On the enjoyment and creation of beauty

“Enjoying or creating beauty is free and something all human beings have access to.”

~ From Ikigai by Héctor García and Francesc Miralles

While reading Ikigai, I came across the above, which stopped me in my tracks. It’s the perfect encapsulation of something I’ve been thinking about lately. The act of making, of creating, of making good (or bad) art is available to all of us, as is the enjoyment of that art.

AI, for example, is going to change a lot of things. It’s understandably stressful, But while it’s too early to say if they’ll be able to share in this enjoyment, one thing is clear: AI won’t take away our ability to create and enjoy for ourselves. I’ve been using it to explore ideas, help visualize my writing, and play. Simply playing around with it is enjoyable, and I find the random, unpredictable nature more entertaining than frustrating. Though I’ll admit, it can be frustrating when you can’t get the prompts to do what you want.

There’s beauty in the doing, in the sharing, and in the receiving.

On game design

Years ago, in 2009 or so, my little design company took a job to build a mobile version of a fairly popular social game called Spymaster. If you were on Twitter back then, you’d likely remember it as it was extremely popular—both to play and to hate on. For me, this was an interesting new area of design as I was getting into mobile design, and while I was a pretty big gamer, I’d never done anything related to a game.

I learned a lot in the years that followed. About game design, viral loops, marketing, mechanics, content creation, art direction, and more. I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, as I can’t help but wonder what it would have been like to enter that space now. What would that experience have been like with tools like the blockchain and AI?

Before I get too far into it, two things stand out as universal in gaming. Two essential tips:

1. It has to be fun. Fun is job number one for a successful game. No amount of viral trickery, sideways incentives, or guilt-based engagement practices will get you farther than a simple focus on fun.

2. It has to be simple, at least at the start. Complexity can and should come only after the core mechanics have been mastered.

Back to the reflection. When I started working on Spymaster, it was a divisive game. Some people LOVED it; many others HATED it. I think there were some valid reasons for that hate, and I also totally get why people loved it. The core mechanics involved were entertaining, at least at first, and it was relatively simple to play, relying on social engagement via Twitter to work.

But it wasn’t a game for me. I worked on that mobile interface, and that went well. Well enough that I left my company—which I’d founded and grown successfully—to join the company that made Spymaster. The big carrot there was that I’d be able to design and pitch a game of my own design. As a designer, who loves to learn and try new things, this was…well, I feel extremely lucky to have had the opportunity.

I spent quite a while studying game design and thinking about what I liked about games. I concluded that games needed to be, at their core, fun to play. This might seem obvious—but I assure you, it’s not obvious to everyone.

I looked around at the other successful games at the time: Farmville, Mafia Wars, etc., and did not understand them. They weren’t fun. I can’t tell you how many arguments I got into with folks around this over the years. The prevailing attitude was that “gamification” and “viral loops”—and other jargony bullshit—were the things you needed for a successful game.

I went in the opposite direction. I created a game—Shadelight—that was fun first and used some of the social gaming mechanics to enhance that fun instead of trying to paint an unfun experience with pretty colors and characters, which most other games at the time did. I did this largely on my own at first, using stock photos and my meager illustration skills for the assets. I wrote all the content and designed everything from the UI/UX to the mechanics and economics.

Shadelight as it looked in 2010 or so

Thankfully I was able to convince my small team this was worth working on, and in about three months, we had an alpha and began to add players. They loved it. The game was fun—the core mechanic was a kind of social choose-your-own-adventure with a heavy focus on story and choices. Imagine one of the original Bioware games in a Facebook social game format, and you’ll have an idea. It had factions, classes, skill-based UI games, and lots of small sinks—mini-games, PVP, equipment stores, and the like. There was a lot to do, and we added new modules and adventures, most free but a few pay-to-play, almost every week.

It was popular enough that we were acquired by IGN and were funded to work on Shadelight for about a year or so, unencumbered and, while on a tight budget, pretty much free to do what we wanted. We doubled down on the creative, hiring another writer and some illustrators, and putting a lot of effort into upping the quality of the content and adding mechanisms that supported that content. The game grew and was doing well. However—of course, it couldn’t last—we reached a point where, while we were doing well, were profitable, etc., we couldn’t scale. We kept adding players, but the costs to create new and engaging content became too expensive.

This wasn’t what killed the game, not exactly. We could have kept it going for a while, and it would have continued to grow slowly. No, what killed it was the business, hungry for growth and not seeing the forest for the trees, bringing in people who wanted to take our ideas and spin them off into other ventures. This might sound ok, but the core game mechanics of these other ventures weren’t fun. We tried this, leaned into it, and tried our best to make it work. The whole time I just wanted to work on Shadelight, the game we knew was fun and could keep going, but the suits involved kept pushing us away from quality content and fun towards something they felt was more scalable.

