The Weekly Review: Vol VI Issue 10
Happy 4th of July friends!
As Will Smith puts it:
It’s summer, summer, summer time.
And I welcome this time of year — bring on the sun. Both May and June have had some nice stretches of weather this year and we’re having a great time puttering around the yard and garden.
My wife put together a cozy little spot on our front deck last year and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed many an afternoon from there. It’s become my favourite place to work. You may live in a location where sitting outside without socks is ordinary. But around here we have a 3 month window to enjoy such things.
I’m going to make the most of it.
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Items of note
What I Learned Co-Founding Dribbble
Dan Cederhom recently announced that he is leaving Dribbble, the company he started over 10 years ago. It’s one of those 20-things-I-learned kind of posts, but hang in until the end where he makes some great point that hits close to home.
Under point 19, aptly named Take care of yourself first, he shares a little about his experience with anxiety.
Anxiety is a medical condition—it’s biological. A chemical imbalance where our primitive “fight or flight” response kicks in at times it shouldn’t. It’s also a condition that’s often misunderstood by those that don’t experience it. But it needs to lose its stigma. It should be talked about more. Millions suffer from it.
This is why I’ve shared about the struggles in our family. If someone breaks their leg or comes down with cancer, we extend our sympathy. We need to keep talking about mental health issues so we stop thinking about these kinds of issues in the wrong way.
I like Dan’s focus here on the biology. A lot of mental health issues requires changes in thinking on the part of the person who is ill (and that is damn hard work). But it often just comes down the body not working correctly — just like cancer.
Our bodies are amazing chemical factories and, unfortunately, the end result doesn’t isn’t always good health. So the more we can talk about it, the better we can understand it, the better we can recognize that medication is often the appropriate treatment (or at least a part of the treatment along with CBT or related techniques).
The Glorious, Almost-Disconnected Boredom of My Walk in Japan
Craig Mod finished his 600+ mile walk through parts of Japan recently. If, like me, you read his newsletter(s) or even subscribed to his SMS experiment, then you’ve heard a lot about this exercise already. If not, this Wired article is a good summary.
I WAS ON an epic walk, 620 miles alone across Japan, over six weeks. I set out on this walk not knowing what I was getting into. I didn't know that I’d meet this guy or see his amazing toilet. But I did and, because I’m human, I wanted to share that serendipity. Look! A man who is almost 70 and has run a cafe almost every day since 1984 has built a toilet for the simple purpose of bedazzling his customers! But sharing today means using social platforms like Instagram or Twitter or Facebook. And once you open those apps and stare into the maw of an algorithmically curated timeline, you are pulled far, far away from the music and the toilet or wherever it is you may be at that moment.
I guess not everyone is into walking, but dang, this all sounded like an amazing experience to me.
Productivity and the Joy of Doing Things the Hard Way
In another Wired article, Rob Walker opines that maybe it’s not good to always seeking to be as productive as possible.
We can’t just blame the tools for our slide into the comfort of efficiency. Certainly, they make it easy to do things the easy way. Google Maps is undeniably effective at reducing the friction of moving through the world, tracking the traffic, finding public transportation, keeping us from getting lost. But there’s value in not giving control over to ease sometimes. We can become disengaged, passing through moments instead of inhabiting them, losing the ability to relate our own footsteps through unfamiliar territory to a broader notion of spaces we inhabit.
Perhaps there is value in inefficiency and even aimless time.
At a time when the pressure to maximize productivity seems particularly intense, we should give ourselves permission, now and then, to pass some time that serves no obvious purpose. We should allow ourselves to be surprised, to encounter the unexpected.
I came across this article in Rian’s newsletter and we both came to the same conclusion: this sounded a lot like what Frank Chimero was talking about at the Do Lectures way back in 2011.
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Quote of the week
If I’m spending time and space on something that is bad, then that is time and space not used to boost the awareness of something good. And that is a poor trade-off, these days.
Warren Ellis, as quoted by Alan Jacobs in Trying
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Currently
Watching: I don’t know who does the writing for all the Lego movies, but they’re the closest thing to Pixar. We recently took in the Lego Movie Part Two and enjoyed a lot of good laughs. My family really enjoyed the point where the characters recognize that things can’t be awesome all the time and one blurts out, “I finally get Radiohead.” It’s the clever little quips and meta-ness that make these movies so good.
