1. At sufficient gameplay at Level 1, you kinda know what it is that makes you happy the most. Look at all your mini quests before this. If you don’t know what you absolutely like, you need to spend more time doing level 1 things. Like finding things you like doing, are interesting, challenging you.
Once you feel you have 1-2 plays (could be projects/roles/functions) you sufficiently like and enjoy pursuing it is time to then consider - do you want to be the River Meanderer and continue trying things in this zone? Or do you want to be the best/fastest/richest/ any other -est in it? Or would you prefer individually solving hard problems in this field?
2. In parallel, if choosing is hard, keep in mind the final boss of level 2 - guilt. If not doing X makes you feel guilty the most, that probably is what is most important to you.
Ask yourself - When you’re 60, would you regret not doing this now?
1. What if the introspection after level 1 says be npc, atleast you'll have dental and space of your own to do another quest peacefully?
2. What if you want to be a mountain climber but ended up being the puzzle solver with unfinished projects and hermit life now? How do you move forward?
3. Guilt also comes with regrets and confusions, how do you see beyond fog if guilt is just about not being able to do things or to figure out right thing?
Sorry if this is stretched, I just got too much into this haha.
1. So having a job that pays your dental and makes you independent does not make you an NPC. You’re still playing, aren’t you? :) When I mentioned you spawn with your own “base stats” I meant that you have your own constraints. For most, it could be monetary.
But other examples in these base stats could also be - family background, previous debts, disabilities, responsibilities, social factors, gender, race, caste - basically your own stats across the spectrum. In my next post, I intend to detail how to navigate this — and how to not think of yourself as doomed. Your situations may change. For eg.-
I) There are people for example who build bank before they branch out to start their own thing.
II) There are people who say, I’ll figure out the stability part later and choose to pursue what they WANT right then because maybe the timing matters at that point.
Your base stats are a reflection of your privilege or disadvantages. And you’ve got to work with them.
Here in this post, I was simply laying out the mindset to start looking at your career in this manner.
——
2. As I mentioned, most people are a mix of these. If you know that you want to be a mountain climber, strive towards the goals you’re setting. Temporary phases of following other routes are always an option. But if you know what you want, that’s already half the job done. I’ll be covering this in my next post in greater detail, but the great part about this is that you need to look at your life in “bets” of 3-5 years. These are not fixed “destinies”. So basically you’ve got roughly 7-12 bets that you can make on yourself if one assumes one shall work until 60.
And this sits on top of the two frameworks (Quest type and Class) that I’ve already covered here.
——-
3. I hope my answers in 1 and 2 help to ease off some of the guilt. When you realize that life is about bets, you may start seeing that initial bets can be slower, leaning into trying things and building stability (basically to offset your base stats). This is more common that you’d like to think.
In real life, for example, this can look like:
- first 1-2 bets figuring out financial stability while finding avenues to explore and specialize either around your current quest or as side quests alongside the main one you’re already in.
- next 1-2 bets really exploring what you like
- doubling down in the next 2-3 bets and honing your own craft and your own brand
- over the next ones, building on top of what you’ve done so far
That’s alright - you’re thinking in the right direction - I only hope my explanations are useful.
Yes, actually! The best way to use creative writing models is for editing.
In case anyone reading this is wondering how I wrote an article that conveys my points, for a long-form, 3000+ word article with context rot and default output token limits, here's my process in short:
- Write an article storyline with bullet points in short about ideas you want to cover (roughly 300-400 words)
- Include in this^ any examples, specific points you want to make
- Get an outline of the article from AI
- Refine outline and define sections (that's how I know how long this would be)
- Decide how much you'd want to elaborate on a point to drive it home
- Each section becomes a mini article. If you have previous content you've written this becomes easy because you can ask AI to copy your tone.
- For sections conveying a new/major ideas that I'd want people to remember, I like to add visualizations because people can forget words. Visuals are harder to forget. --> I ask AI for suggestions to convey a certain idea, like "visualization for NPCs scaring you"
- Iterate with every paragraph until you're satisfied - after a certain point, context rot takes over and ruins the mode - so it makes more sense to expand on these in your words, and use AI only for editing
- Keep copying relevant and completed bits to a word doc
Took me about 7-9 hours (could've been 3-4 days of effort for me) to actually "write" the article. Note - the actual one I wrote was 6000+ words, so I had to cut it short. Another couple of hours to decide and draw the illustrations because all my attempts of doing this with Flux models gave non-satisfactory results. :)
But for writers surviving under capitalism, what is the choice. Social capital gained from making real writing does not pay the bills. When algorithms choose who gets to see what, as a creator wouldnt you recruit your own algorithm?
How do you choose what to specialise in when in level 2?
