tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-91363091271013321802024-03-16T11:52:06.271-07:00Compete CompleteThe art of competition and growth.EskimauxRobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13037945662977655232noreply@blogger.comBlogger161125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9136309127101332180.post-20758428794740237922019-03-22T19:49:00.001-07:002019-03-22T19:49:11.668-07:00Average, Perfectly<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I will sometimes have “realizations” that feel very obvious in retrospect. They may even be re-realizations of things I already thought about, or even </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">wrote </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">about in the past. However, I forget some lessons pretty easily, especially when it comes to managing my own neuroses, and a “new” realization is usually an old one put into new words. Since I’m heavily verbal, new ways of describing things can be really important for me to unlock an idea or feeling, and sometimes it’s just an old idea or feeling, but a new way of getting to it. In this case, it’s related to an issue I have with with perfectionism that can cause me to lose steam and motivation.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The issue I have is that I frequently want to skip ahead when I’m learning new skills. I do things like play video games on hard mode for my first playthrough, or when I was learning guitar, I wanted to skip easy songs and start learning hard ones. I also approach my general lifestyle like this, where I imagine a better and more effective version of myself, often comparing myself to hyperefficient people and feeling bad when I don’t match up.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A few thoughts and concepts have helped me approach this issue differently, and trying to keep it in mind has reduced a bit of stress and helped keep me on track in some areas, so I thought I’d share them.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">First, infinity.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There are at least two kinds of infinity that you can think about. The first I’m thinking of is the “really big number” kind, and the other is the “infinite space between two numbers” kind.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You can add 1 to another number, then add 1 to that, then add 1 to that, forever, and that’s the first infinity. For the other, you can say “starting at 1, now go halfway to 2. Now go halfway to 2 from there. Now go halfway to 2 from there, now do it again, and again..,” and you just get a number that gets infinitely close to 2 without reaching it.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Second, perfection.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Perfection, to me, seems a lot like the second kind of infinity, rather than the first. When we say “perfection is impossible,” we don’t mean “perfection doesn’t exist because you can grow infinitely,” we typically have an imagined maximum that you can’t reach, but you can get infinitely close to. There are some cases where that imagined maximum changes, because we have an inaccurate perception of our limits, so it can be useful to just ignore the idea of perfection and keep trying to scale up, as if we </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">did </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">have room for the first kind of infinite growth--I’m not doing that in this case, but it’s good to remember that it’s a thing you can do sometimes.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When I think of myself as a perfectionist, it looks something like “I currently have a conception of what the ‘best’ looks like, and I want to be as close to it as possible.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Next, I want to talk about something that happened in one of my college classes.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The class was about neural networks--the computer, machine learning kind, and not very much about actual brains--and one of my classmates was taking that kind of class for the first time. We were talking about things afterwards, and he was very excited about building models that could approximate human brain function, but seemed a bit disappointed that most of the examples we used in class were “toy” examples, silly or tongue-in-cheek or small-scale.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In a classic case of “I know a lot of smart and wise things that I stink at applying to myself,” I asked him, “do you understand how the toy models work yet?” And he said, “no.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Seems like the toy models are a good place to start then.” Then I added something to the effect of, “yeah, we’d like to be building cool artificial brains that can do creative human problem solving, but with computer precision and speed. However, if you want to do that, there are lots of much simpler challenges that you need to be able to meet first. I don’t want to be a killjoy here, because it’s great to keep your end goal in mind and aspire to it, but if you can’t do the little thing, odds are you can’t do the big thing, much harder thing either. So starting with the little thing and mastering it seems like the way to go.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’m not really sure how “smart and wise” you can call that, because it’s really just the long way of saying “you have to learn how to walk before you can run.” He thought for a second and then said “yeah, that sounds reasonable.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It is funny that I’m the one telling somebody else that, because I am </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">really </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">bad at doing that. I want to start doing the hard thing </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">now. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">hate </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">sitting around and mastering the basics, because I just imagine what a much better person is doing and I want to do that instead. I get the general gist of the foundation and then I want to move on.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Later on, I struggle because my foundation is not, it turns out, well-founded. This happens more frequently than I’d like.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There is a case where I </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">actually </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">did do the smart thing though, and it worked remarkably well.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Back in high-school I used to play a lot of DDR (Dance Dance Revolution)--it was probably responsible on its own for keeping me from gaining a lot of weight given how much fast food and soda I consumed. Once I was able to clear songs on the highest difficulty level, I became interested in getting AAA ranks on songs, which you achieve by scoring all Perfects. Perfects, in turn, are acquired by hitting each step within a certain timing window.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I was kind of stuck though. I had the physical ability to pass any song in the game on its highest difficulty--at the time, anyhow--but I couldn’t seem to improve my Perfects. I could full-combo most songs--missing no notes--but I still had an annoyingly high number of non-perfect hits. I played and played, but my precision didn’t improve.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I asked a better player what to do, and they recommended that I tried getting AAA ranks on lower difficulties. I wasn’t sure how it was going to help, but I did it anyhow, since nothing else was working.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It turned out to be good advice! Playing much easier songs gave me the opportunity to focus </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">entirely </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">on improving my timing, rather than focus on improving it while I also tried to pass difficult songs. I was surprised to learn that my rhythm was </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">okay, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">but I was relying on the faster tempos and rapid note patterns to help me maintain it. After I became comfortable AAA’ing most of the songs on medium difficulty, I ramped it back up, and scored AAAs on several of the songs I couldn’t before.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The moral of the story?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Returning back to the title, something that I’ve been trying to improve myself lately by shuffling things around a bit. Instead of asking “what does perfection look like, and how can I get as close to that as possible?”, I have been asking myself “what would an average person be able to do in this situation, and how can I do that thing perfectly?” This switch has had interesting results.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">First, it has forced me to identify more milestones on my road to improvement in various areas. This helps keep me from feeling like I don’t know what to do next; instead of trying to assess a large gap between myself and the highest performers of something, I can assess the much smaller gap between myself and somebody who is average, or slightly above average.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Second, because I’m still asking myself “how can I do this thing </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">perfectly</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">?” it gets me to put a mental magnifying glass up to simple things, notice more nuance, and this keeps me from getting bored with those simple things as quickly. It also has the benefit of channeling my perfectionism rather than trying to resist or deny it.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As an example, I’ve been playing guitar for awhile, but I still can’t actually play any songs to completion because I mostly just want to practice cool riffs that are too difficult for me. So I asked myself “what would an average guitarist be able to do?”, and answered, “they should be able to play some basic songs from start to finish without giant mistakes.” That means practicing chords, which I don’t like doing because I find it monotonous.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But sure enough, once I start trying to play an easy song perfectly, I start noticing lots of little things to work on, little flubs in how I play a chord, things like that. When I start feeling “but this is so much easier than what I want to be able to play,” I can respond with “there’s no way I could be able to play a hard guitar part if I can’t play an easy one,” so it acts as a meaningful step towards my ultimate goal.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It also occurs to me that you can never actually do the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">really </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">difficult stuff. It’s too far beyond you, there’s no point. You instead try to do things that are a little bit harder than what you can do until they are not hard anymore, and you repeat that until the stuff that </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">used </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">to seem crazy and difficult is just “tricky, but I’ll manage.” So lately, instead of trying to be like an average perfect person, I try and be average, perfectly. It seems to work better.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Thanks for reading. See you next time.</span></div>
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EskimauxRobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13037945662977655232noreply@blogger.com21tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9136309127101332180.post-48691854368435697492018-08-07T11:34:00.000-07:002018-08-07T11:34:00.350-07:00Evo 2018: Recap and Reflections<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Evo this year was interesting for me since I entered as a last minute thing, and I wasn't sure if I was going to 1) cheerfully drink during the bracket and play whatever character I wanted or 2) try my hardest. Approaching the event though, I had some more thoughts on where I'm going in my personal development, and it led to me picking option 2.<br />
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As per my post on <a href="http://www.compete-complete.com/2018/05/existing-with-anger.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: white;">existing with anger</span></a>, it occurred to me that I have been too afraid to even experience certain emotions because of my difficulties in dealing with them. If you have observed me at any point during the past twelve years of my life, then you know I have issues managing my anger. I don't know if other people get as angry as I do, or if it feels as intense and unbearable for other people as it does for me, or if it simply rushes into their head as quickly and surprisingly. It's hot, intense, and unpleasant.<br />
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I have this struggle with other emotions as well, even happiness! When I have fun, or get excited about something, it can very easily take me over and turn into hyperactivity and mania. Like my anger, if you've seen me during the past twelve years, you also know that when I am having fun, I can easily become very loud and annoying. Sometimes I even find enjoyment and fun to be unpleasant, because of its intensity, as well as how obnoxious I can be when expressing it.<br />
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So my normal approach is to avoid expressing it, and since that's been very difficult for me, I take it another step forward and avoid feeling it. "It" means... well, anything. I give people the impression that I'm a very analytical and calculating person, and in some ways I am. But it's mostly a compensation for my innate emotional intensity and impulsiveness.<br />
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Lately, I've realized that it just hasn't been enough, and that means trying to face those emotions head on without trying to run from them. I'm honestly worried that if I let myself get angry at all, then I'll throw another controller. I'm worried if I let my competitive drive surge up, then I'll get mean spirited. I'm worried that if I let myself get too excited or hyped up, I'll be a pain in the ass for the people around me.<br />
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Everything is a risk in some direction though, and if I want to keep growing as a person, then I will have to be able to experience those feelings and not let them overflow or control me. That means taking the chance that they will, and not being afraid to admit that I wasn't strong enough if I let them. Evo this year was an attempt to honestly let myself feel my competitive drive, give the game 100%, and keep it under control.<br />
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It was way more successful than I thought it would be. I tried to keep tabs on my general mindset and only turn things down if they started over-escalating. If I noticed thoughts creeping in, the kind that can easily spiral out of control and piss myself off, I tried to focus on the feeling that generated the thoughts, instead of just arguing with the thoughts themselves. That helped. Not only that, I tried to focus on being strong enough to <i>contain </i>the feeling, rather than trying to squash it, eliminate it, or deny it. That helped even more.<br />
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I lost to KJH in winner's bracket, and it felt bad, but not as bad as I thought it would. I didn't wobble him--so I guess from a strategic and tactical perspective I wasn't trying my hardest--but I tried to invest myself as much as possible in the moment-to-moment of the game, to feel my desire to win, not fear it. I got over the unhappiness with the loss pretty quickly, also faster than I thought. I honestly expected it to be the opposite, so that surprised me.<br />
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My next close and serious match was against Kalamazhu. In that one, I wobbled, and it was also less boring and intolerable than I thought. I think going into that match unafraid of my serious desire to win let me dull the minor annoyance of hitting the A button over and over. And something that <i>was </i>cool was that I found myself still landing some of the crazier conversions into my infinite, conversions based off the more elaborate (sometimes pointlessly elaborate) sequences that I've been messing with for the past couple years.<br />
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Most importantly though, at the end of game two (which he won), I started tilting a bit because of the matchup. I could hear some seriously salty voices running through my head. I took a bit of time to breathe in between games two and three. I didn't try to make the feelings go away, I just tried to be strong enough to withstand them.<br />
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Mind you, I <i>did </i>use some of my cognitive strategies once I was a little less agitated. One of my strongest ones has always been trying to see why something the other person did was good, or clever, or worth respecting, rather than just thinking "this matchup sucks." That helps me feel more competitive in a positive way. So it's not as though I ignored all the other strategies that I've been using over the years. I just tried to shift the emphasis to an emotional <i>strength, </i>rather than an emotional technique.<br />
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I felt the tilt fade quickly, and managed to win 2-1, then popped off a bit. Then I played Axe about two hours later and he bodied me, but that's fine. I got 33rd and managed to handle--<i>effectively </i>handle--the presence of those intense competitive emotions and keep things centered on the game. Then when I was out, I didn't feel like a bum.<br />
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Not only that, I had a lot more energy after I was out than I normally do. Usually, between the competitive stress and the endless social interaction, I just get really drained after my tournament is over. This time though, I was more disciplined about my sleep, when I ate, and <i>what </i>I ate, which had a major impact on how I felt. I joked on Twitter about how it kind of sucked to feel that good before a match, because then I didn't have any excuses ready for when I lost, but I think my willingness to face the whole thing with strength rather than being afraid of the emotions allowed me to prepare for everything directly.<br />
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I'm headed to Smash Con this weekend but I am not competing there, and afterwards I don't have plans to attend anything, but if I do, I am (most likely) going to give another shot at competition. This past weekend I felt like a much stronger and more disciplined person, and that meant a lot to me, so I'd like to keep pushing in that direction.<br />
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TL;DR: Evo was a huge personal success for me. I may write more in the future on the topic of being a stronger container for my emotion, but for now, I'll just leave things here. Thanks for reading!</div>
EskimauxRobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13037945662977655232noreply@blogger.com36tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9136309127101332180.post-32100601045394566632018-07-04T11:15:00.000-07:002018-07-04T11:19:10.987-07:00Saying No<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Well, it's the 4th of July, and that means it's time for a post about freedom. This will conclude the posts on anxiety, so you can stop worrying about it.<br />
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(Hah.)<br />
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You can split the concept of "rights" and freedom into two main concepts. One is what you are expressly given the capacity to do, which is called a positive liberty. The other is a negative liberty, which is a description of what <i>won't </i>be done to you.<br />
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Simple example time. The positive liberty component of "you may go wherever you like" is granted by having the <i>ability </i>to go where you like. The negative liberty component is that other people don't stop you. You may have a negative liberty on going to space--the government shall not grab you by the shoulders and keep you from leaping into space--but that doesn't mean you have a positive liberty to do so, either because you skip leg day or you don't own a spaceship. Nobody is stopping you, you just can't. A government-granted positive liberty would look something like "all citizens have the right to free spaceship rides, which the government shall provide."<br />
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The short version is that negative liberty is freedom <i>from, </i>and positive liberty is freedom <i>to.</i><br />
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I'm going to focus on negative liberty today. Specifically, I've been thinking about the concept of saying "no." So let's think about cell walls. The biological kind of cell.<br />
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The cells of your body have membranes in order to keep things from going in and out very easily. A completely impermeable membrane would not let anything in or out. As it becomes more and more permeable, more stuff can sneak in or leak out, until eventually you have a completely porous membrane... which is to say, no membrane at all. At that point there isn't a cell, there's just a bunch of stuff that floats next to each other until other stuff knocks them around or gobbles them up.<br />
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In <a href="http://www.compete-complete.com/2018/02/infinitum.html" target="_blank">Infinitum</a>, I talked about how it feels like I can't stop myself from thinking about endless possibilities, different outcomes, different ways that I could do things better, or different ways that things could be wrong. Recently, it occurred to me that this is a bit like cell with a highly porous membrane. The inability to keep things out can get easily leave your mind filled with junk. There's a trade-off there, which is a completely impermeable membrane could not allow in things like nutrients, or get rid of toxic metabolic by-products. And after that, we get terms like "open-minded" and "closed-minded" and we can see how the extreme version of both is easily dangerous for the mind.<br />
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Well, your cells have boundaries--their membranes--for the sake of their health. In relationships, you set boundaries with other people for the sake of both your health and the relationship's health. So it is with your mind. Your mind needs boundaries, for the sake of its health. When it comes to cells, you have a phospholipid bilayer. When it comes to your mind, you have the word "no," and I've found myself relying on that word more and more.<br />