And, not to throw too much shade on them. Quality content is hard to scale. But here’s the lesson: without quality content—without fun—there is nothing to work with. Scaling shit lands you more shit.

Thankfully, this didn’t last long. Seeing the end of fun and that this road we were on was going nowhere, my team began to quit. I was one of the first out the door, but the core team was gone in a couple of months. I went on to do more in the social gaming space, and that was an adventure—though not a very fun one—but my game was dead. The suits tried to keep it going, but not knowing what fun looked like and hell-bent on viral growth, they drove it to the ground.

I look back on this and can’t help but think we were before our time. Had we access to blockchain technology to help with the economics of the game, I think it would have been better for our players and us. We would have been able to monetize in a much more sustainable way and also likely have devised mechanics that would have been able to add fun and revenue into the mix.

As well, with AI tools, we could have likely kept our content creation costs in check. I think I would still like to have the skills of talented artists, but we could have supplemented that to help realize ideas and storylines much more quickly. As well, wow, that first version of the game would have been so much more polished.

I had so much fun working on Shadelight, and I’ve always longed to do something like that again. I’m not sure now is the right time for me, but I’d love to get back into it someday. This time, I’d keep the focus on fun and quality content but lose the investors and need to grow. I think it could be a sustainable lifestyle business with a great relationship between the creator and the players.

Someday.

Spite by Billy Nomates

I’ve shared less music here than I thought I would. Three weeks into this journal, I’m adding my first Most Important Song. Unexpected! And, if that weren’t enough, it’s a bit of an odd choice for me. I first heard Billy Nomates on the fabulous Sleaford Mods track “Mork n Mindy” (Spotify Link). Digging that, I began to dig through her other music and what I found was not what I expected.

At first blush, Billy Nomates, and “spite” in particular, are not the kind of music I typically like. In this particular case, it’s a little too pop; with some other songs, it’s a little too country or a little to slow or some other “little too.”

Those “little toos” might be why I like her, and I like her quite a bit. She’s just to the left of things I don’t typically like, making her music interesting. Kerri had a listen and also liked her style quite a bit, Chrissie Hynde of The Pretenders, and that works quite well in a few ways.

Her new album CACTI is out now, and it’s quite good.

Finish a first draft of a novel

I’ve had less time this week to think and reflect. But that’s ok; there is a good reason for it. I’ve fallen a tiny bit behind on one of my larger goals—finishing the first draft of a novel—which I am to have by the middle of June this year.

2023 is the year I’ll get that draft finished, and assuming it’s good enough, I also hope to have at least one complete revision and—as a stretch goal—share it with someone else. Right now, I’m just starting, or maybe I should say, I’m getting re-started. The idea I’m working on has been bouncing around in my head for years now, and I’ve made a few attempts at starting it, trying out different methods of outlining prep work and methodologies to try and get it going. It’s never entirely worked. Every time I start strong, I lose steam as the plot problems pile up.

The prevailing advice on writing your first draft is to power through, and I think that’s good advice, but it’s been a struggle for me. Last time life got in the way, and I lost the thread. Most times, I run out of steam. This time, though, I am going to power through and finish. I’m not even worried if it’s good or if I want to continue when I’ve hit the end of that first draft. I want to finish, and that’s my goal.

So what’s my story about? I’m not quite ready to share the details, but it’s an urban meets high fantasy tale with some extensive world-building behind it. Having said that, this particular story is, I hope, strongly character driven with a coming-of-age theme wrapped in a supernatural mystery framing. It sounds generic, but I think it’s got some original aspects and a unique spin. If I can execute—big if, heh—then I think it’ll be familiar but also new.

Photowalking

Hello Journal! This last week was a bit weird, with many different things contributing to a low level of anxiety and stress. Thankfully it didn’t get to me all that much, and I was able to be mindful of it in a way that allowed me to work through it and even find some flow along the way.

One thing that helped me a lot was getting outside, which I do most days, but in a kind semi-mindful habit type of way: exercise, walking the dog, etc. I’ve developed some strong, and I think, helpful habits around getting outside daily. But this week, as an attempt to combat anxiety, I tried to get out more than usual, and I also added activities designed to try and help me relax and break cycles of circular thinking and worry.

One of those things I did almost every day when I was younger—Photowalking. It is precisely what you’d expect. Go outside for some walking, bring a camera and take some photos. It combines light exercise, sunlight, and the outdoors with a simple creation activity.

I think it helped quite a bit, and I’m glad I did it. Below are some of the photos I captured. I used my Moment macro lens, and I really wanted to slow down and capture some of the small details around my yard and my neighborhood. Relecting, this act was a distraction from my anxiety but also a project that forced me to notice small, interesting things around me and use them to make something.