Good question! :) How I look at it is -
1. At sufficient gameplay at Level 1, you kinda know what it is that makes you happy the most. Look at all your mini quests before this. If you don’t know what you absolutely like, you need to spend more time doing level 1 things. Like finding things you like doing, are interesting, challenging you.
Once you feel you have 1-2 plays (could be projects/roles/functions) you sufficiently like and enjoy pursuing it is time to then consider - do you want to be the River Meanderer and continue trying things in this zone? Or do you want to be the best/fastest/richest/ any other -est in it? Or would you prefer individually solving hard problems in this field?
2. In parallel, if choosing is hard, keep in mind the final boss of level 2 - guilt. If not doing X makes you feel guilty the most, that probably is what is most important to you.
Ask yourself - When you’re 60, would you regret not doing this now?
I hope that helps!
Thankss!
1. What if the introspection after level 1 says be npc, atleast you'll have dental and space of your own to do another quest peacefully?
2. What if you want to be a mountain climber but ended up being the puzzle solver with unfinished projects and hermit life now? How do you move forward?
3. Guilt also comes with regrets and confusions, how do you see beyond fog if guilt is just about not being able to do things or to figure out right thing?
Sorry if this is stretched, I just got too much into this haha.
1. So having a job that pays your dental and makes you independent does not make you an NPC. You’re still playing, aren’t you? :) When I mentioned you spawn with your own “base stats” I meant that you have your own constraints. For most, it could be monetary.
But other examples in these base stats could also be - family background, previous debts, disabilities, responsibilities, social factors, gender, race, caste - basically your own stats across the spectrum. In my next post, I intend to detail how to navigate this — and how to not think of yourself as doomed. Your situations may change. For eg.-
I) There are people for example who build bank before they branch out to start their own thing.
II) There are people who say, I’ll figure out the stability part later and choose to pursue what they WANT right then because maybe the timing matters at that point.
Your base stats are a reflection of your privilege or disadvantages. And you’ve got to work with them.
Here in this post, I was simply laying out the mindset to start looking at your career in this manner.
——
2. As I mentioned, most people are a mix of these. If you know that you want to be a mountain climber, strive towards the goals you’re setting. Temporary phases of following other routes are always an option. But if you know what you want, that’s already half the job done. I’ll be covering this in my next post in greater detail, but the great part about this is that you need to look at your life in “bets” of 3-5 years. These are not fixed “destinies”. So basically you’ve got roughly 7-12 bets that you can make on yourself if one assumes one shall work until 60.
And this sits on top of the two frameworks (Quest type and Class) that I’ve already covered here.
——-
3. I hope my answers in 1 and 2 help to ease off some of the guilt. When you realize that life is about bets, you may start seeing that initial bets can be slower, leaning into trying things and building stability (basically to offset your base stats). This is more common that you’d like to think.
In real life, for example, this can look like:
- first 1-2 bets figuring out financial stability while finding avenues to explore and specialize either around your current quest or as side quests alongside the main one you’re already in.
- next 1-2 bets really exploring what you like
- doubling down in the next 2-3 bets and honing your own craft and your own brand
- over the next ones, building on top of what you’ve done so far
That’s alright - you’re thinking in the right direction - I only hope my explanations are useful.
Thankyou. This is very helpful and fun to read & ponder over.
Very cool just wondering if you used AI to write this? idk if my ai-dar is functioning
Yes, actually! The best way to use creative writing models is for editing.
In case anyone reading this is wondering how I wrote an article that conveys my points, for a long-form, 3000+ word article with context rot and default output token limits, here's my process in short:
- Write an article storyline with bullet points in short about ideas you want to cover (roughly 300-400 words)
- Include in this^ any examples, specific points you want to make
- Get an outline of the article from AI
- Refine outline and define sections (that's how I know how long this would be)
- Decide how much you'd want to elaborate on a point to drive it home
- Each section becomes a mini article. If you have previous content you've written this becomes easy because you can ask AI to copy your tone.
- For sections conveying a new/major ideas that I'd want people to remember, I like to add visualizations because people can forget words. Visuals are harder to forget. --> I ask AI for suggestions to convey a certain idea, like "visualization for NPCs scaring you"
- Iterate with every paragraph until you're satisfied - after a certain point, context rot takes over and ruins the mode - so it makes more sense to expand on these in your words, and use AI only for editing
- Keep copying relevant and completed bits to a word doc
Took me about 7-9 hours (could've been 3-4 days of effort for me) to actually "write" the article. Note - the actual one I wrote was 6000+ words, so I had to cut it short. Another couple of hours to decide and draw the illustrations because all my attempts of doing this with Flux models gave non-satisfactory results. :)
But for writers surviving under capitalism, what is the choice. Social capital gained from making real writing does not pay the bills. When algorithms choose who gets to see what, as a creator wouldnt you recruit your own algorithm?