Reading: After finishing the first two books in James Islington’s series, I jumped right into another book I received this Christmas. It’s The Black Prism from Brent Weeks (the first from the Lightbringer series) and I was hooked after the first 100 pages. It’s got a unique magic system (it reminded me a little of Brandon Sanderson’s Warbreaker) and while it includes the usual young-man-who-is-more-than-he-knows, it also centres largely on an older character whose past is a bigger part of the story than his future (so far).
Drinking: I’ve been enjoying a lot of lagers, IPAs, saisons, and pale ales this summer. One trend I’m fully onboard with is the movement towards hazy beers. Hazy IPAs are nothing new, but now I’m starting to see other options in this vein. One I’ve quite enjoyed is Squirrel Chaser Hazy Pale Ale from Yellow Dog Brewing. Bursting with flavour, this one is sweet, but not too sweet.
Playing: I must confess that I’ve finally succumbed to the world of Fortnite. Two summers back, we finally brought video games back to our home (I’d given them up in my mid-to-late 20s) as our boys were showing increased interest. We started with a used Wii to see how things would go, then picked up a Nintendo Switch last year. My thinking was that if they were going to have this be a part of their lives, I would join them in it so it was something we did together. And Nintendo tends to have games that are less “adult” themed.
It wasn’t long before our eldest son started asking about Fortnite. We held back for quite a few months in our usual Amish fashion (take a wait-and-see approach to new things, albeit with a much shorter timeline than the horse-and-buggy crowd). As our son showed maturity on the topic (i.e. disciplined himself enough to stop asking about it multiple times per day), we let him start playing over the Christmas break. Season 7 for you Fornite aficionados.
Me? I tried it once after his first few weeks. But the chaos and fast game play seemed like a lot of stress I didn’t need. And things stayed that way for months. Until the boys lost the cartridge to FIFA 19 🙄
Once that happened, I slowly started to get into Fortnite. And to enjoy it. Well, some aspects of it at least. A few thoughts that have come to mind in playing the game.
- We try to limit the exposure to violence in our home. But Fortnite is not bad in this regard. It’s a shooter, yes — but when you eliminate a player, there is no blood or gore. Instead, some flying robot-type-thing pops out and the player’s “projection” is sucked up. I’m not sure if that is correct depiction, but that’s what it feels like. Fortnite is the Candy Crush of first person shooters
- If there is a danger with this game, it’s addiction. Epic Games is employing a lot of the same tactics services like Facebook and Twitter use. And based on their revenue, they’re benefitting a lot from those tactics
- There’s an entire culture around the game. The more my two boys played the game, the less I understood what they were talking about. Defaults, sweaty try-hards, mats… there’s an entire vernacular to learn (although it really chaps my backside when they claim a term that has been around for decades came from Fortnite users)
- And there’s a real sense of community here. My boys will play with friends from school — often in creative mode where you can build a lot and play against only the people invited — but have also made friends with people from all over the place. It’s something to be careful of, but also something that reminds me a little of the early days of Twitter
- It’s not an easy game. Since I grew up playing games, I’ve tended to be able to beat my kids whenever we play. They could play Mario Kart for two weeks straight, then I’d play one grand prix and blow them away. But that ended with Fortnite — maybe it’s my age and declining faculties, but I find it hard to aim on the move and stressful overall
- In that vein, I think Epic would do well to make it a little easier for new players. Programmatically get groups of players in similar tiers/levels against each other so someone who’s played less than 10 times does wait 2 minutes for the game to load only to last 30 seconds before getting two pumped from behind by some person who's played since season 2… totally speaking from experience here
- But it is a lot of fun. As someone who spent a lot of evenings play 4-on-4 Goldeneye with friends, I appreciate a good group shooter. A team rumble can be a little chaotic, a solo match just stresses me out, but overall, it’s still a lot of fun and I find myself wanting to improve my skills
Since I made the decision to be involved with my kids in gaming, I’m glad I got started on this. We have some good times competing to see who can last the longest or get the most eliminations in a match. I'm curious to see how long it sticks.
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Well, that turned into a longer list than I had intended. I guess I’m still in the honeymoon phase of the game. Do you play? Hit reply if you want to get an easy victory 😅
Until next time…