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"No" is negative liberty verbalized. "No, you don't get to do that to me." And in this case, it's freedom from the thoughts and ideas that abduct my mind without my say-so. My brain has a lot of imagination. It gets very quickly carried away with new chains of thought, new associations, new ideas, new possibilities, new <i>everything</i>, and I find that I can be rather bad at saying "no" to those things. This is where practicing <a href="http://www.compete-complete.com/2015/10/mindfulness.html" target="_blank">mindfulness</a> has proven useful; I hear the thoughts relatively quickly, which is what allows me to tell them "no" before they sap my energy or distract me from what I was supposed to be doing. "No," in this context, is freedom from distraction, freedom from having to manage an endless slew of self-invented variables, freedom from having so many thoughts running around my head that I don't know where to start or how I'll ever finish.<br />
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Or--especially during the summer without classes or homework to think about--there are many times where I'll find myself sitting around with spare time and wondering what I should do, and finding that I just can't pick. I can imagine myself doing too many different things. Just thinking about it tires me out before I even pick one. I can't answer the question "what do I <i>want </i>to do?" because then my brain goes "well, what about <i>this </i>instead?" It can find so many acceptable answers that it begins to devalue all of them.<br />
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This is where "no" becomes useful. For instance, today I wasn't sure if I wanted to stream something, write something, practice guitar, clean up, or... maybe something else? It was hard to say yes to anything. The thing that got me motivated was saying "no." Specifically, this particular blog post came to mind, and when I thought "do I <i>want </i>to write it?" I found other stuff competing with it in my brainspace. So instead of saying "I want to"--because I wanted to do other stuff too, and that wasn't narrowing it down any--I found inside myself a minor revulsion to the idea of leaving this post unwritten. So I said no, I <i>don't </i>want to do that. That shoved everything else aside, and now here we are.<br />
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I think an immediate potential objection to this is that focusing on the negative aspect--particularly when it comes to a question like "what do you want to do?" versus "what <i>don't </i>you want"--is that it seems like it leaves out the possibility for things like fun or enjoyment. So I'll conclude with an example where that turned out not to be the case.<br />
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Somewhat recently, I got a watch, and for the process of buying it, I decided I was going to be <i>really </i>picky. I had a few ideas in mind of what I wanted, but I felt a determination to say "no" to a lot of different watches, because they can get expensive and I was damn sure I wouldn't buy one that I didn't really like. I went out a few times, looked online, and tried on a lot of watches, and said "no" to just about all of them. Rather than focusing on the positives--because I can talk myself into anything--I focused on things about them that immediately bugged me, or that I immediately didn't like. Too big, too shiny, not quite the right font for the numbers on the face, or the color of the dial didn't contrast the background enough, whatever the objection, I said "no" and went looking for a different one.<br />
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During the process, I started to notice that as I focused on things I didn't like, it made the things I <i>did </i>like start to pop out more. I started to notice watches that made me say "ooooh" like I'd just found treasure. I began noticing what <i>specifically </i>was making me dislike and like the watches I was looking at. Long story short, I finally found the watch I wanted, and seven months later I still look at it and smile.<br />
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The thing is, narrowing down a single choice didn't just mean coming up with reasons why I <i>might </i>like the one I was looking at. Like I said, I've got a very active imagination. I can come up with lots of reasons, whether they turn out to be true or not. That was never going to help me pick. If I wanted to narrow down from the hundreds of watches that I looked at, I had to start saying "no." If I knew specifically why I was saying "no," even better, because it gave me a way to filter all the future examinations.<br />
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Choices come from thoughts, so why not apply the concept to as well? Your mind needs boundaries, after all. Say no, loudly and clearly, to the unhelpful and distracting ones. Give yourself negative liberty from them. Feel free!<br />
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Thanks for reading.<br />
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<br /></div>
EskimauxRobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13037945662977655232noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9136309127101332180.post-20175793642884426252018-06-24T18:50:00.000-07:002018-06-24T18:50:20.827-07:00Anxiety, Part 2<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Some time ago I said I would write a series of posts on stress and anxiety. Then I wrote one thing and didn’t finish any others. There’s an irony here, which is that the post I did write</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-style: normal;"> </span>tried to express this constant worry of not being good enough. About my mind being able to generate endless possible ways in which I might be better, or do something better, or do something different, and thus overload myself via paralysis of analysis.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Well, guess what happened to the other posts on anxiety?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One of the reasons that I was able to stick to a constant upload schedule some time ago was because, I think, I made </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">the update schedule </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">more important than writing good blog posts. Just get </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">something </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">out, two times a week, and I stuck to it for--I think--at least a year. That was pretty good for me! Even though I read back on some posts and think “meh” or even “oh jeez that was dumb,” I don’t do that for as many as I’d expect.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But I get this way, where each time I do something well, I quickly update my expectation of how I’m going to do in the future, and I detest backsliding. “Do better every day.” If I write a post that some people seem to like, then I feel the pressure to follow it up with something </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">even better. </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If I can’t think of something amazing, or I start writing it and it turns out blah, then I don’t write anything. I’m the kind of person who would rather get a zero on a homework assignment because I just don’t turn it in</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">than get a 40% on an assignment I only partly completed. Somewhere, right now, my GPA is glaring at me.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There are times where that’s a useful attitude, and times where it isn’t. We know some people who just clock in, do their thing, and punch out, and they never seem to do anything better or do anything differently, and wonder why things aren't improving. You don't want to be that person, stuck on a grind like that. But neither you don’t want to be the person so obsessed with doing things perfectly that you don’t do anything at all. These ideas--be consistent even if it’s crappy, versus quality over quantity--are neither automatically good nor bad, but they </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">do </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">exert a balancing force on one another.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I think a key here is to figure out which one you tend to be, and correct in the other direction. Since you’re going to lean automatically one way, you want to use your conscious mind to overemphasize the one that you’re bad at, and let those automatic tendencies balance it out. One person can be overconfident and arrogant and another can have low-self esteem, and the advice for the two </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">must </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">be different if they are to end up in that sweet-spot of “trust yourself and stand up for yourself, but also listen to other people just in case you’re wrong.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In my case, I’m obsessive over quality. I want to be at 100% all the time, and I want the </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">meaning </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">of that 100% to get better each time too. But is that possible? Experience has shown me it’s not, and I need to remember that this obsession with perfect output and constant improvement just shoots itself in the foot. In fact, it's proven to </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">reduce </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">my output and rate of improvement. The bright side here is that if I</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">focus more on emphasizing consistency, then my automatic tendencies to stress about perfection kick in anyhow, and I'm rarely left with something that I honestly think </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>sucks.</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So I just sat down to write today with the determination that I would make this the next post in the anxiety series, whether I like it or not, and here we are.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Big tangent incoming, but don’t worry, it comes back around.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Dictionary.com defines anxiety as “</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">a feeling of worry, nervousness, or unease, typically about an imminent event or something with an uncertain outcome.”</span></span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In talking about psychology, it’s important to remember that few things in and of themselves count as disorders, or even problems. It’s always about context. The question is whether an emotion, perception, or state of mind is </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">pathological. </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Is it chronic? Is it disproportionate to the situation? Does it dominate your mind? Does something self-damaging act as your default state? Does it cause more problems than it actually solves?</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The world itself contains threats and challenges. You try to remember the ones in the past so you can deal with the ones in the present, and prepare for ones in the future. Anxiety, worry, fear, stress, these are </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">reasonable and useful </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">responses! But only to an extent. Specifically, the extent that they are reasonable and useful.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Yes, that is a circular description, and not a very helpful one. Unfortunately, we get our understanding of what that extent is through experience and feedback, and that experience and feedback is filtered through our state of mind, which may currently be feeling things like anxiety, worry, fear, and stress. This biases you a bit, and it’s hard to escape that bias because it doesn’t feel like bias, it feels like reality. Challenging that reality feels foolish and insane from the inside, but if you could somehow see it from the outside, you might know it for what it is.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You know that situation in a story--TV show, book, comic, movie, whatever--where the one character comes into a screwed up situation from the outside, and sees how screwed up it is, and tries to tell another character that it’s all screwed up? But for that other character, the situation is consistent with their own worldview, and nothing appears contradictory? It takes some kind of dissonance, some contradiction, some little experience or evidence that just </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">doesn’t sit right. </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Then there’s a crack in the facade, and then the character tries to figure out what is causing the crack, which leads to more cracks, and eventually the whole thing breaks apart. Or they refuse to pursue that little contradiction, and they deny it, and they stay locked in, and if you like that character, you sit in the audience like “COME ONNNNNNNNNN.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I have this vague memory from a long time ago of seeing that trope and asking myself a question that was, more or less, “how would I persuade somebody that they were in a cult?” And then I thought a little bit, and realized a much </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">harder </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">question was “how would I know if </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">was in one?” Very normal-seeming people can end up in cults and do some really weird stuff while their brain tells them that everything is normal and correct! Everything has its neat little explanation, nothing is off, everything is fine. If you were in that position, you would have to use your mind to figure things out, but your mind is biased towards believing itself! My answer at the time was “question yourself constantly” and in retrospect, this line of thinking </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">may </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">have contributed to a long history of self-doubt and paranoia. I’ve become biased towards assuming that I’m always wrong, so I don’t know if it’s actually that healthy to question yourself as often as became my habit.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But if you ever </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">do </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">find yourself wondering, “hey, am I in a cult?” or “hey, do I hold a lot of highly inaccurate beliefs and live inside a mental bubble disconnected from the world?”, then the way you figure it out is “be annoying.” There’s a common rule that every cult has to keep its power, that every screwed up situation uses to keep you stuck inside, which is this: there are some things that you just don’t question. Those are the weak points in the whole system, and your willful ignorance is the armor that protects them. Ask too many inconvenient questions, and eventually you find the loose thread that unravels the whole thing. So if you ever get that little suspicion that something is off, be that annoying little kid that keeps asking “why” to everything. If people start to get unreasonably mad and they tell you to shut up and stop asking questions, the odds that something is fishy instantly go up.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Not always, mind you. There might be a good reason and they’re just crappy at explaining things, or the explanation is complicated and you won’t actually get it, or you just don’t accept it because </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">you </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">are the stubborn one. Sometimes you know something works, but you don’t know why; parents might not have PHDs in developmental biology and nutrition, but they </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">do </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">know that eating vegetables is generally good for you and you should do it and just please be quiet and eat your vegetables, it’s been a long day, why, because I said so. No, not a vegetable cult, nutrition is just complicated.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Where was I going with this? Right. Anxiety.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The thing about </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">pathological </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">fear and anxiety is that it just kind of hovers over you for no reason. You will have an automatic belief that situations are threatening and that you should be worried. This worry makes you interpret stuff as dangerous. After all, the world is full of ambiguity and noise and confusion, and we often have to make guesses about what things mean. So things don’t worry you because they’re scary, you see them as scary because you are </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">always worried. </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In a different frame of mind, you might have brushed things off, but here and now, because </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">you </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">are worried, you put a filter over everything so that everything is worrisome. But some things </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">are </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">dangerous and some things </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">are </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">worth fearing. How do you get it </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">right</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">?</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">First answer, you don’t always. You just give it your best guess and sometimes you’re wrong, and you try to learn from things, and hopefully this means that when something turns out not so bad you worry a bit less, and when something does turn out bad, you trust a bit less. Hopefully, with experience, you get things wrong less often.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Second answer, you ask why. You chase the threads and you look for the cracks.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I have found that when I am in a default state of “things are scary, I’m worried, everything is a threat” that I don’t have very good answers to “wait, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">why </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">am I worried about this?” I ask that question and then my initial answer is “because……. because!!!!!!” Just trust me, it will be awful. Of this I am certain, no more need be known. Stop asking questions and hit the fetal position.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If I’m not </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">so </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">stressed out that I notice this is kind of a crappy answer, then I ask “because </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">what</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">? What will be so terrible?” My brain, ready to provide but annoyed that I’m challenging its own terrified authority, might give me an answer. When I’m at my best, I ask why again. And again, and again, and look for more cracks in the armor. What’s interesting is that even if I end up with genuinely good answers, I notice myself also coming up with genuinely good actions to take care of them, and then I end up less afraid anyhow! Very cool.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The thing about pathological anxiety is that it </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">starts as the default and uses its presence to prove itself. </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You start worried just because you always are, and then that worry makes things seem scary, and then you stay afraid because of all the scary things. It’s a seamless sleight of mind, an illusory masterwork, a suffocating tapestry of interlocked and self-corroborating assumptions. It’s a jerk, and an efficient jerk. What’s worse is that its whole goal is “keep you safe,” so it can </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">cheat. </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It can say “see? If I hadn’t made you run, then </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">who knows what would have happened to you?</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">” It cites itself as its most credible source, and because you’re still panicked or worried, the story checks out, and grows stronger. You become both leader and follower in a cult of your own fear.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So ask </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">why. </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You might have a good reason to be afraid, to be nervous, to feel stress, to worry, and so the answers will come, and that’s okay. It’s okay to be worried and afraid at times. It keeps you alive when there is danger.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But you might feel a voice, a panicked and angry voice inside of you that says “look I just </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">AM </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">okay!?” And so you keep asking. It might try to cough up reasons, and then you come up with a counterexample of why those reasons aren’t that great, to see if it can answer </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">those</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, and it starts to stutter and stammer and flounder and dissipate. It will try to fall back on the weight of its own existence as its final authority. Don’t let it. Challenge it, and you may come to see that the fears are fog and mist, clouding your judgment but ultimately insubstantial. Hell, it might just ultimately admit “I don’t know.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’ve been there too. I’ve been worried and afraid and shaking and when I try to probe for an answer, I </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">just don’t know, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and even knowing that, I ca</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">n’t shake that feeling. I take some deep breaths but I’m still on edge, I fidget to burn off the nervous </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">energy and it doesn’t go away. This is the worst one to admit to, because it feels like quitting, like saying “I am afraid and quivering because deep down I’m like one of those tiny yipping dogs terrified by the unceasing pressure of existence all around me, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">can you just lay off</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">?” Sometimes the questions just hit a dead end wall of panic that stubbornly refuses to vanish.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Still though. There is something about realizing that, knowing that the feeling is separate from the actual events of the world. If, in those moments, I can remember that I don’t </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">always </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">feel like that, and it </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">will </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">go away because it has in the past and will in the future, and that it’s </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">not </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">connected to something tangible around me… well, it doesn’t go away, but it loses some of the edge. I feel it disconnect, just a bit, and it frees me up to act, just a bit. I step outside of it a little, which can ease up the pressure and let me take a breath and slow down. Sometimes I hear my own panicked thoughts just thinking the phrase “I’m afraid,” and in the most comforting mental tone of voice I can muster, I respond with “I know man. I know.” When it just won’t go away, then sometimes you acknowledge--with a bit of compassion and comfort--that it’s there, and suddenly, in that moment, it becomes separate from you, and you can take a step forward.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Thanks for reading.</span></div>
