the content of courses, particularly the balance between programming, game art, and game design. Designers need basic programming and 3D design skills, and preferably some drawing ability. It’s also very important to have excellent communication and presentation skills.

Sounds like a road map to me. Quite exciting. I happen to be two degrees of separation away from a game designer who runs figure study drawing meetings. Maybe time for the old "two birds, one stone" trick, eh?

Time for more games in education. Here is an example of a pioneer having a lot of fun and a lot of success:



That is it for me, now you share what is inspiring you...

Educational Game Collaboration

me: The framework. You'll have to put in the details, as I don't have a schema of your curriculum

sodijusey: talk about an untapped market

me: Ok

We'll collaborate :)

sodijusey: that's what we could do!!!!

:)))

totally

me: triple chin!

sodijusey: we'll be RICH!

me: LOL

That sounds good :)

sodijusey: no seriously though

I've been to English teacher conventions...and you wouldn't believe the market for stuff to sell...

and games is an untapped market

if you're serious...I'd love to work on something like that

me: Yeah, we should definitely collaborate on that.

sodijusey: over time

me: I am serious

sodijusey: I am too

that would be sooooo cool

Christina could do the artwork

me: And it would be good for both public and private schools, so it would be desireable to a wide audience

Right, got to get her craftiness in there, too

sodijusey: I was thinking of some of the beautiful cards of Dixit

me: Ok, done super excited

sodijusey: :)

me: Yes, I think DiXit is a great game for your class room, get their creativity flowing

sodijusey: good thing you're so creative and smart and intelligent and motivated and driven and entrepreneurial and..

SEXY

me: You could have a custom DiXit deck where the images capture particular stories

sodijusey: kissing your sexy parts

oh that would be interesting....allowing for supplemental plots

me: So, you read Mice and Men and you have immages of peopel walking along the rail road with the dry hills in the distance

sodijusey: but familiar characters

me: The rabbit

The barn with straw bed

sodijusey: a gun with blood on it

me: Right, familiar characters to the story

sodijusey:

me: There you go

That would be great. It is both a game and a visual component to the narrative

Sent at 10:51 AM on Wednesday

sodijusey: or an author pack...with a blend of characters, settings, plot artifacts from several of the author's pieces

what if Othello and Juliet were stuck in an enchanted forest?

me: Do you think team play, where the whole room is playing the same instantiation is more popular in education circles than small clusters?

sodijusey: no...I don't think it's really doable that way

I've never seen a classroom playing one game together unless it was jeopardy or something like that

me: I mean for games in general, not just a picture card game

sodijusey: depends on the game, really

me: Right, that is a system where you need someone to arbitrate, the teacher.

Sure. But what I'm asking, as a designer, is what would the market prefer.

sodijusey: I think I would prefer traditional board game choices to be played in smaller groups

me: Are multiple clusters bad because it requires the teacher to have to explain the same thing five times and is afraid some clusters are going to break down and stop participating?

sodijusey: Though, I think something whole-class could work as well...

No...you would explain it once, model it...and then they would play

if they're all playing the same game

me: Would you as a teacher be interested in team competitions where they are competing for extra credit points?

sodijusey: on the other hand...if you had some fantasy role playing game going on...it could involve more people right? How many can it handle?

yes...students get very competitive over games in the classroom

me: Well, if you can maintain the pace it can scale very well.

I guess bragging rights are enough, don't need to bring grade points into it.

sodijusey: maybe a game where it's the same type of game...but you have 4-5 different "plots" going...the first group to accomplish their task wins.

like mini paks within the same game

designed for simultaneous game playing but with a twist in their plots or something like that

me: Interesting. I like the idea of modules that string into a larger narrative

sodijusey: but they all have to eventually make it to the castle or something like that

me: Very cool. I've got my designer brain working overdrive

sodijusey:

me: Too bad this is off the record, LOL

I'll have to copy this text into a document

sodijusey: I think deciding on an educational objective...a learning target would be beneficial. Then it would help us streamline the type of game...the things they will gain by playing the game...whether it's content, review, creativity, imagination, creative writing boosters, etc.

me: Yes, I was thinking the same

sodijusey: for instance, if you were designing a game for American Lit it would look very different than a generic "storytelling" game

I would want specific content

Games Detrimental?