Experiments with Midjourney

Good morning, Journal. Today I’ve got a lot on my mind, and even more on my to-do list, but I' wanted to share some of the work I’ve been doing with AI. Much of these are proof of concept pieces, as I learn the boundaries of Midjourney and explore some concepts. I’ve begun to sketch out a project that I think will be interesting and a great way to learn, but also touch on a few of my interests in an entertaining way. More on that in future.

I’ll just leave these here. For now.

Jibaro

A fascinating inside look into Jibaro, the incredible animated short from Alberto Mielgo. I highly suggest watching the actual film before you dive into the inside look. Beware, though, that it’s a bit disturbing.

“Jibaro is like a brutal disaster.” ~ Director Alberto Mielgo

What a ride! Jibaro, the last episode from season three of Love, Death + Robots, is unlike anything I’ve ever watched. I’m a big fan of the series and short-form animation, but Jibaro blew my mind.

Its frenetic pace, quick jump-cuts, and wild motion design could be off-putting for some, and there are some disturbing and extremely violent stretches, but I found the whole thing beautiful. A brutal disaster indeed. The model design, art direction, sound direction, motion design, etc., is fantastic and pushes the envelope of what animation can do.

It’s realistic-ish, living in an uncanny valley with the characters, but seemingly done very purposefully. You want to relate to the characters and the story of this toxic relationship if that’s what it is, but only just enough. Jibaro rides the edge perfectly between fantastic realism and absurd surrealism. Alberto Mielgo and his team have made something incredible.

Keep a won’t do list

Many years ago, when I was working as an associate editor for Lifehacker—one of a few jobs I had back then, I was a bit of a hustler—I wrote an article about a practice I was very fond of: the creation and keeping of a won’t do list. I couldn’t find that article anywhere, and I’ve since lost the practice, but as the general idea keeps coming up wherever I look, I thought I’d revisit it.

It’s not a complicated idea and is underrated; the gist is this: I make and keep a list of all the things I will not do. The idea here is to be aware of all the things that come into my day-to-day and be diligent about what makes it onto my to-do list.

It’s easy and can help bring focus onto the things that matter. It fits nicely with some of my 2023 goals, mainly not letting others dictate my time and being more proactive with my energy. And it works well alongside the mantra of “Embrace, learn, and grow stronger” as it can be reflected from time to time. It could contain concrete things I’m interested in stopping/quitting or, more general, like bad habits I’d like to work on.

Simply putting the list together and thinking about what I want to spend my time and energy on is extremely valuable. I can’t say the list itself is all that useful except to reflect upon, but it’s a relatively good device to help me be more mindful about what I’m spending time on.

My list has become a bit specific and personal, so I won’t share it all here, but here are a few choice examples:

• Won’t finish “x” project or book

• Won’t waste time looking at social media

• Won’t eat ice cream after 8 pm

• Won’t respond to that one email

• Etc.

I’ve found that quite a few things that have made it to this list are things other people try to put there. Because of this, I added, “won’t let people add to my to-do list.”

Sometimes not doing something is the best way to get things done. I’ve found this helpful in the past, and I think it’s a good practice to get into, if for no other reason than to see all the things I could be doing and better gauge how to do those things I want to do.

How to achieve flow

One of the primary reasons I started this journal was to get back into a creation habit. And one of the reasons I want to get that habit of creation going again is so I can more easily get into a flow state.

Why flow? Well, it feels good, and it’s good for you. In his seminal book on the subject Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi describes flow as “a state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience is so enjoyable that people will continue to do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it.” Essentially, flow is a key ingredient in lasting happiness.

Csikszentmihalyi asserts that happiness can be achieved, practiced, and achieved easier over time as one learns to get into flow. In my experience, this is true, but it’s not the only benefit to getting into flow. It’s also a great way to get things done.

It’s been many years since I’ve read the book, and, candidly, I found it dry and difficult to read, let alone enjoy, but he does outline the “how to” in getting into flow. The following is a bit rough, but I have been taking some notes on flow as I’ve been reading Ikigai and refreshing myself on Csikszentmihalyi’s work.

Conditions needed to achieve flow:

1. Know what you’re doing. Note: this doesn’t mean you need to be a master, only that you know how to do what you’re doing. Learning can be a good way to get into flow.

2. Understand how well you’re doing through feedback. Essentially, noticing your progress.

3. Engage in a task that has you somewhat challenged, at least enough to absorb your attention in the task at hand. Ideally, such that your action and attention are working together.