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EskimauxRobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13037945662977655232noreply@blogger.com20tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9136309127101332180.post-55303464263052885142018-05-26T12:58:00.002-07:002018-05-26T13:52:51.361-07:00Existing With Anger<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
This past Monday, I entered a Melee tournament for the first time in a hot minute. I had the cute idea of teaming with HomeMadeWaffles at Smash'n'Splash, the plan being that we will get top 8 in doubles and cast top 8 in singles. I only believe that one of those is actually going to happen, but we'll do our best.<br />
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Anyhow, the long story short is that I entered and got pissed. Again.<br />
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I decided I wouldn't want to compete anymore when I was at Frosty Faustings earlier this year. The thing is, I've been frustrated with my anger and competitive nature. I've always had this issue where if I focus on keeping my anger down, then the anger stays down... but then I am not paying attention to the game. If I focus entirely on the game, the anger creeps in.<br />
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It makes me feel like I'm not good at controlling my emotions. However, upon reflecting, I'm actually <i>very </i>good at controlling my anger! Sort of. I don't really control it. I just try to avoid feeling it.<br />
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This isn't necessarily a repression strategy, but more of a preventative one. I try to reframe the situation in my head constantly so that I can avoid getting angry at all. I will give myself different perspectives on what's happening, or I'll mentally zoom out to persuade myself that it--whatever it is--isn't <i>worth</i> getting angry over. Basically, I'm practicing emotional preventative medicine, not anger management.<br />
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The reason that it's not really anger management is that when I actually get angry, it's just as intense and dominant as it's ever been. I have become slightly better at distancing myself from situations when I become angry, and I have become a bit better at defusing intense anger without a destructive physical reaction. My more infamous blow-ups may belie that, but that's because when you control anger, people don't always know you were mad to begin with.<br />
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(I know it's not the best selling point of my own character to say "think of all the walls I <i>didn't </i>punch!" or "what about the times I <i>didn't </i>throw stuff!" but this blog is about honesty, not making me look good)<br />
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On this blog, I spend a lot of time writing about anxiety and depression, because I spend a lot of time feeling anxious and depressed. I can't always make those feelings go away very easily. Instead, I've had to learn to act around them. I have to learn how to remain effective without the depression or anxiety actually going away. This lets me not actually <i>worry</i> about being worried or depressed! If they show up, I am confident that I can deal with them. I'm almost <i>too </i>confident that I can work my way through it, because they still sneak up on me sometimes, but I don't feel this constant biting fear that they will catch me slipping. I implement my strategies and try to move on with my life.<br />
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There are certain emotions, however, that I still try very hard to avoid feeling, because I don't know how to function well in those states, or if I can. I've developed a huge array of tactics to avoid actually getting angry at all. But that's not really anger management, in the same way that you don't have "pain tolerance" just because you never get hurt. I can manage myself while depressed, I can manage myself while stressed and nervous. What I can't seem to do is manage myself well while angry. I just try to avoid getting to that point, because when it washes over me, my functioning drops like a rock.<br />
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The same is true with my general feelings of aggression and competitiveness. When they kick in, they kick in hard. It's difficult to shut them off, it's difficult not to let them take control. They synergize quite a bit with the anger, which makes them a nasty trio for me to deal with. Hence why I have wanted to stop competing entirely.<br />
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Monday night, I spent quite awhile before the tournament trying to run my normal mental routine to avoid getting upset and focus on learning and getting back into competing shape. But once I started making a few too many mistakes, I started trying to focus on correcting them, on trying to win. Aggravation kicked in. I started shaking my head, cussing semi-audibly, and biting my lip. I set my controller down after my first loss and walked away from it, just in case.<br />
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Given how easily I can get that angry, but how uncommon it is for me actually to fly off the handle anymore (relatively, that is), I kind of want to high five myself. I might not be giving myself enough credit here, because I've gotten much better over time. The <i>internal</i> element of it is what gets me the most, right now. It's distracting. It feels physically uncomfortable. And since we are talking about the game, it also affects my decision making and play for the worse, in a way that feeds into itself.<br />
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My go-to strategy for this inner struggle and conflict has been to avoid it completely. I do my best to avoid getting angry at all, avoid feeling aggressive or competitive at all, avoid getting riled up at all. Lately I've been wondering if this is actually the tack I should be taking.<br />
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It has definitely <i>helped, </i>don't get me wrong. In just about every life situation <i>except </i>for Smash, I don't actually feel anger that often, and I definitely don't think that's a bad thing! Not only that, very few things that I try to focus on are as fast-paced and mentally demanding as Smash, so if the feelings do arise, I often notice the anger while it's still in an infant state, and I correct my course. It's almost trivially easy, compared to managing myself in a competitive environment.<br />
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I don't want to sound like I'm angry about not getting angry. The issue that I find is that my anger, aggression, and competitiveness aren't healthy parts of me. They're things that I avoid because I cannot stand being in those states. The anger isn't just a stressful state, it generates meta-stress about being angry! I think things like "oh my GOD why are you still getting so MAD" and that just tilts me further. I'm worried about losing control, looking stupid, as well as an intense discomfort with the physical feeling.<br />
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I'm trying to figure out how to approach this. It's a bit like being tired, where you can't just drink coffee every time you get a bit tired, even if you have some work to do. You have to learn how to get work done when you're tired! You can't only do your workout when you're physically fresh, because strength and endurance are built when you are on the edge of exhaustion.<br />
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You become stronger and develop endurance so that you don't get exhausted, but you have to enter that kind of state <i>and still function</i> in order to actually build those qualities. If you stop the moment you're tired, you don't actually become stronger. That's not "exhaustion management," that's called "skipping half of your workout."<br />
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But what's the method here? Do I need to just... get angry more? I'm pretty strong at preventing myself from getting angry (well, in every circumstance but Smash, it seems), the problem is that when I finally do get angry, I no longer function well. I feel like I may need to let myself get angry more often, and then train myself to handle existing within that state. Not only by defusing the feeling every time it shows up, but by shaking hands with it, so to speak. Maybe if I can just have more experience feeling that way, rather than avoiding it, I'll get more comfortable with it, and that alone will let me exercise more control over the emotion.<br />
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I am not sure how much I want to do that though. I developed my anti-depressive and anti-anxiety tools as a result of spending a lot of time depressed and anxious. The tools work pretty well, but I really didn't enjoy the process though. Plus, if I only feel this anger when I play Smash, then there's a fairly obvious strategy available.<br />
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Something I've been thinking about lately though is that I didn't just get techniques out of that process. I also had to dissect the process in a way that I could repeat consciously, which meant learning how to describe it. One of the happiest feelings I have the pleasure of experiencing is when people tell me that my blog helped them with something. It's possible that it's up to me to go through my own anger and just keep writing things down, and maybe I'll have things to share about that, too.<br />
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So whether I like it or not, it feels like this is the next thing I have to focus on. Existing within my anger so that I can handle it being part of me, not using every mental resource I have shutting it down. Hopefully I'll have more to say on this subject soon.<br />
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Thanks for reading.</div>
EskimauxRobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13037945662977655232noreply@blogger.com20tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9136309127101332180.post-86659546747017133152018-02-16T17:40:00.000-08:002018-02-16T17:40:09.506-08:00One Victory<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Go figure, I’ve been writing and rewriting my anxiety posts because I want to get them exactly right. I also realized a little late that I missed my weekly scheduled post, and they aren’t quite done, so for this week I want to revisit a cognitive tool that helps me </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">tremendously </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">with regards to </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">both </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">anxiety and depression. I have mentioned it in a previous post before (which I can’t seem to find, otherwise I would link it), and I call it my “one victory” tool.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s pretty simple. When I am in my most depressive, most anti-productive moods, or my most anxious and overwhelmed moods, I basically give myself a simple deal. I will do a </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">single </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">thing, the smallest, most insignificant thing, and call it a victory. I only need to get one for the day. If, afterwards, I still feel crappy and depressive, or frustrated and overwhelmed, or all of those things and more… then I can stop. Just one victory for the day, no matter how minor.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There’s a trick here though, which is that </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">it’s not a trick. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I legitimately give myself that permission to do nothing else useful for the day. If my room looks like a pile of garbage because I had three exams in two days and I’m exhausted, and I look at it and just think “no, it’s too much,” then I give myself an honest choice. Do one thing, throw away </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">one </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">piece of trash or pick up </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">one </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">shirt and throw it in the hamper, literally </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">a single thing, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and I can stop after that if I want. I can go back and be a blob if I really want to.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’ve tried to use cognitive tricks on myself in the past, and they don’t really work. I know I’m lying to myself, and thus they always short circuit. The thing is, this is not a trick. I know I will feel better if I’ve done </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">something, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">no matter how insignificant, rather than nothing. That feeling will </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">usually </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">be the makings of a humble avalanche that gives me a little more energy to get a little more done. But if, for some reason, I am still truly exhausted and overwhelmed… well, okay. Back to being a blob. At least something got done, no matter how minor. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Things are better.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Most importantly, I kept my promise to myself, which means that I take that bargain in good faith in the future. Again, it’s not a trick, and I am not lying to myself, and no matter what happens, I feel a little better. Win-win.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If you want to stop reading there, go for it, but I’m going to explain a little </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">why </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I think this works.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Something that’s interesting about anxiety and depression is that they are a </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">little </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">opposed to each other, yet they are </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">also </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">often comorbid. That’s the psych term for “disorders that occur together.” Anxiety can look like nervous energy, restlessness, and fear; depression can look like giving up and not moving at all. Why do the two seem to happen at the same time? Well, apart from the chemical reason (which is most easily described as “serotonin being weird and complicated, trust me, it’s wild”), the two lead into each other just as a matter of course.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If you are nervous and worried all the time, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">just because</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, then there is never any way that you can take care of every worry or every threat. It’s not that there’s always more to take care of, it’s that </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">you are just always worried, whether there’s a reason or not. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There’s always more to do and stress about if you look hard enough!</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">On the one hand, this looks like chronic stress, which weakens your immune system, makes you get worse sleep, have less energy, think less clearly, and have less time for things that are </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">fun </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">because you’re always trying to take care of threats. That looks a lot like depression. On the other hand, you can easily develop the feeling that things will never get better, that things won’t ever be solved, because there’s just always something else and the problems never seem to end. That can make you feel hopeless, and </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">that </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">looks like depression too.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Meanwhile, if you start with depression and have less energy and motivation to take care of things, tasks and responsibilities can pile up. You can develop the attitude that you never finish everything, which means that there is </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">always </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">something more that you’re missing… and sure enough, that looks like anxiety. You can develop the attitude that you always screw up and that you can’t do </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">anything, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and that means the threats will close in, make you nervous, worried, and then you just want to escape and hide. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The reason that I feel like the “one victory” trick works so well (for me, anyhow) is that I am </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">constantly </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">analyzing and assessing how things are going. I have a tough time logically believing “things are hopeless” if I </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">literally just saw an improvement.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Things can’t be hopeless forever--something just changed for the better! Sure it was minor, but </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">it exists. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You can’t make a logical assertion “everything sucks” and have it be true if I can point to something that doesn’t suck.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Another issue that I have is that I tend to imagine things in their entirety, and “one victory” takes me away from that. When I think “clean my room,” I look at all the stuff I have to do, and </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">that </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">might be an hour worth of effort. If I’m tired, then I don’t </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">feel </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">like an hour’s worth of effort is in me, and I don’t start. I get overwhelmed because I instantly begin imagining all the random crap I have to do. On the other hand, if I focus on a single manageable task, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I let myself stop after… what’s to get overwhelmed by? I can finish within twenty seconds, and be back in bed feeling terrible if I want to. If I </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">don’t </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">want to stop there, then the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">next </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">victory is also just twenty seconds of effort. It transforms the whole thing into a lot of small steps, each of which I can complete with little effort, and the overwhelming feeling starts to dissipate.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There are days where I’ve kept that promise to myself, and gone back into bed after throwing away like, one candy wrapper or something. While that outcome is pretty rare, I don’t consider it a failure of the technique. After all, it got me out of bed, and improved my situation a little. A win is a win. Not a big win, no, but my alternative was “being in bed doing nothing, feeling terrible.” Now, my situation is “being in bed, having done one thing, feeling less terrible.” It’s an objective improvement. It is another piece of evidence in my brain that I </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">can </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">overcome that crappy feeling, even if only for a little bit, to make things better. Later, when I feel better, I might get another thing done, and another, and another… but even if it’s just </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">one</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> victory, it’s better than nothing.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Thanks for reading. I’ll see you next week.</span></div>