So I'm at on this high, seeing games all around me, either being played, whether the participants would call it a game or not, or potentially played. I go to the coolest game store I've ever seen, End Game of Oakland, where they not only survive in an urban core, but thrive, going vertical and offering a strong venue for game players. Then I watch this TED talk by Barry Schwartz where he decries incentives as the proverbial "carrot" in a "carrot/stick" dichotomy tempting leaders and others in fiduciary roles away from the just, right, and good choices.

What does this have to do with games? Well, games can change the world, as Jane McGonigal has thoroughly argued in her book, Reality is Broken, and others cited on this blog have argued similarly. Games do this in primarily two ways, either they provide a simulation of the non-game world, where a problem to be solved resides, which can then be played to find solutions, or non-game life becomes game life to steer us toward better behavior, such as the Prius automobile and the gas mileage display on the windshield encouraging better driving to reduce petroleum based fuel consumption. The latter comes about with incentives. You aren't consuming less petroleum based fuel because doing so is the equivalent of spending money to put carbon dioxide in the air and heavy metals in the water, but because it is exciting to get that short-term confirmation that something you did had an impact on something tangible, in this case the digital display.

Are games detrimental? Is there certain places, and certain ways, games shouldn't be?

The Value of Randomness

The scenario: the tension has built during the course of the game and you've developed a strategy that is clever and potentially a game changing or finishing one, the moment of execution comes and the result is left to the toss of dice or drawing of completely random cards. The result can be very disappointing and not at all rewarding to those who come up with exciting moves. Do we want to leave such things to complete chance, holding great ideas to the same level as mediocre and even bad ones? 

Randomness can be a good challenge in a game, for example, when determining your resources, such as who will go first in turn based games, or which tiles will you draw in Settlers of Cataan. It can also be a fun way of determining  your obstacles, such as which property will you land on in Monopoly after they have all been purchased or which monster will be revealed in the Adventure Tile System. There are times when randomness provides a challenge because of unpredictability, the lack of information which I've discussed previously, but also the uniqueness of each game, and thus its "re-playability." But these are all very different than the unexpected and the not (directly) controlled nature of another persons decisions. 

In Chess or International Football, the field and the tools are set before the game begins. The tools being the pieces you'll be using, chess pieces and a football, respectively, and the mental and physical capabilities of the players. Also, the rules are a kind of tool, as well. Some games offer different rules depending on the role, resources, and scenarios the game is experienced by a given player. Yet, these games are exciting because it is unknown exactly how a given player will respond under specific, but yet to be determined, circumstances. In Apples to Apples and DiXit the outcome of your choices is determined by deliberate, but unknowable beforehand, decisions by other players. The rules explain the abstract conditions for winning or the effects of resolved conflicts, such as:

The object of the game is to checkmate the opponent; this occurs when the opponent's king is in check, and there is no legal way to remove it from attack.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess, October 11, 2011.

However, the specific scenarios are created and evaluated by the players. Chess rewards strategic thinking because the rules are clear and the outcome of a given move is never in question. Likewise, in Apples to Apples a clever choice of word based on a careful evaluation of the judging player is rewarded because the rules are clear and, although the judge will decide subjectively, that subjective adjudication has internal logic. The same with DiXit where a well laid card based on the psychological assessment of all the players, except the storyteller of that round, will be rewarded because the rules are clear and the internal logic of the other voters.

What do you think of randomness in games?

Mind Games

Drum roll please...the name for the new website is: purposeful-play.com Thank you all for your feedback and conversations. I am still working on the programming of the site, trying to decide the best way to present it, but the domain name is purchased and associated with my server space. In the course of preparing the site I've realized that my aptitude in some programming isn't where I would like it to be. Which means I can use new knowledge, practice for underused skills, and concrete problems to avail.

What I realized was in my excitement to prepare the site and share not only these blog entries, but other new aspects of the site, that this drive was inadvertently encouraging me to go through motions which would lead to my learning and improving skills. Isn't this the beauty of games? To review my definition for games, "an endeavor which has the goal of overcoming challenges, but the value is primarily in the action, not the outcome." I want my web presence for game design and game-play to be found on purposeful-play.com and I want it to be more than a blog. I could pay someone to do that for me. But, because I have chosen to make it myself, to have total control, I'm finding all this joy in the endeavor itself, and that is propelling me through the challenge of learning new skills.