4. Find a distraction-free environment and have control over what you are doing at all times.

Strategies for flow

• Choose something challenging but not too difficult. You want to enter the uncomfort zone but with something doable.

• Have a clear objective. You don’t need a map to your goal but a compass. You should know where you want to be and what to do, but you don’t need the course mapped out. Have a clear objective focusing on the process, but don’t obsess over the details or the finished product. The idea is to plan and then do the work. Reflect on what you hope to achieve: What is my objective for today’s session? How many words am I going to write?

• Concentrate on one thing at a time. Multitasking is not effective. Distractions are deadly. Concentrating on one thing at a time might be the most important aspect of achieving flow. People suck at multitasking, and you can’t multitask and also be in flow. Context switching drains energy, makes us less effective, more stressed, more error-prone, retaining less information, etc. This is especially true for complex areas requiring domain knowledge, deep thinking, and creative work.

• Look for “mircroflows”—the art of doing and enjoying simple tasks. Things like washing the dishes, painting, running errands, etc. Most of us do this, even if we aren’t aware of it.

• Cultivate a meditation practice. There's not much to say about this; it’s a great way to clear the deck and prepare yourself for flow. Looking back at 2022, a year I slipped out of the habit of daily meditation, I wonder how much that affected my inability to resist distraction.

• Embrace ritual. Rituals help flow by providing clear objectives and rules guiding people towards goals. An unclear expectation or goal is one of the hardest things to deal with in work-life. Rituals or processes—so often derided as a bad word—can help not only with the steps and subsets that give us a path to follow but in clearing up expectations, often to the realization that the goal is unattainable or otherwise not worth pursuing. In my life and projects, both work and personal, rituals of starting is often enough to unblock even the trickiest problems.

Flow can be trained, and one of the best ways to do that is to begin recognizing those things in your life that place you into a flow state. But that’s not all; in the book Ikigai, the authors assert that finding your flow(s) can lead to finding your Ikigai—your purpose in life. Another interesting tip from Ikigai is to leverage similar activities to those you enjoy. Especially if you are good at something, if painting gets you into flow, you can try photography.

Here’s a list of things that put me into a state of flow:

• Snowboarding

• Walking. But only if I’m only walking and not doing anything else. Walking is one of the things I feel ok multitasking, but only if the other thing I’m doing is the focus. Even then, it’s not nearly as effective or enjoyable as it would be on its own. But that’s a whole other topic.

• Writing, sometimes, if I’m either freewriting or the topic is clear in my mind.

• Making art. I’m not a good artist, but I find that making art can quickly put me into a flow state that lasts for a long time. It feels good to make art. Incidentally, this is one reason I don’t think AI art will ever replace human artists. Humans like to make art.

• Making maps. Probably the same as making art but a bit more specific.

• DJing. More than just listening to music, picking out the songs and syncing the beats can lift me into a flow state.

• Cleaning or yard work, but only if there is a fairly large job to do.

• Video games, but only for short-ish stretches.

Ikigai by Héctor García & Francesc Miralles

⭐⭐⭐⭐

File under: Better Living

As a resolution for the new year, I plan to spend some time each day reading non-fiction. Primary of the type I feel like I can glean practical learnings from to bring into my day-to-day life. The first is a book I started over the holiday break: Ikigai by Héctor García & Francesc Miralles.

Ikigai is about finding your purpose and putting that purpose into practice for a long, healthy, and happy life. It’s small—an easy read—filled with lots of practical nuggets and insight.

The word “Ikigai” is Japanese and translates roughly to “a reason for living.”

The authors argue that everyone has an ikigai or a sense of purpose in life and that finding and living following one's ikigai can bring a sense of fulfillment and happiness well into advanced age.

For me, this was a bit of a challenging read. Not due to the writing style, length, or anything like that. I identify with much of what the authors talk about, but I have always felt lacking in an easily identifiable purpose. It’s one of the reasons I picked this one up. I have reasons to live but feel a bit lost when I think about things like my “life’s work” or an underlying reason for living. I imagine that feeling is pretty familiar to many.

The book draws on the authors' experiences and research, as well as on the stories and practices of people from Japan and other countries, to present a comprehensive guide to finding and living one's ikigai. In particular, I enjoyed all the interviews and anecdotes from the centenarians in Okinawa. The latter chapters cover foods, exercise, and lifestyle. I’ve noted to dig deeper into those, especially the exercise. The practice of Radio Taiso, especially, seems interesting to me. I like to get moving early in the day, and I almost always wake up sore, so I think I could benefit from something like that.

To sum it up, Ikigai is a thought-provoking and inspiring book that encourages us to think deeply about our sense of purpose and to take steps to align our lives with it. It offers practical advice and guidance on how to find and pursue one's ikigai.