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EskimauxRobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13037945662977655232noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9136309127101332180.post-52016795177392845182018-02-06T15:36:00.000-08:002018-02-06T15:36:42.798-08:00Infinitum<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The hardest moment for a writer is a blank page. We know too many words, too many ways to begin, that to pick just </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">one </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">from that space is nearly impossible. We find ourselves imagining “what if,” what if we had chosen something else? It could have been perfect, and this is not perfect at all, no, it could be so much more.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What if every moment you lived was a blank page? What if every second left you hanging in a space where an infinity of choices lay before you, knowing that no matter what you pick, somewhere out there is something better?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My imagination is too strong. I can account for too much. In a sentence, at least, each word narrows down what could make some measure of sense. Then I can go</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">back<i>, </i></span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">fix that first cursed word according to that same principle, find the right beginning having written the rest. I can burn the candle from both ends. I can reconstruct, rewrite, and redo. The anxiety of the blank page is nothing compared to the terror of a blank moment.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I can say anything, and only silence escapes me. I can choose anything, and choose to wait. I can be anything, and so I feel like nothing. I could have said more, done more, been more. I could have spoken better, done better, been better.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If only I could see less, if only less was possible. Moments do not shrink that endless space, they </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">compound it. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I pick my actions based on the world those actions may create, but from that world there is yet layer after layer of infinity.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There is too much! How can I choose if I can’t see forward? And how can I choose when I </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">can</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Always it has been my habit to look back and think, “what more could I have done, and what differently?” This has not made it better. It has made it worse. It is just another side to an endless shape, another facet to consider, another surface from which my mind’s light can reflect to blind me.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Questions, thoughts, ideas, words, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">choices</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, all flow in through every open pore of my attention, each one tinted with the fear of error and the threat of inadequacy. To dull the edge of that fear and to neutralize that threat, I know only three answers: I can shut down, through sleep or an effortful emptiness; I can ingest stimulants and render my mind as hot as a star-heart furnace, blazing through each and every thought as quickly as they come; and lastly, I can rush to fill the space myself, get there first with something simple, something clear, something obvious enough that resolution and success are possible. Those are my methods, all effective yet all insufficient to withstand the spectral infinity that assails me.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Moment by moment, second by second, a blank page of life stares at me, and I stare back, overflowing with answers yet vacant of a response.</span></div>
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EskimauxRobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13037945662977655232noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9136309127101332180.post-27551463780258448332018-01-30T16:17:00.000-08:002018-01-30T16:17:14.229-08:00Predictive Learning<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’m gonna start this post by bragging a bit. One of my greatest interests through my entire life has been learning. Not just “I want to be a lifelong learner,” but understanding the act and process of learning, getting better at it, refining it, etc. How do you jump into a new skill, possibly in some arena that you’ve never tried before, and acquire competence?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is one reason that I’ve struggled to acquire real mastery over anything. “Competence” comes from </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">knowing </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">the principles of a skill and having some experience applying them. It allows you to reliably attain good outcomes. “Mastery,” on the other hand, comes from </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">feeling </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">the principles of a skill so deeply that you apply them automatically. Not only do you achieve good outcomes, but you see good outcomes where other people don’t, and you achieve them seemingly effortlessly.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mastery demands time. No matter how quickly you acquire your competence, you will eventually hit a wall where the conscious application of your knowledge is not enough. It needs to be automatic, to let your mind be free to think about more and more difficult problems. Difficult concepts (or techniques, if you’re looking at a physical task) need to become simple for you, so that they can become the building blocks of even </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">more </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">intricate ideas. This lets you make hard things look easy while the impossible becomes possible. For us humans, in most cases mastery is a heck of a grind.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">While the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">strongest imaginable learner </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">could approach mastery quickly and easily, for most people, the objective of being a strong learner means approaching </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">competence </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">quickly. In this regard (brag incoming) I’m happy to say that I’ve become a relatively strong learner. I’ve been able to achieve competence at most things that I set my mind to, and the more I practice learning, the better I get at doing it. Especially when it has come to video games, I have achieved competence at certain games and genres that, in the past, I never thought I’d be able to. Not mastery by any stretch of the imagination, but competence.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What’s interesting to me is that I don’t </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">feel </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">particularly smart or talented. I make plenty of very stupid mistakes </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">all the time. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Even my strongest skills--verbal ones, specifically--are rooted in a lot of goofy failures and errors; I just got them out of the way when I was younger. What has helped me become “smarter”--a better learner, in other words--has been acquiring learning </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">tools </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">that I can consistently apply when learning things in new arenas.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Based on things I’ve been studying in machine learning, neuroscience, and based on my own experience, I’ve been thinking about one of the strongest tools in my learning toolkit, and I’ve realized just </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">how damn strong it is. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s the kind of thing that I would automatically do sometimes, forget to do other times, and not even realize it counted as a technique! The best name I can think of for it is “predictive learning,” and that’s the real topic of today’s post.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The first thing to know is that your brain does not really “store” information. It’s not a big filing cabinet that just pulls up sheets of paper with information on them. It </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">recreates </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">information based on rules and past experiences.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Here’s what I mean. Imagine two video games playing two different cutscenes. The first game plays the exact same cutscene every time; it stores a video file and runs it when you trigger the cutscene. There is no way to change the cutscene unless you actually went in and screwed with the files in the game.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Now imagine the second video game </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">recreates </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">the cutscene every time. It grabs the current model of a bunch of characters, and then executes the cutscene according to a bunch of rules. If your character is wearing a different costume, then the cutscene runs with them wearing that costume. If it were an RPG, and your party could have different characters in it, then the cutscene runs with your different party members in the background.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The first game just stores the cutscene, and runs it when asked. The second one rebuilds it, every time, based on certain information and principles. Your brain works a lot more like the second game than the first one, and when you are learning how to do a skill, your brain is coming up with </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">rules </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">for how to do things. The brain is flexible though. It changes its rules when it learns that they aren’t quite getting the job done, and that’s the basis of learning.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Reread that last sentence. Your brain </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">changes </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">the rules based on how good of an outcome you get. However, you don’t just want to get </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">good </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">outcomes. You want your brain to be good at </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">predicting what actually happens based on what it does</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. That’s a key distinction! When you get too focused on getting a “good” outcome, then you become satisfied with rules that don’t actually match reality. The heart of becoming a strong learner is not being satisfied with good outcomes, but striving for </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">accurate predictions. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You can get an outcome that you didn’t expect, but still succeed, and convince yourself that you knew what you were doing. Understanding this allows you to employ predictive learning to </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">get better faster. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It also has the benefit of making you look like a psychic genius, but that’s (probably) not your main goal here.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Initially, whatever you are learning about, you will start just by </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">observing things. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There’s not much point in trying to predict what will happen in a new situation when you have no rules for the system. You just start with nearly random inputs, or you start by watching other people. This phase gives you some correlations. It gives you some information on what to expect. At this phase, if somebody asks you what you think is going to happen, then your initial answer should be “I have no idea” or “here’s a wild guess but it’s probably wrong.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If you are watching attentively, your brain will automatically start developing some rules for how the system works. It will start to say “based on what I saw, or what I know, this is what I think will happen.” Your brain has been doing this since you were a baby! You watched adults walking, and got an idea for the outcome that should happen. This is why kids will get themselves into the general walking posture; they know that it’s associated with walking. But without any information on how it </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">felt </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">to make the muscles do the job, all it could do was say “uh, get in this general position? I guess?” and then you tip over. Walking, it turns out, is actually really hard when you’ve never done it before.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That’s where the next phase comes in. The prediction phase. “If I do this, then THIS should happen.” Once you have some data, you will start to make </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">active guesses about outcomes. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Making these active guesses is </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">super important. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It forces you to take the rules inside your head and apply them to the system. It forces you to go through the steps of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">recreating the system in your head. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s a test! Your goal is to get your rules to match up with reality. If I do X, then Y happens… yeah! That’s right! Now if I do A, then B should… no, it’s C. Hmm. Maybe… I do A, but a little more like </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">this, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and… yeah! It worked! You’re learning!</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is where predictive learning, however, gets trickier. You aren’t just trying to predict </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">only the good outcomes. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You are trying to develop an internal model of the system that is </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">accurate all over. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You want to get </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">detailed. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You want to get </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">imaginative. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is what separates predictive learning from just memorizing. You don’t just say “this is how I get the good outcome,” but you can accurately answer the question “now what happens if I do things </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">this </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">way?” When you truly try to model the system that you’re learning, there are no trick questions. There is only the system and your inner model of it. You can predict the weird outcomes just as well as you can predict the normal ones. In fact, “weird” stops being a thing. If something is weird, it means that your inner rules aren’t accurate.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Let’s say I practice free-throws. I can “memorize” the free-throw, and I can get very good at it. But does that mean I will really understand the interactions between my body and the basketball? Does that mean I will be able to effectively take any other shot?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The short answer is no. Predictive learning, in its strongest form, means that you will do things like guess just </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">how </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">successful something will be</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Or you guess where it will go wrong, how wrong, and to what extent. Predictive learning means you don’t just try to get a good result, it means that you try to </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">model </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">the end result, and you </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">change your rules when your model is wrong. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is especially true the more and more detailed you try to get. You can apply predictive learning to your free-throw shot when you say “if I shoot like </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">this, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is that enough to get the ball to hit the backboard and sink?” Or “if I do </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">this </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">wrist movement, then the ball will bounce </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">in </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">if it hits the back rim… oh, no it, bounced out? I wonder why?” This keeps you from simply saying “okay I can sink my free throw shot all the time.” It means you understand, deep down, the interaction between the ball and your body, between the ball and the hoop. It lets you take those ideas and apply them elsewhere! It also lets you </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">correct </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">things when they start to go wrong; that day when you have a little tweak in your shoulder and your normal shot doesn’t work, you can work through the problem.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I want to be clear though, I actually don’t have anything against memorization. The free-throw shot is one you will probably have to take, on average, more than any other shot in basketball. It can pay off big time</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">when you memorize the most common situations, especially if, in a given system, you can guarantee that those situations will occur. For example, you get your star player to practice free-throws all the time because they get fouled constantly to stop them from running wild on the court, and if they can sink all their free-throws then that means free </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">points.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Memorizing" in this case also just means "practice." Particularly when it comes to physical skills, there is exactly one way to get your body used to certain techniques, and that's to do them <i>over and over again </i>while comparing them against the ideal. Even when you aren't trying to become a master of<i> </i>something, as a human being this particular phase of learning <i>can't be ignored, </i>and I don't want you to think it can be. Complicated sequences of muscle interactions will demand that you grind and rehearse to get them perfect. Even while trying to employ predictive learning, if you want consistent performance then you need to develop consistent technique, and repetition is the cornerstone of that.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i><br /></i></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">(Memorizing can also be useful to memorize certain things when you try your absolute hardest but just can’t seem to come up with the rules that cover everything. There’s this one thing that you have a habit of getting wrong… so you have your rules for everything else, and then you memorize that one weird case. It’s okay to admit that your inner model isn’t perfect. It’s a band-aid solution, and band-aids aren’t ideal but they’re better than bleeding everywhere)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The key here, however, is that you develop a strong inner model of the system you are learning. You constantly, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">actively </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">try to guess how things will play out. Being wrong is a good thing, because it lets you improve your model. When other people’s rules have exceptions, but yours don’t, that means you have the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">real </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">ones, the ones that account for the strange and the weird and the uncommon. That means that even the really wacky stuff just seems </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">obvious </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">to you, because that’s what your model says will happen… and then it turns out you’re right.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So don’t just watch, and don’t just try to force yourself towards memorizing how to secure a good outcome. Actively predict how things will turn out, and when you’re wrong, look for the thing you missed, or the thing that you paid too much attention to. When you are wrong, tweak yourself in the direction of being a better predictor. It takes a bit more effort, but it pays off.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Thanks for reading!</span></div>
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EskimauxRobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13037945662977655232noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9136309127101332180.post-88442432138407065392018-01-23T13:18:00.000-08:002018-01-23T13:18:00.864-08:00My Rain World Retrospective<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One of my favorite video games of last year recently turned into one of my favorite video games of all time. Before, I might have placed it in my top 20, but now, as the result of a recent content update, it is now actually in my top 3. If you have watched any of my streams semi-recently, you’ll know that I’ve been hooked on it. I wanted to write a review, or retrospective, or </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">something </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">about the game for some time now, and since I said I would write more blog posts this year, this is it.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">For people who haven’t played or seen it, Rain World is a 2D platformer with a focus on survival and exploration. You play as a little creature called a Slugcat that has been separated from its family, and you begin the game by questing to find them. Each night it rains, and your job is to find food and shelter. Certain rooms are special refuges from the rain, and when you’ve eaten enough food each day, you can hibernate to wait out the rain. Gameplay is a balance of exploring the world, finding shelter, finding food, and traveling from region to region while you figure out what’s going on.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Like a lot of my favorite games, it blends cuteness and ruthlessness. The main character is very adorable, which makes it a shame that you are going to see it die so much. Slugcat is rather fragile and preyed on by the many creatures roaming around. It’s easy to get lost, the controls take a bit of getting used to, and you will find yourself alternating between confused and dead with great frequency.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’ve been playing video games for most of my life, and Rain World is near the top of my list. If you go looking at reviews, you’ll see a lot of complaints, and I can’t imagine many people want to play through it. So what do I like so much about it?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s a Roleplaying Game, For Real</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There are a couple genre names that don’t really mean much except by convention. The two that come to mind are MOBA and RPG. “Multiplayer Online Battle Arena” does not explicitly tell you to expect a team-based game that usually has lanes, farming, towers, items, and a base to blow up, nor does “Roleplaying Game” explicitly tell you that there will be leveling and weirdly-dressed teenagers.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Despite all the other labels I gave it, Rain World is an honest-to-goodness roleplaying game. It </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">actually </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">gets you feeling like your character would. There are a few main criticisms of the game that you will see if you check out reviews, and they look something like:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">1) I'm confused</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">2) I'm lost</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">3) I'm frustrated</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">4) I keep dying</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">5) The game isn't helping</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">To be very, very fair, these are all totally reasonable reactions to playing Rain World. I don't feel like these are inaccurate or unexpected responses.