For a great view of what and how games can and are influencing our behavior watch this video a then tell me what positive things you've gotten from recreation.

Wii Games - E3 2012 - Guitar Hero 5

Name of The Game

I'm happy to say I'm invigorated and driven to continue with this line of posts about game design and theory, and game playing. What seems most desirable now is to have a website independent, unlike the current situation of using blogspot. The question remains, "what shall the new site be called?"

Unfortunately, MichaelAtPlay.com andGameOn.com are taken. PersonalLiberation.com is available, but I'm not sure if I want to use it for this narrow purpose. PuzzlePawn.com is available and I think it has a ring to it, as well as being on topic.

I open it to you, Audience. Tell me what you think should go into the name of the new site?

Information Disparity - Using The Edge

Some crave surprise and the nuance of subtle novelty. Some appreciate the real life simulation that lack of knowledge provides. For different reasons a lack of information is desirable in games. As we've talked about recently, unknowns make strategizing more difficult and make more prudent decisions most viable, such as rejecting the British monk's due to fear they would cease making payouts, or pre-emptive nuclear attacks.

So, what is a good long term strategy in this paradigm? Mitigate risk may be a good baseline, but a viable more aggressive strategy might be to place yourself in a position to benefit when another succumbs to revelation. When deciding a play in American football the best choice is a play you do well that has a high payoff in distance. The second best is the one the opponents don't expect, and therefore are vulnerable to. What your opponents know and what they think is powerful information, as it allows you to maximize exploiting the unknown with the least amount of risk. So, a game that allows for not only a lack of information, which any with randomization does, but also the ability to cultivate information disparity offers more viable strategy options.

Now the academic point of view on the last might be that there is only one best option, assuming asymmetric values. However, "in the field" we know information is being gathered in constant, subtle moments. The body language of our competitors across the table can instantly make a change in the calculations.

Options and Moving Parts

When making a statistical study you limit the options of possible answers so as to make comparisons easier. There are different degrees of this, but whether cardinal or ordinal, there certainly isn't a free form of organic options, such is human reality. When we think of games we often think of the moves available as categorizable. In American football the players performances may vary extremely, but the rules definitely limit the options of "moves."

One way of adding move variability is in making the arbitration mechanism binary or cardinal, but this is just a framework that gives shape to the play field, which is free form. Examples are voting and reputation ranking.

One way to simulate human society would be to collect each option, as they are realized, in a relational database, where different options could be ranked under conditions, and still be associated with specific people, times, et cetera.

Information Costs

Many games assume the players know all the rules and have an equally universal assessment of the value of all resources. In the board game Monopoly the only unknown is the outcome of dice rolls. The cost of improvements, rent, property, and number of properties per set, is all known so one might assess the value of each pair. The game of Clue, however is all about research costs, the winner is whoever has the lowest. The shortest route and the best recall of the information, suspects and potential murder weapons and the rooms, is going to win, with a slight deviation based on statistical outliers in the form of consistently high dice rolls.

In life we could benefit from knowing as much as we can. And we can know almost everything about now and extrapolate a lot about tomorrow. We can be aware of interest rates, average wages per industry and region, property values, stock market trends. We can also know a lot about ourselves. Where are we spending our resources? How much are we putting in to each task and how much are we getting out?

Game Theory of Romance: Part 1

Game theory is a way to map decisions with cost-benefit analysis that takes into account all of the "moves" in each set, and the degree of knowledge of the moves made by others. What does this look like if we apply it to the oldest game, the Game of Love? This is the first in a series that will explore different aspects of this.

In the first scenario we will assume this is a relationship between two arbitrarily chosen people, statistically average, and only their moves are of consequence. They are already in a romantic relationship with each other, will it stay that way?

Let's say they each get an amount of utility between 1 - 10 from being with the other, variance determined by many minute decisions by that person, their partner, and circumstantial details. If that person is rejected their utility is zero, if it is mutual rejection utility is two, and if they reject the other without being so in return utility is four. Now, due to inertia, the lover will not reject unless utility falls below four, because the rejection value is four, this assuming simultaneous decision making and transparency of intent.