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Here’s the thing. Your little Slugcat roams a slowly decaying civilization, surrounded by creatures and buildings and structures that are all bigger than it. The world does not make sense, outside of “eat, sleep, don’t die.” You go searching, but it’s easy to get lost. The buildings stand tall and imposing, but are mostly host to your attempts at survival; their actual purpose is difficult to determine.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And this is what makes it a roleplaying game. If you say “hey, you’re a plucky teenager making his way in the world on some kind of wacky adventure,” but a few hours in I am absolutely manhandling a bunch of experienced mercenaries twice my age and size… well, it’s a game, and it might be a fun game, but I sure as heck don’t feel like it’s me against the world. I get to feel cool and powerful, but I don’t go mowing down hordes of nameless soldiers and monsters and come away feeling like I’ve stepped into any particular role other than God of Destruction.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Rain World, on the other hand, is not looking to make you feel powerful. The game is looking to make you feel like Slugcat. It is looking to make you feel like a little creature dropped in a world that does not care about you, does not make sense to you, will not be kind to you, and feels no need to explain itself. You are lost and you are small. It is not actually a pleasant feeling.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Every single enemy represents a real threat to you. Having played the game </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">a lot, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I can safely say that every single creature in that game has gotten me killed, whether it was friendly, hostile, or neutral to me. It’s a scary world out there, and the only time the game lets you really breathe is when you reach a shelter.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There’s a quote out there (whose origins I don’t know) that goes: “</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning a lion wakes up. It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death. It doesn’t matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle: when the sun comes up, you’d better be running.” </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Like a lot of people in developed civilization, my day-to-day life is not closely entangled with concerns about my own mortality. Meat grows in supermarkets. Hunting and gathering means “finding restaurants.” We are mostly surrounded by each other and have a lot of rules against hurting one another. We’ve walled up and shoved out most of the creatures that can kill us easily. Death is mostly considered a tragic accident that nobody should have to worry about. Our lives are relatively predictable, and there is no shortage of information on how to navigate the world we’ve built for ourselves. Even if you decide to go camping in the wilderness, you probably travel in a secure vehicle and bring your own food and shelter and have some way of getting in contact with other people. It’s not exactly behind glass, but it’s close.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Rain World asks “what if you didn’t have any of that?” and the answer is “it’s not pleasant.” There’s a </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">reason </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">we went to so much effort to put up the walls and roofs and bring the more edible creatures inside with us. There’s a reason we spend </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">years </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">trying to teach children how the world works before we throw them into the middle of it. But once you’re just a creature in the wild, your primary concern is “find food somewhere, find a place to sleep, and don’t die,” every day. Lions don’t hand you flashcards and sharks only give you one short and violent pop quiz. If you can’t handle it, you can be the meal for something else.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Rain World, as a game, honestly feels like it just </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">doesn’t care that much about me. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It doesn’t feel like it really privileges me as the player. I get the feeling that Rain World is like some mountain range off in the wilderness that doesn’t care whether you ever reach the peak or experience its marvelous vistas. If you want to, that’s on you. The mountain will keep being a mountain, and Rain World will keep being Rain World, as cold and uncaring as nature. You just don’t matter to it.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It didn’t feel like the devs screwed up here, either. Sometimes you play a crappy game and you can tell that whoever made it just didn’t really know what they were doing. That’s not the feeling I get from Rain World. It seems that this is what they wanted. It might not be everybody’s cup of tea, but it was certainly unique.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It Feels Like a Living System</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Now that I’ve streamed it a bunch, one of the most frequent comments I’ve seen is “watching this game feels like watching a nature documentary.” In part, this is because the creatures in the game have been carefully designed to seem alive. Not only are the animations are procedural, but their behaviors feel very animal. They will bob and move erratically, they will pause, they will stop and turn around for no apparent reason, and though you can learn their patterns they still have a knack for surprising you or doing weird things.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Most importantly though, the creatures all interact with each other. Their lives do not revolve around you, the player; they are all trying to eat and survive, just like you. When you wake up each day, your entire region loads, and all the enemy behavior is simulated even when offscreen. Though they do have common spawn locations, from the moment they wake up, it’s a mixed bag where they’ll go. But wherever they go, they will act like themselves.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This, by the way, is one of the reasons it took a content update to shoot Rain World so high up my list. It not only added a few new creature designs, but it also added a harder difficulty in which, among other things, more creatures spawn. This means there are a </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">lot </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">more opportunities to see them interact (or get caught in the middle of them, and try to use their interactions to your advantage). You are more likely to enter a room and see other two enemies in the middle of a scuffle, and you are more likely to get different species of creatures nearby one another to use as resources (since same species typically won’t fight).</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Again, you get that feeling that you’ve honestly been dropped into a living world, and you’re just one of the many. You also have many opportunities to learn the behavior patterns of all the creatures, and they are surprisingly detailed. With a few hundred hours of time in the game (don’t judge me) I still learn little things about them. Sometimes by getting eaten.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You Are Not Powerful, But You’re Capable</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Speaking of getting eaten… one of the things about this game that </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">will </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">drive you mad is how </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">unfair </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">it all feels. As I said above, this is a big part of that feeling that you are a small creature in a big world. You survive by eating fruits and little bats that flit about dumbly, and your main weapons are small rocks and sticks that you pick up and throw at things. Learning how to reliably kill enemies is a process that involves you getting bitten and snapped at and knocked around, and even once you have a lot of knowledge under your belt, little things go wrong and then you’re dead again. It really does feel unfair.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Yet there are many creatures, small and fragile, who still live. They are the survivors, the latest links of an unbroken genetic chain that has been forged through millions of years of trial, error, life, death, and luck. Your Slugcat is very much the same. It’s a big world, but the tools you need to survive are there. Most of the deaths are your fault, and you could have done something more to survive. Some of them are because you didn’t know how things worked, but that’s life. Ants will cluelessly walk into antlion traps and be devoured. A fish is dead in the water when a faster swimmer spots it from outside its own vision. The only answer is “don’t do that thing you did,” but you learn too late. At least Slugcat gets to respawn! With each death, you ideally learn a little more about how to navigate the world, where you are strong, where you are weak, and how to keep going. Some deaths </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">are </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">bad luck, and come from being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Again, this is all very realistic, which is a popular trend in games these days, I hear.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Even in your more “realistic” games though, you get to feel powerful. The least powerful you feel is probably when you play multiplayer games and get trashed by people better than you, but at least you probably have guns or spells or special abilities or something. In Rain World, you start out with sticks and rocks, and you pretty much end with sticks and rocks. In between, you will find things in the world that you can use to survive. Many of the items are multipurpose, but you will only find out what they do by experimenting, because the game doesn’t go out of its way to tell you.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Nevertheless, the path to victory is there. As you learn, as you get more clever and knowledgeable, the game becomes more and more traversable, and you start to realize that the tools for success are lying </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">everywhere</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. The game that once felt so unfair almost starts to seem benevolent. Sometimes I get through a region and almost get embarrassed at myself for ever thinking the game was tough. I typically get humbled shortly after that, but nonetheless, I’m amazed at how rich the world is with opportunities to survive and succeed. Dying to “bad luck” is almost always the result of pushing my good luck too far, or doing something even when I knew it was a risky idea.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">With all that in mind, the result is that I feel </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">good </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">about succeeding in this game. It does not hold my hand. It usually tries to take whatever’s in it and then bite the hand off. It is not a game where you get a quicktime event, hit one button, and the game tells you how legendary you are. It’s a game where victory is making it through the day, and if you succeed, then you probably earned it. You are not powerful, but you </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">are </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">capable of survival, and ultimately triumphing. There aren’t many games that have made me feel as accomplished as I do when playing this game well.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That’s my experiential take on Rain World. Lastly, here is some of the other stuff you’d expect from a review.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">From a visual perspective, I think the game is beautiful, detailed, and lovingly crafted. Even if the game didn’t have an ending, your reward for playing, surviving, and exploring would just be getting to see everything. After struggling to navigate the earlier regions and finally surviving, seeing some of the backgrounds and vistas gave me a feeling similar to what, I imagine, mountain climbers feel when they reach a summit after a grueling ascent. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The sound design is phenomenal, and much of it lies in the sound effects. There is music, but it rarely plays. I find that a shame, because I enjoyed the music quite a bit, but silence serves the tone and feel of the game well. Music either kicks in when enemies arrive (it becomes one of your most useful cues), or when you reach an area that is mostly devoid of threats and you have some time to appreciate your surroundings.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There is lore and background to the world, and you can ignore it or investigate it as you please. I feel like the atmosphere of the game is enough to carry it, but the developers put quite the detailed backstory and information into the game, which was fun to go hunting for (or just reading via wiki online, when I decided I didn’t want to do all the work myself). As you go through the game and piece things together from a behavior standpoint, with the objective being “don’t die,” it’s nice to also get a wider-view picture of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">why </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">things are the way they are. Like the rest of the game’s information, it is not particularly easy to access, nor does it intend to be.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The controls are precise, but they end up feeling clunky </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">because </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">of how precise they are. Do things correctly and they work every time. Do things slightly wrong, and you usually get a very wrong outcome. If you are handling yourself well, you will understand why your character is called a cat; if you aren’t, you understand why your character is called a slug. Things that seem inconsistent have, time and again, turned out to be very consistent once I actually investigated them. However, when the action gets frenetic, or you are racing against time to reach a shelter, if you don’t keep your cool and input things properly, you can end up paying big time.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ultimately though, the controls are mostly quite good. Except the swimming. The swimming can go drown itself.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Conclusion</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Strangely enough, as much as I adore this game, it can be hard for me to recommend this game to people because of how demanding and aggravating it can be. If you think you have the necessary tolerance for frustration though, then I </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">do </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">recommend it, wholeheartedly. It is full of countless, delicious rewards, in the form of the environments you see and the knowledge you gain and the accomplishment you feel just from </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">surviving. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s a system full of simple but detailed elements, all interacting and offering you new (and often lethal) surprises. You really won’t play another game quite like it.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Thanks for reading. See you next time.</span></div>
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EskimauxRobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13037945662977655232noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9136309127101332180.post-15082499647442327712018-01-17T05:24:00.000-08:002018-01-17T05:24:04.270-08:00Compete Complete in 2018<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I didn’t make it a resolution, but I probably should have: I’d like to write more in 2018.</span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-bf7f0110-0449-2a42-04f0-f26bbc9a6e70" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I know a lot of other people had it rough in 2017, but it turned out to be a good year for me. A lot of cool things happened for me, chief among them finally finishing a bachelor’s degree! I’m jumping straight into a master’s program now, and it promises to be very busy.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(Since several people have asked, the BS was in Cognitive Science, and the MS is for “Applied Cognition and Neuroscience” with a focus on machine learning)</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There has been a lot on my mind lately, and I have sat down to write numerous times, but ultimately I haven’t finished anything. I think that my blogging mostly remained consistent when I was 1) competing and 2) had a schedule. I don’t plan to enter tournaments for much in the near future (I’ll be going to Frosty Faustings this weekend and that’s about it), but I miss writing and I think it has helped me in many ways, so we’re going to at least stick with #2.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Right now, based on my class schedule, I will strive to release one post a week on Tuesday. I’ll keep it up for a month and see how that goes, and if the drive is strong, I’ll bump it up to Tuesday and Friday like it was some time ago.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I am not sure what I will post about after this first month. Probably learning (it’s been a big focus of my education) and my own psychology, as usual. However, I </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">do</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> have my next three posts picked! In no order:</span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Prediction as a learning tool</span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A short primer on doing esports commentary</span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A review/revisitation of one of my favorite video games (not Smash)</span></div>
</li>
</ul>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Thanks for reading. I’ll see you next week!</span></div>
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EskimauxRobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13037945662977655232noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9136309127101332180.post-55013616336154118892017-09-12T14:38:00.003-07:002017-09-12T14:38:32.835-07:00Update: Still alive!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Hey friends; been absent from the blogging for awhile.</span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-c064fa85-7806-977f-595f-5414b25f1e2f" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">First, the life update. New semester started, been playing a lot of guitar, and trying to figure out where I’m going to apply for work once I’ve finished my degree program (and since people always ask, the degree plan is Cognitive Science, with a concentration in Neuroscience and Machine Learning). I’m taking 18 credit hours this semester so I’m a little busy, but I’ll have the Bachelor’s done this semester (!!) if everything goes well.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But I know you’re here for stuff about video games and probably Smash, so I’ll talk about that instead.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">**</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Playing Falco is mostly going pretty well. It’s forced me to study a lot of stuff about the game that I hadn’t looked at in-depth before. I can do a lot of cool stuff, I get a bit ahead of myself and do dumb things that definitely won’t work (but would be </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">so cool </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">if they did) and it’s just good to have fun with the game in that way again.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Besides </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">in-game </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">details though, I have had to start looking at a lot of things in my day-to-day that influence my play. There’s also a particular demon that has been continuing to torment me lately, and trying to eliminate it has… well, mostly just made me angrier about it. These are the main groups that I’m looking at:</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">--Diet</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">--Sleep/Energy</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">--Stimulants</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">--Anxiety/Anger/Mood</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">--Practice/Research</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">--Tremors/Lockup</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There’s a lot of overlap in these groups--they all interact, and don’t always play nicely--but that’s the way I feel like breaking it down. Let’s just take it piece by piece.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Diet: </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I did not really pay much attention to my diet as an influencing factor until recently. I used to try and only eat several hours before playing, and not eat during tournaments because I felt it made me sluggish and slow. Now, I’m finding the opposite to be true. When I am hungry, I get irritable, impulsive, and start thinking slowly, so I’ve tried to keep some form of nutrient flow going during tournament. I’m not really sure what the best kinds of food to eat will be--sometimes just having Gatorade/Powerade during tourney helps, sometimes just drinking lots of water, sometimes trail mix, sometimes one big meal before playing keeps me going for hours--but at the very least I find I need to have </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">something </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">in my stomach before I play, or I play a lot worse, and I get really pissy when things go wrong. I think the official scientific term is “hangry.”</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sleep/Energy</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">:</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One thing I’m struggling with is that my main source of practice during the week is at our weekly, Monday Night Melee, which starts at 8 PM. I’m usually up around 8 to 9 AM, and it comes at the end of ~5 hours of difficult classes (class on Monday is 2:30 to 6:45, though I have a bit of time for lunch so it’s not a straight block). By the end of the weekly, if I’m not eliminated early, I’m typically exhausted, since it typically ends around midnight and my highest placing with Falco lately has been 4th. This is a hassle, and I don’t have time for a nap, but it’s the kind of thing I will have to deal with if/when I enter at nationals again, so I’ll just have to treat it as a constant for now. Apart from that I just try to get high-quality sleep and it typically lasts me all day, so that’s fine.