If the lover's partner is difficult to understand, poor communications, erratic, then rejection becomes inevitable because the payoff of rejecting, four, is greater than that of mutual rejection and longer you wait the more opportunities to be rejected. Another trait that would increase desire to reject is if the partner places a high discount on future utility, that is, they don't place much value in planning for the future. In that case you have a partner that will get more than four utility from rejecting the lover, as they only see the grief avoided now, not the joy forfeit in the future, thus the risk of being rejected is high and will ultimately be avoided by the lover.

Re Reputation

Reputation systems as economic and business models have been spreading in popularity over the past decade or two as the idea has gone the usual route from academia, to science fiction and environmentalists, and then the business community. I've been fascinated with it for some time, going away and coming back, and I feel another attack of love sickness coming on.

Real quick topic warmer, Amazon.com is regarded as having the most successful and earliest contemporary, read Internet age, manifestations via their consumer sales. However, this ranking is limited to what they sell. Google, with search voting, the "+1" option, allows seamless reputation voting of everything networked.

Ideas and Patents

I have two fairly solid ideas that need to be codified and then at least one of them submitted for patent approval. Worst part of all of that, if there is a bad side, is not feeling free to share my enthusiasm completely due to needing to protect my intellectual capital from unscrupulous opportunists. Expressing my excitement means a lot to me, those feelings are largely the positive reinforcement for my creativity.

The one that is most ready for marketing and being patented will be getting its own website soon where the potential fruits can be trumpeted and donations be solicited. I'm going to work the environmentalism angle on this and try to get a decent starting capital without exposing myself to much personal financial risk.

Mental Puzzles and Present-ness

On this blog I have written much about large trends and movements in society itself, but not as much about very present, human-scale issues. Turning one's focus back to the here and now is exactly what this entry is about. You'll hear the wise talk about being present, that is: not fixating on the past and not fretting about the unknown future. That is the goal of the following method, but also being spatially present, as well. If there is something happening, or you believe it to be happening, right now but not in your immediate situation, then it is something to be avoided along with the past and future. If somewhere a deal for ten thousand shares in Google is taking place, but not where you are, it would be best your thoughts turned away from it.

Imagine your mental landscape as a maze. The dead-ends are the fears, delusions, obsessions, and insecurities which can derail and dominate our energies. In the middle are your values, ethical and aesthetic. We might cite our values when in a dead-end in some intellectual grooming to excuse our choices, but not until we dig our way out from the maze's depths can we be our mental identity.

Our journey for a healthy mental state doesn't end there. We can only be the maze center for a moment before we reflect, therefore we must choose quickly to re-focus our attention outward. In our model of the mental landscape the maze is two dimensional and can be seen superimposed upon our bodies. When we are focused internally the orientation is a plane that doesn't intersect the sense organs; imagine the maze starting in your frontal lobes and slanted down through the torso. When we get to, and become, the maze's center we can reorient the mental landscape to intersect the eyes, the skin, let it drift down to touch the nose and tongue, and experience the here and now. Sometimes we don't like where we are, but if that opinion is to mean something we have to live it.

Cyclic Pressures and Shipping

First, my apologies for the absence and thank-you for reading.

In this depression consumers are pulling back on the "extra." One example is the speed of items shipped. Many online ordering services offer a discounted, often free, shipping option which takes the most amount if time to arrive. This most modest option often employs the US Postal Service in the United States.

It would be interesting to know how the percent of online derived business for private porters has been effected. Likewise, how has the US Postal Services position as "shipper of last resort" effected the national revenue at a time of financial austerity.

Transportation Costs

The price of gasoline more than four dollars a gallon in the United States, we've seen this before, it fluctuates. What if four dollars a gallon wasn't an extreme high, but the average? I'm thinking right now about the suburbs and the exburbs, those in the most remote parts of the metropolitan zones. The people who own those houses will use a time share instead of buying the vacation home, will be using discount services like Priceline and air miles more frequently, generally looking for more opportunities to save without curtailing their lifestyles; they will succeed because the percentage of their expenses transportation costs comprise is small.