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Stimulants</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">:</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If you have ever tuned into my stream, and you’ve ever asked me a question, you probably have firsthand experience with my ADD. I am </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">super </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">easily distracted even in the middle of a sentence, and usually I have to stop everything to give my attention to the question, or else I can’t finish my thoughts. I’ve had a hell of a time dealing with it, and I have an Adderall prescription for school.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Downside: Adderall </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">destroys </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">my ability to play Smash. I know some people use it as a performance enhancer, but for me, it just aggravates my tremors to the point that I can’t handle the controller. I can use the concentration to handle my emotional state more effectively, but my hands don’t really seem to care how hard I concentrate, they just don’t play ball. I take it in the morning, so thankfully it mostly fades by the time my weekly starts, and since I don’t really need it when I travel, I just don’t take it. That typically reduces my tremor back to base level, though since my base-level tremor is pretty shaky, it’s not exactly a cure-all. Still, it’s preferable to the alternative.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The biggest downside to the Adderall, however, is that since it tends to reduce appetite, I forget to eat. When the stimulant leaves my system and I realize that I’m hungry, I’m usually </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">ravenous </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and also exhausted and burnt out. So I’ve had to make myself eat small things regularly, even when I don’t want to, and that helps. Mondays can be a pain, because I mostly won’t eat during the day, then I can forget to eat before my weekly, and then I have to cram food in my gullet, and then I want to take a nap. So… it takes some planning that was never an issue when I didn’t take Adderall.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Also regarding stimulants: some time ago I found that even when I’m not particularly nervous or amped up, caffeine interferes with my fine motor skills and just throws me off a tiny bit, so I stopped drinking that during tournaments as well. If I want to perk up, I try to make sure when I consume anything caffeinated, I do it at least two hours before I play, and that works out pretty well. Otherwise I just try to let the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">game </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">be my stimulant and keep away from coffee, soda and energy drinks. This does alright, as long as I’m well fed and watered.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Anxiety/Anger/Mood</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">:</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Number one reaction I get from people when they learn I have emotional issues: “wow, you’re really chill normally! I wouldn’t have thought you’d be such a rager!”</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Well, if I could only pick one benefit from sticking with Smash for so long, it’s that Melee tilts me so hard that almost every other emotional struggle in life feels like a joke. I can’t even describe how frustrated, nervous, angry, etc. I sometimes get when playing, and I’m supposed to be Mister Words.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Somebody elbowed me in the face when standing up in a crowded lecture hall, and I just blinked and said “eh, it’s okay, these things happen.” I got a test back that I thought I aced, and it turned out I got a 78: “well, it happens, this stuff is hard, at least it happened now instead of the final.” Girl canceled a date last second that I’d been excited for all week: “Gee, that sucks, oh well more time for guitar.” Have to give a presentation in class? “Sorry, if you think </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">this </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is nerve-wracking you should try playing for thousands of dollars on stream some time.” I feel these distant little pulses of annoyance, like the universe is trying to heckle me but the worst thing it can do is call me is a poo-face and it’s just so pathetic that it’s funnier than anything else. Squelching an angry response to those things is small. I am beyond such trivial considerations. I am transcendent.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Hit the wrong button in a children’s party game? I am the Lord, and wrathful and vengeful is my name. I want to smash my hands with a hammer so they can’t offend me anymore with their flawed existences. There’s more to it than just making mistakes though, and I’ll get to that in a bit, but </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">nothing </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">has a direct line to my emotional centers--whether it’s getting nervous, raging, or being depressed over my own inability--like Smash does. My emotional response is so out of whack that it would feel cartoonish if it weren’t so tumultuous.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Being well-rested and well-fed helps me control this a lot more. Many of my cognitive strategies for handling them do a pretty good job. They do such a </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">phenomenal </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">job in every other part of my life that I don’t even want to blame them for letting me down. Again, I don’t know how to describe it. When I get frustrated, or nervous, or whatever, the emotion just surges through my brain so intensely that I have to stop everything I’m doing to manage it, and usually that means I just have to eat a loss at the moment and move on.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Practice/Research:</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In trying to play better, I’ve had to devote more time to intelligent practice and research on </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">what </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">to practice, since my conventional understanding of the game is getting outdated. I’ve needed to flowchart certain situations so that I can avoid using any brainpower on them, and pay attention to </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">other </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">details instead, so I can pick different flowcharts when I want to mix people up. Falco requires a </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">lot </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">of snappy inputs and reactions in certain situations, and right now I’m at a point where I can only be aware and intelligent for so many of those situations, and in the other ones, I’m pretty flawed and exploitable. This is one of the downsides of playing a character that people have so much experience against, and it’s just part of the process of learning him. Thankfully there’s lots of material for me to study and research in this regard, so he’s improving at a pretty decent rate! Overall I’m pretty happy with how my practice and research are paying off, so this area is actually just a net positive.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There was a point where I thought I just wasn’t practicing enough, and that it was the source of my miseries; lately though, I’ve found certain things are just integrating themselves, like better aerial timings. Certain complex errors are correcting themselves more frequently, and most of it comes from reflecting on them, drilling them, paying attention to them when I play, and not being lazy about them. Overall, this area is a big plus, and it’s been fun and rewarding to experience progress here. I also feel very glad that I’m getting progress at all, since I have to devote so much time to school that I don’t get to practice as much as I probably should.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Tremors/Lockup:</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Okay, here’s where everything has really sucked lately, and I’m still struggling to figure out what the heck is going on. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Some </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">progress has been made, but in other places I’m still stumped. The progress here has mainly come from trying to fix my motor errors, noticing that I have several sources of potential errors, and realizing that lumping them all together is a mistake when trying to solve them. So let’s try to tease them apart.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">First, I’m trying to distinguish </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">complex </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">errors from </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">simple </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">errors, as well as large from small. Complex errors happen during sequences of chunked movements--an example would be hitting a fast, low d-air on shield into shine grab, then a rapid up-throw to increase the odds of bad DI. There are a lot of movements that require specific timing, it strings them all together, and it’s all done in reaction to seeing “hey, he’s vulnerable here and I can get him stuck in shield.” Even if all components are at 99 percent success rate individually, linking them together is the big challenge of this game, and it’s reasonable to make mistakes here. It’s just part of the learning curve. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Simple </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">errors, however, come from trying to input a single chunked movement, and screwing it up. Something like trying to f-tilt, and accidentally dash attacking.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The other big distinction here is a large error from a small error. I mean it in terms of the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">motion </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">or the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">timing, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">rather than the consequence. Little errors can lead to big consequences; i.e., I try to do a shine from a dash, but I am a </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">little </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">slow in rolling the joystick and get a forward+b off the stage. Big consequence, but it’s such a </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">small </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">difference in timing or joystick positioning that it’s like, “well, yeah, this is a fast and difficult motion.” A large error, however, means something like “hey, I wanted to forward-tilt, but I up-aired because I smashed the joystick in the wrong direction from a standstill, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I hit the A button super late.” It’s not like you missed your putt by a foot, it’s like you abruptly turned around and putted in the wrong direction.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Briefly going back to my rage issues… the best way for me to think about it is like a rage meter. It builds up from my mistakes, but goes down over time. When I devote attention to it, I can force it to go down faster, with things like deep breathing and positive self-talk. In order from least frustrating to most frustrating, it goes:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">--Small, complex errors</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">--Large, complex errors</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">--Small, simple errors</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">--Large, simple errors</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Small-complex means something like “whoops I was off by a frame on a single input in this long string of techniques.” Those don’t really tilt me that much. If my rage meter was out of 100, this is like a +5. I have to make </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">lots </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">of those small errors in a row. Large-complex means something like “I did three fast and difficult techniques in a row, and on the last one my brain got really confused and hit the opposite direction it was supposed to.” That’s more like a +8.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Small-simple is going to be something like accidentally doing an up-angled f-tilt versus up-tilting. It’s a minor directional difference, but it’s a simple motion. I find failing at a simple task to be </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">really </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">aggravating, even when the mistake is small, like being few degrees off with a joystick motion. I think it’s mostly the feeling that it </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">should </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">be easy that triggers this feeling. Call it a +10.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But large-simple? Like having my hands spasm and miss the c-stick entirely? Like trying to wavedash away, but accidentally air-dodging straight up? Have your tranq darts ready, I lose my </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">mind </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">over that. +25, easy. When this stuff adds up and hits me in quick succession, I want to </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">murder </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">something. Myself, usually.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If I start adding up a </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">lot </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">of small-complex errors though, I can </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">notice </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and start to simplify my game a bit. “Hey, I’m just a tiny bit off right now, let’s slow it down and ease into it.” Even if they’re large, the same thing tends to happen; it’s probably something I wasn’t as practiced at, or I lost focus part of the way through the string and thought about doing something else, and that interfered with my execution. Again, I’ll slow it down, I’ll focus a bit more, I’ll take a deep breath. It’s so </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">manageable. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Most of the time when I’m playing Falco, this is my general error source, and I don’t even mind that much. Everybody messes this stuff up.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">simple </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">errors feel so daunting, because they’re so fundamental to your play. A complex action is just a string of simpler, chunked actions. If I can’t reduce my behavior down to hitting the dang </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">buttons </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">properly, then what do I have left? These mistakes feel almost physically painful, and I can’t get </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">away </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">from them because in order to play, I need to at least do something simple, and sometimes I just </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">can’t </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and I don’t really know why. Especially because I know that I have the raw coordination; watch me practice and I can pull off some </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">wild </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">stuff. In game? Nobody knows what we’re gonna get.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Now, back to the actual heading of this section, sometimes it’s my hand tremors. They suck, I can’t get away from them, and they’re pretty hard to deal with when it comes to fine joystick movement, especially since I’m right-hand dominant. I have tricks for dealing with it though, and a </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">lot </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">of it comes down to managing my mood, my diet, my energy, etc. Those are the things that have formed the bulk of my progress over the past ten or so years in this respect. When I’m angry, my motions can get bigger, clunkier, and more wild, so the tremors can get amplified. When I’m nervous, the shakes magnify, and it’s usually curtains until I can get it under control. I was </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">particularly </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">tilted after one set where I didn’t feel nervous--heartbeat was normal, breathing was fine, large shakes weren’t present--but my motor skills still sucked! That was my set with Westballz in Sweden, and that’s where I found that caffeine interferes my execution. That’s a finding that has remained pretty consistent. It’s all about keeping my tremors down to their baseline, where they are manageable.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But as I narrow certain stuff down and find that certain things work and other stuff doesn’t, there’s one issue that keeps coming up that I don’t understand. My hands will sometimes just lock-up, regardless of how warmed up I am, how nervous I am, how caffeinated, tired, whatever I am. They don’t seem to have this problem in any area of my life but Smash--example, I can comfortably type ~130 words per minute with few mistakes. They don’t generally lock up when I’m playing music, barring situations with fatigue or things I’m unpracticed with. But in Melee, when they lock up, the most basic interactions with my controller fail me. I can’t dash. I can’t do tilts. I can’t wavedash. If I try to turn, I’ll run the wrong direction. If I try to dash the other direction, I’ll turn or crouch or jump with the joystick, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">anything </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">but the right input. I’ll miss buttons, my index finger will hover over the L or R trigger, then suddenly slap down and double tap it. It will happen in the most mundane scenarios, and I don’t get it.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Last night was pretty aggravating for this reason. I got to winner’s semis, playing reasonably well. I had just played a set against one of our local ICs, and made a small comeback on game 1 even though I was feeling that anxiety that you get when you get wobbled three times from relatively minor errors; my heartrate was jumping and I was feeling a bit jittery, but I managed to get things under control and won the set. After that, I had just played ~30 minutes of friendlies against a Fox I’m pretty evenly matched against while waiting, and by the end of the games I was actually winning by a solid margin and hitting some really nice, difficult strings.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I got into the game, and suddenly I could not do ANYTHING. I could not get my fingers to block when I saw a raptor boost coming, even when I called it in advance. After getting hit by it several times, then just </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">wrenching </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">my hand into the shield to make it work, I couldn’t get my muscles to recover in time to punish. I took stock of my heartrate, the tension in my hands, etc, and things were fine. I was still fairly calm and relaxed, even though I felt like I’d played abysmally; heck, I was less nervous than I’d been against our ICs player. I took a few deep breaths anyhow, waited a bit before going into game 2, and it turned out even worse, so I quit out before I could finish getting three-stocked.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Hands felt fine. The matchup didn’t confuse me. I didn’t feel myself getting more nervous than normal, or even start getting actually angry until part of the way through game two. No caffeine in my system. I’d been playing fine for the past hour, then suddenly it was gone. Afterwards (around fifteen minutes, after I’d calmed down) I sat down to play a different Fox in friendlies who had beaten me twice before the weekly, when warming up. I actually three-stocked him a few times. Skill = back.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">For that set, for about eight concentrated minutes, my hands just refused to cooperate with me, and after the set, they were back in action like nothing happened. I played my next tournament set against a Jigglypuff, had a few mistakes but mostly played really well, then played against another one of our Fox players, and… well, the lock-up started happening again, but not as bad, in retrospect. The errors were a little more on the small-complex side, but I was in a sufficiently bad mood that it still tilted the hell out of me.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This inability to perform basic maneuvers has been bothering me for a long time, but I’ve </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">mostly </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">been able to trace it to my tremors, especially being amplified by anxiety and stress. I do a much better job of handling that, but when I feel it happen anyway, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">knowing the source </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">makes me much less irritated. I know that I could have taken more deep breaths, or written my thoughts out to calm myself down, or worked out the tension a bit in warmup. There’s an </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">answer </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">to that. When I couldn’t figure it out again, it turned out it was caffeine and stimulants. I could have a cup of coffee and watch myself go from good to decent to horrifyingly inconsistent over a time-course of thirty minutes. Some of my other mistakes, particularly in the small-complex realm, or even the large-complex, mostly come from not drilling enough, losing focus, or just getting surprised and taking action in a rushed way. I’ve become deeply acquainted with all of that over the years.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But this is just something irritating and new entirely. I’m gonna think and write more about it soon.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">**</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So that’s where I’m at now, particularly regarding my Smash progress. Another question that people have asked me lately is whether I’m going to any majors soon, and the answer is Too Hot to Handle in October, then Tipped Off 11 in November. The other big one is “are you quitting ICs entirely?” and the answer is “probably not in the long run, but for now, yes.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Catch you guys later. Thanks for reading.</span></div>