Those who don't own houses in the suburbs will have to take more drastic measures. Some of which I imagine being a popular strategy is reducing travelling distances and using public transportation. As most of these people don't live in the suburbs, and even less will with four dollars a gallon average prices, working in the suburbs will have high utility penalties. The restaurants, grocers, and hospitality services will need to pay more to maintain, while those small businesses, the non-chain versions in the urban centers, will be able to compete in the labor market at lower prices. There may be a rebirth of urban industry, one that will have to coexist with contemporary pollution and health standards.

The Beauty of Nothing

I've been noticing a strong commonality between Existentialism and Buddhism. In both systems of thought the present is held as the goal and the rest is how to get there and deal with it. One method Buddhism suggests is to be still, in body and mind, but especially mind.
Some have said that this act of not acting is alien to Western people, but I disagree. At least since the television has become a common appliance this has been true. It could be that television is so popular because of a desire for stillness, but television doesn't create a file environment for introspection, which can be intimidating. Stillness, then, can help us grow, so it is more productive than passively brainwashing ourselves. Something to consider the next time you want to relax.

Qualitative Survey of Motorists - Thursday, April 14, 2011

Vast majority, approximately over ninety percent, were single occupied vehicles.
Well over half were driven by women.
When passengers were present, all were women.
The number of drivers of Negro descent were approximately on par with cohort's ratio of the United States population.
The number of passengers of Negro descent were over par with cohort's ratio of United States population.

The survey was conducted on the Eastbound motor vehicles on Morse Road in Columbus, Ohio from 8:00 - 8:10 A.M.

(Sports) Philosophy of Mind

Most team games have the goal of taking the ball away, and keeping it, from the opposing players. This is an incentive to reduce the participation, thus the fun, of competitors. It encourages team work on one side, but doesn't foster inclusion and rapport across the field.
As a side note for all the traditional business network builders: Golf is passive-aggressive, the players engage through the turf.
For a cooperative competition look for games where everyone gets a turn, or at least there is an incentive to give other players an opportunity to participate. Examples include tennis and role playing.

April - Odds and Ends

In the United States April is National Poetry Month. A great opportunity to flex your creative organ, try to write everyday. This is a good excuse to put color and bold ideas in the workplace.

Speaking of bold ideas, the United States federal government has a website for contract opportunities: WWW.fbo.gov

There are opportunities in improving efficiency currently. Since prices have increased, but not due to demand, now isn't a good time to increase production. Just as the past two to three years have been used to shake out the personnel roles, this segment is ripe for capital upgrades.

There has been talk about automating, streamlining work flow with software and processes, and alternative and reduced energy use. While some players may not feel a motivation to change the highest value is in harnessing efficiency. Those who fail to do so will be replaced by more nimble and hardy competitors.

Games

Wanting to write and create and make some money. Sometimes it seems these things are contradictory, but I believe there is an important, but viscous vetting process.

Currently, I am designing assistant applets for underserved business needs. This is primarily a developer portfolio building excuse, but I'm presenting it as the work of a company, not somebody fooling around in their off time, so there may be monetization opportunities.

I'm still trying to get published by a game company, for which I'll be making another submission soon. I also plan to take advantage of the long tail by doing some self publishing.

Looking Inward

There are a lot of exciting changes, mostly for the better, happening around the world. These events can be stimulating for the vicarious observer in ways that can distract from self-evaluation. Even being a part of such events can be a challenge as there is a strong proclivity towards seeing oneself in light of circumstances, not in the purity of self. Should the movement your actions aspire toward take hold or not should not affect the way you are, nor understand yourself.

Let us take time to clear our minds of the distractions and allow us to just be.

The Vision Thing

I finished Jitterbug Perfume, by Tom Robbins, for the first time last night. It felt like verse pounded into prose, the flowing of one idea to the next, self-referencing with ease. I'm impressed by the combination of myth and science, of explaining or describing half and leaving the rest unanswered and vague.

A friend said yesterday she was trying to determine what she values so she can plan for a future that reflects her will. "Our values are constantly changing," was my reply. I think this is a good motivation to both not take things, and that includes ourselves, too seriously, and to have initiative in resolving our projects before we change.

Democracy: An Arabian Value

For those in the West with little exposure to Muslims may look at terrorism and the lands that the U.S. has meddled in since Vietnam and think followers of Islam to be especially violent. It might be easy to come to erroneous conclusions when one doesn't have a living memory of colonial rule. However, what we have seen in Iran, Lebanon, Palestine, and recently in Tunisia and Egypt, is a peaceful demand for an equal voice and an equality of opportunity.

Meanwhile, the United States, with institutional and economic superiority, chooses time and again to use violence, even against fellow democracies. It is unclear if the citizens of the U.S. are hypocrites or terminally negligent, but right they are not.

Inspiration

What a week for Africa, what hope is in the air. If you are in Africa you may be feeling a sense of hope from events that may directly effect your life, or the lives of friends and family. Cote d'Ivoire, Tunisia, Sudan, Congo, even the whole of Africa via the start of this year's WWW.UrgentEvoke.com Indirectly we all feel hope; seeing a land known for poor material wealth, under-utilized human wealth, and extensive corruption find hope is eating a slice of humble pie with a shot of elation.

We need to hold on to this feeling, hold on to the up-surge of drive for progress. Change for the better and the long-term can only come in the presence of faith. The Sun rises and the winter will end.

Love in the key of Objectivist Humanism?

I've cracked the code, uncovered the last seal in the Objectivism saga. Ayn Rand wrote that there are two major distractions, hedonism, where one is motivated by base, short-term stimulus, and a perverse version of altruism, being motivated to appease and sacrifice. The middle road, lauded Rand, is Objectivism, where one values initiative and derives self-value from accomplishments. While this describes a world of givers and takers in a self loathing spiral, the alternative she offers is lacking. What if we try but fail? What if we want to do, but are crippled by poor self image? What about those who conditions is such that almost all their energies are spent on maintaining health?

Humanism and Buddhism tell us that we are valuable because we are. This precious moment is a miracle and we need to appreciate how it manifests, no matter what the details are. It seems that Objectivism would be much better off if it was addended with a little love from the likes of Rogers. What if we took Rand's original statement, as paraphrased above, and on the healthy middle path we said, "when you take initiative toward your personal goals and dreams, believing in and valuing your self, then the behavior that pours forth, whether fruitful in bringing about a change or addition, is good. You were successful in being you, the most important act."

Resolutions and Time Management

The turning of the solar and lunar calendars and the changing of numbers in our sterilized civilization is a mnemonic marker which tells us when all of those annual things come to account. We in the West have a wonderful tradition of resolutions, of resolving to make a change, and in the age of progress, it is a secular, self-affirming, "positive" change.

Of course, we should strive to be in a constant state of flux that takes into account the turbulent nature of being an entity that is the overlay of billions of semi-individual organisms in a hallucinatory state of "self" and whose nature is highly social, that is, dependent on the relations with other such beings in definition and measure. So, the idea of a prescribed time to resolve for improvement could be a textbook example of contrived, if such a guide be in demand. However, we are, as noted above, social, and it is being prompted by this society to improve that I find the inspiration for the following, as well as aspiring to inspire.

To evaluate myself as a work in progress, to acknowledge that there is more work to do, and all work worth doing takes time for fruition. There are things out of my control, be they externalities or circumstance or structural bias, and are obstacles to be aware, not any part of self evaluation. Which is to say, I must practice what I preach here in PersonalLiberationLand. We are the beautiful phantasm of individuals, an evanescent drop on the surface of society built on a synergy of organic chemistry which rests so fragile on a lattice of physics. There is no room for circumstances there, except those which we nigh miraculously overcome to exist.

To avoid distractions, finding a joy in progressing, no matter how infinitely tiny, no matter how quixotic the goal may seem, towards that which I have set out to do until I succeed or die. There is nothing more pathetic than having a blog where you describe how being independent of mind and spirit is the very definition of living an authentic life, then being distracted in the very pursuits that you are driven to do, and after a time, bitch that you haven't succeeded (not directly to you, dear readers, not you).

Making evaluations of goals to see if they stay in alignment with ideals and are in proportion to where they sit in priority. This is a little like the "my third wish is for an infinite number of wishes" kind of resolution, the meta--resolution.