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EskimauxRobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13037945662977655232noreply@blogger.com27tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9136309127101332180.post-87999444235374004202017-07-21T11:22:00.002-07:002017-07-21T11:22:19.636-07:00Thirty<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I turned thirty yesterday. It feels weird to say.<br />
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It doesn't feel weird to <i>be</i> thirty, though. I woke up and just kept doing the same stuff I typically do. There are times where life falls into "before" and "after." If you don't count licenses and legal ages for stuff, birthdays aren't among those times. You pretty much just keep going, and you're back to normal the moment you forget the number.<br />
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Part of the reason I'm not so weirded out though is because I already got over the "wow I'm old" feeling. Once you lose in a competitive video game that you've been playing for ten years to somebody ten years younger than you, that's enough to get you feeling a little old. But I've been struggling with that feeling for a long while (and, I'm sure, people older than me are snickering at me a bit right now).<br />
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I didn't finish my first Bachelor's degree, since I didn't know what I would do as an English major and I was also struggling with depression and anxiety. I worked on fixing that problem over time, but I've relied on my family and friends to support me while I pick myself back up. Soon I'm going to have a degree, but I still get embarrassed thinking about being behind the curve, and I feel crummy for wasting both time and resources getting to this point.<br />
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I've got friends who are married, friends with kids, friends with degrees and PHDs and actual grown-up jobs. I've got friends who struggled economically growing up (whereas I didn't) who seem farther along towards their goals and life plans than me, including people younger than me. Having the word "thirty" imprinted on my brain adds a little extra weight to all of that.<br />
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A lot of this blog has focused on those problems with depression and anxiety, so I don't want to retread and rehash them here. I'm happy to say that I've made a lot of progress in my particular problem areas. A lot of the time, it felt like I wasn't going anywhere, or things were getting worse <i>because </i>was growing older without seeming to progress at all.<br />
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But at some point, even though part of me is <b>really determined </b>to feel bad about myself for not being where I'd like, I need to stop and think about things that are going well for me, things I've figured out and integrated into my life. I may have a terrible day, a terrible event, or a terrible thought, but I have to remember progress I've made; only then can it actually boost my emotional state.<br />
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It also helps for me to remember that dealing with problems and setbacks often gives you skills and knowledge that other people don't have. If you own a crappy car that you have to keep fixing, you may end up learning a lot about fixing cars. Even if your car breaks again, you can have confidence that you'll be able to figure out what to do. I've pulled myself out of depressive states before. I've overcome my nerves. I don't always successfully manage my frustration and anger, but I'm a lot better at it now than I used to be. Not only that, but the confidence and knowledge helps <i>reduce</i> the effect of future depression and anxieties.<br />
<br />
Trying to work on myself constantly and confront the things I do wrong or poorly is daunting. There are some days where I agonize over whether I've stalled in my progress or whether I'm backsliding. Sometimes I am not sure if I'm going to reach my goals, or if things will be better than they are today. But at the end of the day, it all comes from a desire to keep pushing forward. I'm stubborn, and if that's what keeps me going, then I guess I'll take it.<br />
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I have no clue what the next thirty years will actually entail for me. Here's hoping the first thirty prepared me for them. Take care everybody.</div>
EskimauxRobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13037945662977655232noreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9136309127101332180.post-40486006319808910642016-11-21T11:39:00.001-08:002016-11-21T11:40:11.881-08:00Stickers<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">No blog post for months and this is not what I expected to write about. However, I saw something today that legitimately stole every ounce of free thought and attention I have, and I hope that by writing about it, I will get some of it back.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">So sometimes people have stickers on their car. Bumper stickers, political stuff, goofy jokes, art, symbols, the stick figure things representing your family and pets, stuff like that. Today I was driving and saw somebody with one of those stickers on their car, and at first I didn't pay it much attention. Something about it, however, stuck out (haha?) and I after a few minutes, it was all I could think about.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: white;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The sticker said "I <3 2 Quilt." The heart was drawn in patchwork. And the kicker is, this was </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">the only sticker on this person's car.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: white;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Please understand why this is a big deal to me. Most people, once they've put </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">one</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> sticker on their car, they'll put another. They will have one sticker that says "honk if you love guns, fire if you own one!" (I live in Texas), maybe one that says "Proud Mom Of An Honors Student!" and another with their favorite political candidate, and so on. Maybe their high-school and the year they graduated and the sport they played. Maybe their college. Maybe the high-school or college for their kid, instead. Stuff like that.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: white;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If somebody has </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">only one sticker</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, that tells me they either thought "hey I should be the kind of person that puts stickers on their car to be expressive" and then forgot almost instantly. Or it tells me that they really love </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">one thing.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">(Some people have a lot of stickers; this might lead you to think that this person really loves a lot of things, but the truth is they only love one thing, and it's probably stickers)</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">This person? I don't think that they are in that first category. The sticker was too lovingly applied. It sat firmly in the place where families and alma maters normally go, perfectly square with the left rear windshield, placed with the geometric precision of somebody who deals in fabric squares on the daily. The sticker said "I <3 2 Quilt." I believe them.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">This person seems like somebody who decided to put things on their car to express what they cared about, applied the quilting sticker, and then stood back perfectly satisfied while in the background a family member looked on, feeling neglected.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: white;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The more I thought about it, the more *unreal* this seemed to me. I'm not really the expressive type! I don't have any stickers on my car except for outdated campus parking passes. If I was going to put one on my car, I would either say "this needs to be PERFECT" and then never do it, or I would just go overboard and end up with twenty (the same logic applies with tattoos, which is why I will probably never get one). Yet somewhere, there exists a person who, with perfect purity of the soul, let out a single expressive ray of passion from the patchwork confines that guard their heart. They had one thing to say, and it was about quilting. I </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">wish </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I could be that honest.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">When new acquaintances learn that I spent twelve years of my life playing a video game competitively, I have a tendency to look to the side, embarrassed. I don't have Smash paraphernalia on my car or any of my belongings (excluding some clothing, which I usually only wear to tournaments). I don't wear t-shirts of my favorite bands. I get self-conscious if I wear too many articles of clothing made by the same company. There aren't a lot of things I'm unabashed about liking. One is Dr. Pepper and the other is penguins.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: white;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And it's </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">weird</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> to be that guarded, the more I think about it, especially nowadays where it's so easy to find people like you. It's one of the lessons that I (wrongly) learned from growing up. For some reason I always end up liking things that are fringe or strange, and other kids would make fun of me for it. I didn't want people thinking I was weird, so I developed a habit of keeping my interests, passions, and thoughts close to the vest...but I should know better by now! I know that most people are at least a little weird, and if somebody thinks I'm dumb for an arbitrary reason, then I probably didn't want much to do with them anyhow. Yet still, I’m just not that expressive, except in the company of a few close friends.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">Imagine my jealousy, seeing that sticker. Somebody out there really likes quilting and doesn't care if you know it. What a hero.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: white;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-6962d3e1-8866-4585-d191-1e39bb35622a"></span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">Thought I'd get that off my chest. Thanks for reading.</span></span></div>
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EskimauxRobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13037945662977655232noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9136309127101332180.post-61335059078038895892016-10-02T15:31:00.001-07:002016-10-02T23:02:10.938-07:00I Didn't Know What This Post Was About Until Halfway Through<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Hey friends. It's been awhile.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I said it before, but it's been weird trying to play Melee well again. I had a bleh performance at Genesis 3, but right afterwards had a big peak, getting fourth at Battle of the Five Gods, one of the most stacked tournaments in the game's history. After that, success and I set our relationship status to "It's Complicated" and I started getting much lower results, the kind I haven't seen in about five years.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">It was funny, but a lot of people did not mentally register me as "good player" until Evo 2013. I was on very few predicted top 10 lists, even though I top 10'ed almost every major I went to for quite awhile. My lowest placing was Apex 2013 at 17th place, losing to Armada and VWins (a highly underrated Peach player from Canada, who got 9th). I was actually <i>really successful</i> for a long time and nobody noticed.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Evo 2013 happened, and people noticed! Then I stopped playing and people speculated that I was secretly the next god of smash and if only I hadn't stopped and et cetera. Let's be fair though, "2nd at the biggest tournament of all time" and "a bunch of top 10s when most of your matches aren't recorded" are quite a few steps apart on the recognition Richter scale. But it is kind of funny, nonetheless.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Now that I'm consistently playing again, a lot of people have gotten better. A lot of people have learned the matchup against my character--and since many regions have a wobbling-heavy Ice Climber now, opponents are becoming less afraid of the nuclear grab game. Certain weaknesses in the way I play the game and think about it have come to light. I had a huge dip in placing earlier in the year, though funnily enough, I'm starting to bring it back a bit. Under top 50 at Genesis 3, then just outside top 32 at CEO, followed by top 25 at EVO, then top 13 at Shine... it's actually coming back a bit. That's cool.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">(Ironically, since I haven't posted an Evo2013 level performance and everything else is pretty weak compared to my BOT5G 4th place finish, I've read comments lately from people who believe that I am washed up or falling behind, when closer inspection suggests I'm actually <i>returning </i>to pre-vo status. I think it has to do with comparing me to my peaks, as well as some of the losses to lower-ranked players)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">It seems as though things are coming back, a bit at a time. Mostly, however, I keep learning more and more about my mind. Sometimes I don't learn <i>more. </i>I just relearn things that I <i>thought</i> I knew, and forgot about.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Here are some things I'm learning lately.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Lesson one: it was <i>way</i> easier for me to feel calm and focused when I felt no expectations on my performance. The fact that I had few (if any) fans, the fact that most people expected me to lose and thought I was bad... that was actually quite a load off my mind. Adding fans (using that word still makes me feel weird) and expectations has made it a lot harder on me, and it keeps drawing my thoughts away from the actual game. That's something I still have to work on.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">This is because--lesson two--I have a debilitating fear of <i>not being good enough.</i> I also have a very vague definition of what it actually means to be "good enough." This allows me to redefine it on the fly so that I always feel bad about myself. I knew I had perfectionist tendencies, and I knew (yet keep forgetting) just how much an impact my expectations have on me. But I keep re-discovering new <i>depths</i> to this fear of inadequacy, and just how deeply it has infiltrated the way I think and function.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">That fear inhibits me, but also motivates me. On average, it keeps me from trying new things, particularly if other people are watching. It's bad enough if I am not successful at something, but God help me if other people know it and can remind me via Twitter. In some cases, it motivates me to grind at things until I am much better than your average person (which means I don't have a fear of inadequacy, but a fear of being <i>merely adequate, </i>which is pretty prideful).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The big downside? I stop caring once I meet the threshold. For instance, I played a <i>lot</i> of Overwatch when it released, because a little part of me hated that I never became very good at FPS games. I grinded and studied better players and obsessed on improving, and managed to hit rank 72 in the season one competitive ladder. That was pretty high, especially for somebody who always sucked at the genre (and no, I didn't just play Reinhardt and Lucio). I also felt very good about the improvements I made to my aim, as well as my ability to focus on aim and getting frags while maintaining situational awareness. After a lot of practice and study, I could finally feel good about my performance in an FPS. I met my goal! I wasn't awful anymore.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I haven't touched Overwatch since.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The sad flowchart goes like this: I like a game and play it because I like it. Then I start to feel the need to prove myself and get good at the game, because deep down, not being good is <i>wrong, </i>somehow.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I obsess on the game. I get better. I don't enjoy the process, because learning and improving is filled with failure. The thing about <i>getting </i>good is that you <i>aren't good now. </i>Improvement involves practice, which involves confronting the thing you're bad at. Competition involves losing, which means somebody forcing you to deal with your imperfection. None of that is pleasant to somebody like me, who feels so much stress.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Because I have this deep fear of inadequacy, that process is painful. I can't <i>ignore </i>it, however, because leaving the process undone is equally painful. Either I fail and lose so much that I can't handle playing and practicing anymore, or I finally grind it out and succeed.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">When I'm done? I have forgotten the initial enjoyment of the game. The game now has an incredibly strong association with stress and unhappiness. I meet my goal, I become satisfied, and then I don't want to play anymore, because I forgot what fun was.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The sad thing is that's where Smash has sat with me for a long while. Right now I struggle to enjoy myself while playing the game, because I have cared <i>too much </i>about being good at it. It is very hard to have fun, because my immediate reaction is to view the game and my opponent as enemies trying to make me feel bad about myself. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Winning doesn't feel good, per se. It feels like a large angry dog is in my living room and barking at me, and I finally got it to leave. It's a <i>relief,</i> but not a joy.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">On the other hand, losing just feels like being bitten.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Let's not be too depressing though. I have recently had <i>multiple </i>personal victories when it comes to my emotional state, and more lessons learned.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I mentioned in my last post that I was trying to think of the match as a teaching and learning experience. Unfortunately, that proved to be more of a band-aid than a real solution. I have had to get more and more at my root motivations.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Recently I lost to Zealous5000 at Shine, up in Boston. During the set I could not for the life of me figure out <i>why</i> I was losing or making certain errors. By the end of the set, this had not changed.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Historically, being unable to figure things out tilts me harder than anything. One of my ego-triggers is my intelligence. Feeling stupid and incompetent makes me flush, it makes me tense up, it gives me a sick feeling in my stomach. It also prevents me from thinking clearly and logically, which doesn't help me fix things.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">However, going into the tournament, I had committed myself to paying more attention to my emotional and physical state during matches. I spent a lot of time meditating on my anger and depression flags, the thoughts that spiral me downward, and the physical responses that tell me what's happening in my head (sometimes before my conscious thoughts do). So as that set went on, I was able to stay focused on defusing those things before they built up. I lost, but there was no edge to it. It may seem odd, but I felt prouder of myself after losing that set than I have after many of my higher profile wins. It was nice to be able to shake his hand, stand up, and not want to break something.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Another big reason that I did not feel so bad was because part of me was <i>happy </i>for my opponent. He had a lot of his friends behind him getting very excited for his potential win as the set reached the end. When he beat me, he seemed pretty happy about it. I was able to think of that as a good thing, something that didn't actually hurt me, make me a worse person, or make me dumb. In a one-on-one game, one person wins. It's a sad state of affairs if you can only be happy when the other person loses. It is also the height of hubris and pride to say "<i>you </i>should be happy for me when I win, because I am supposed to be the victor, but if I lose, then I will be angry about it." (It should also be said that if somebody and all their friends become very happy about beating you, they probably have a high opinion of you, so at the very least, you probably shouldn't feel <i>insulted</i>)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Dictionary.com defines "compassion" as the desire to alleviate another person's suffering, but I think it makes more sense to rephrase it as "the desire to see somebody happy," whether or not they are suffering right now. Being happy for the other person's win is a way of expressing that. It is also, in a lot of ways, the inversion of fear.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">This leads us to lesson 3: fear makes you self-centered. Compassion removes self-centeredness.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">There are a some players who seem able to lose and shake their opponent's hand with a big smile on their face. Some people seem capable of being honestly happy after losing. I am rarely able to manage that when I try my hardest, and I think it's as simple as this; my fear of being inadequate makes me self-centered. I worry about my performance, my skill, and what those things say about me. It makes me feel threatened. If I am playing to learn, then I know I'm sacrificing my win, and I don't worry as much. If I am playing to goof around, then I know I'm sacrificing my win. If I'm playing my hardest to win? I become afraid that it won't be good enough, and I start to turn inward.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">That might even be okay, except I am not looking at how I <i>feel</i> to make sure that I'm staying in a clear state of mind. Something like that isn't being self-centered, we just call it "centered," or grounded, or something. That thinking would be productive. Instead, I'm looking at my performance, and what it says about me. I start crashing into my ego tripwires by thinking "am I playing well enough? Am <i>I</i> good enough?" Now I am not looking at how I feel. I am panicked, trying to eliminate the source of my fear.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Once I go too far down this path, getting back is very difficult. Usually I just get mad and embarrass myself. This also distracts me from focusing on the game, because it's not <i>the game </i>that is upsetting and hurting me. Losing is not hurting me. Errors aren't hurting me. My fear is hurting me. It's the thoughts in my head that I chase around, the criticisms I throw at myself, the way I imagine people are thinking about me.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Think of all the things I could be focused on during this time. I could be observing my opponent's habits. I could be paying attention to the state of my body and adjusting my gameplan based on how I seem to be playing. I could count backwards from 100 by increments of seven and a half. Anything but worrying and dwelling on fears that I can't actually dispel. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">That right there is the <i>other </i>key thing about this self-centered fear: I can't actually do anything about it! If I win, my errors are still eating at me from the inside. Sometimes I just feel like a fraud for winning when I know how bad I am. If I lose, I become incredibly mad, and at that point, I can't undo the loss, I can't say "at least I did this right." The thing I'm afraid of, the thing hurting me, is a ghost that can't be killed. I can't run from it, because it lives in my head.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">We defined compassion; let's define fear. Fear is the desire to eliminate or escape a perceived threat to one's well-being. If it's a physical threat, you fight or you run (or you try to look unimportant so it goes away). If it is more nebulous, like a threat to your social standing, or a threat to your self-esteem, you can run from the situation, you can try to conquer the source, or you can try to *justify* the threat away with excuses or rationalizations. You have to make yourself feel as though the threat does not exist.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I said that compassion is an inversion of fear; here is why. The reason compassion takes you out of yourself, <i>especially</i> in a competitive context, is because it is very hard to feel fear when you don't perceive or imagine a threat. When you feel compassion for something, you stop worrying about what hurts <i>you</i> and more about what helps <i>them. </i>The threat begins to vanish from your mind as your focus goes elsewhere, and soon the fear does too.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I also want to clarify that when I say "compassion," I do not mean "want the other person to win." I don't mean "let them win," "sandbag," or anything like that. It doesn't even mean "stop wanting to win yourself." Compassion means acknowledging the other person as somebody like you that also wants to be happy, and viewing their happiness as desirable. When you see the person and the situation as a threat, whether it's to your ego, your health, your reputation, or whatever, that is when fear kicks in. That is when you begin worrying about yourself and destroying the source of the fear.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Forget fun. You've convinced your mind that you're in a fight for survival.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I have been trying get better at noticing this fear as it arises. I have been trying to replace it with compassion for the person I am playing against. They want to play well, they want to succeed, they want to win, they want to <i>be happy,</i> just like me. I am afraid that I'm going to look bad and be bad... but what about my opponent? Do I feel that fear for <i>them</i>? Why not? Do I want <i>them </i>to feel bad? Do they have to feel that way for <i>me</i> to be happy?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">In nature, things kill each other and eat each other to survive. It's pretty understandable that they don't have soul-shaking moments of empathy and compassion for their predators or their prey. But in a video game? When the other person is a human being who is a lot like me? Focusing on my fear takes something that could have been a fun and enjoyable learning experience and makes it a lot more mean-spirited. Like I said, it also means I don't even focus on the game, because I'm not afraid of the game. I'm afraid of other things, so my attention goes to them.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">And don't forget, compassion is something you can feel <i>for yourself.</i> One of the most insidious things about traits like neurotic perfectionism and low self-esteem is that you may start to treat YOURSELF like a threat. You become the enemy. You can't escape yourself. In my case, I am constantly asking myself "why aren't you good enough?" Suddenly, I am the threat that I fear. I'm the one attacking me by asking myself that question, and I'm the one dragging myself down with perceived failures. The fear sets off chain reactions that make me lose focus and become stressed.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I try to feel it for the other person, because this helps me believe that something good will come out of the match no matter what. I try to feel it for myself, because this makes me avoid negative self-talk. If I wanted another person to be happy, I wouldn't tell them that they were stupid and bad. I wouldn't insult them for making mistakes, I'd try to give them productive advice. If I want that happiness for myself? Then I can't say those things to myself. I wouldn't say them to somebody else, not if I desired their happiness.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The thing is, I <i>knew </i>some of that before. But it hadn't quite occurred to me to couple the concepts together, using one as the antidote for the other.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Lately I have been in circumstances that might have ordinarily set me off, except they haven't. I would say that my anger management has gotten better, but that's not quite right--I just feel a lot less angry and stressed from the get-go. It's not necessarily that I developed new antibiotics, it's more that I'm getting sick less.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Still a work in progress though. I'll let you know how it goes. Thanks for reading.</span></div>
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EskimauxRobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13037945662977655232noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9136309127101332180.post-39342419069813029792016-07-06T15:52:00.000-07:002016-07-06T15:52:08.927-07:00Frame of Mind<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Hello friends. Been awhile.</span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-5ef0cdf9-c267-30c1-cba9-b7f97ec31e2f" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In Melee, one of my biggest struggles recently has been with my mindset. Well, that's always been difficult for me, and it's the reason I created a blog in the first place, but it's definitely flared up a lot again lately. I’m going to share some personal information about how I think and feel about the world, how it’s influenced my play, and why it’s made competing so hard for me lately.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Recently a friend helped me frame an attitude that seems to have resolved a lot of internal conflicts I’ve been having. It is the fusion of a lot of different thought processes, and I hope it will allow me to compete at full capacity, so I am also going to talk about that. I hope you find this interesting.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Depression</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The first thing to know about me is that I have very serious depression. Many people don’t quite know what clinical depression entails, so I’ll give you the basic rundown.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Depression is not the same thing as sadness. Many times, we say “I’m really depressed” to mean “I’m really sad,” but the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">condition </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">of depression is something else. Depression, as a condition, can probably be summed up most effectively as “a chronic lack of motivation, reward, and positive reinforcement.”</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Basically, you don’t want to do things. When you do things, you rarely feel good about them. Over time, this creates a feeling of pointlessness, hopelessness, and despair, because it seems like no matter what you do, nothing ever makes you happy. It’s easy to feel sad or upset, because things never seem to work. When they do work, you don’t feel good about it, so it becomes harder and harder to care.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You lose interest in your hobbies. You lose the desire to start things, you lose the desire to finish them. The same chemicals that govern sleep and appetite are also involved in joy and reward, so your sleeping patterns and appetite can get messed with.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Getting over it” doesn’t work, because there is nothing on the other side of the hill. It’s just another valley of depression. That feeling that a non-depressed person gets from succeeding at something? That feeling of success, of joy, of sustained interest and effort? That feeling that </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">yes, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> I know I don’t want to get out of bed, but if I get moving I will feel better? Being depressed means </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">not having that. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There is a wall of frustration and sadness and difficulty in front of you, and if you break through it, there is nothing on the other side.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">To make up for this, you will probably find yourself turning to external generators of reward and positive feeling to make up for it. Those hits can come from gambling, drinking, abusing drugs, eating certain types of foods or just eating </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">lots </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">of food. If it’s a vice, it probably has some way of temporarily plugging the depression.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But why? Why does this happen? Why would a person not feel success, reward, and achievement?</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This can result from your habits of thought. You can have absurdly high standards that you never meet, or you can have an internal voice that trashes you constantly. No matter what has happened, nothing ever feels like a success, nothing ever gives you that emotional hit that comes from reaching a goal or finishing a task. You rarely think “I succeeded” because you set your standards of success so high, and so your brain responds by denying you the chemicals that give you that positive feeling.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Or perhaps you don’t have high standards, just extremely skewed judgments of yourself. It’s not that things are that difficult or hard, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">you </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">just always fail. If you always fail, why try? Over time, you can convince yourself to avoid doing anything, and you can think your way out of every positive experience. </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It can also be biological. Our brain is an incredibly complicated network of… stuff. Lots of stuff. Screw with any piece of the machinery, and weird things happen. We know this, because you give somebody a medication to help with one problem, and it creates five others. I’m not a neurologist or a psychiatrist, and even if I were, I doubt I’d have the exact explanation for why and how it happens. However, if you are willing to accept that a substance can change the way you feel (like a drink or a drug) then you automatically accept that chemicals have an influence on how you think and feel, and that your emotions have some biological basis.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Likewise, if you’re willing to accept that people can vary across different physical attributes, or even be born </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">without </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">attributes that you’re “supposed” to have (like arms, or hearing, or the ability to see certain colors), then you should be willing to accept that people can differ in their brains in such a way that it affects how they feel and experience the world.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Your environment can also constantly deny you rewards, and if you spend enough time in such an environment, then you may develop depression. If you have something very important to you and you lose it, you might develop depression, because everything served that important goal, and without it, what’s the point?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And of course, there’s no reason it can’t just be a mixture of the three. In fact, one may cause or feed into another.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">All of that is a prelude to this basic statement: I have a tough time finding reward and joy in anything. Most things are not fun for me. Most jokes do not make me laugh. Most things do not make me smile. I struggle, on a daily basis, to find a reason to get up and exist. I have serious depression, and I have had it for a long, long time.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’ve got several workarounds for this. One is soda (I </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">love </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">soda) and it’s pretty much because it’s chock full of sugar. Another is video games. After all, games </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">constantly </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">funnel achievement into you: defeat an enemy, gain a level, find an item, everything is a pseudo-concrete thing you can point to and say “I did that” and then feel good about. In case you ever wondered why some games are </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">so </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">addictive, it’s not that they are </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">super fun. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s that they find ways to funnel lots of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">tiny </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">achievements to keep you going while dangling the big ones just out of reach. The little stuff sustains you while the promise of the big stuff keeps your brain salivating, chomping at the bit for more.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Most things happening in real life? You sink effort into them, you complete them, you feel a sense of reward, and the circuit is complete. If you don’t feel reward? You stop pursuing them. What’s the point? Why care? Why bother? You won’t feel good. You won’t care.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That’s me. Most things do not matter to me, because I sink my mental energy and effort into them, and feel nothing afterwards but fatigue. I started feeling this way when I was pretty young (the trigger, as best I can recall, was adolescence), and I also developed thought habits of perfectionism and low-self esteem that compounded it.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I also became </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">incredibly </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">unhappy if I </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">did </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">have a source of satisfaction and reward (like winning a game) and had it denied to me. I don’t feel much positive payout from my life, so when somebody or something inhibits that payout, I get </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">angry. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The more I’m expecting it and counting on it, the worse the backlash.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Nowadays I take medications that help </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">a lot </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">with this, and they let me get up and do things I enjoy. Or rather, they let me enjoy things that aren’t digital or sugary (God help me the day I find a way to eat digital sugar). I still fall into depressive spells, but knowing that I will emerge from them mediates the effect a lot.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I also have always found that teaching people has a unique way of circumventing my depressive feelings. When somebody else achieves something, I feel happy for them. Each person is unique, and explaining and teaching them something is its own challenge. The whole system feels quite rewarding, so even when I have trouble doing something for my own sake, helping somebody else has actually given me satisfaction. That’s important to keep in mind for later. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">However, I still have a lot of traces of my depression within me. You never really “beat” depression, especially if there’s a biological component; you find your workarounds, you find your solutions, you get support from others (who keep helping, even when you try your best to ignore them), and ideally you carry on.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I still have perfectionist tendencies. I still beat myself up for mistakes. I still get these sinking feelings that everybody else is better than me at everything and that I am a constant failure. If I’m not paying attention, these thoughts creep up on me, they shift my mood, and sometimes it takes a lot of work to shift back. I have to monitor my thoughts and how I evaluate situations, or I set myself up for a lot of emotional backlash.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It is much better now than it has historically been. It’s never truly gone, but it’s improving.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Novelty</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Another element of who I am is my craving for novelty. It might be related to the same things that make me feel low achievement and success.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I don’t have a problem grinding the same task over and over again. I will keep at it over and over again until I have succeeded. I can spend hours doing the same level or boss in a video game, practicing the same tech. I think the main force behind achievement is not brilliance, but erosion.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That is… until I achieve it. Once I know I have achieved it, I stop caring about it almost instantly. I care about proving to myself that I can do it. Once I have done it, it’s not interesting to me.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is why Melee has held me in its grip for so long. It is ruthless and there are many strong players to defeat, so I always feel tested. The tech is difficult, so I never feel like I’ve “made it” and that holds my interest. The tech and skillsets of the game keep changing, so the game rarely feels stale. Somebody is always improving with a new character or adding a new tool to their game, and learning to deal with it has provided me a constant source of novelty.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There is another side to this coin, however. If I am in a strong position that gives me a big advantage, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I don’t want to use that big advantage.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> I want to try something else. If I have a combo that I will work, I quickly tire of using it (unless it’s really hard and flashy). I constantly seek out different positions that I haven’t practiced, areas where I’m weak, and try to win from those situations instead.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If I know that camping under a platform will net me victory, then I don’t want to do it anymore. I know I will win if that happens, so what is there to explore? I would rather attack, put myself at a disadvantage, and try to win from that disadvantage, just to see if I can. I will intentionally do something I’m not very good at to try and improve it.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This puts me in positions where I’m more likely to lose, and a part of me </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">demands </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">that--why would I play a game that I </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">know </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’m going to win? The uncertainty and the novelty hold my interest, and this shapes a </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">lot </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">of how I play the game nowadays.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The positive is that I keep pushing and exploring and learning. I keep finding things that are new and fun and wacky. The downside is that I’m deliberately setting myself up to have higher odds of losing, and as somebody who </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">hates </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">losing on a deep emotional level, I’m not doing myself a favor.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Playing To Win</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So lately I’ve been saddled with a huge dilemma.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">--If I play to win, then that means I deprive myself of novelty. I focus </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">only </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">on the things that will get me to victory, and if I don’t achieve victory, then I lose out on my designated source of satisfaction. It also means that any mistakes I make are detracting from my target, which upsets me, and makes me more prone to tilting and raging.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">--If I play for fun and novelty, then that means I throw away opportunities and wins on purpose to satisfy my own novelty craving. If I lose doing this, part of me is dissatisfied.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">--If I play for fun and novelty, but the other guy plays to win in a boring fashion, then I am restricted in terms of how I can play, and I lose out on the fun factor. If I win, it’s boring. If I lose, it’s boring. If the opponent is predictable, I get bored of playing them, because the “correct” method is repetitive and dull, but the “fun” method might afford me no advantages and make me lose… so I quickly shift back into “play to win mode” without being ready, and I tilt myself again.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Basically, it’s becoming harder and harder for me to enjoy myself when I play the game. But I can’t walk up to my opponent and ask them “hey could you purposely do stupid combos and weird stuff so I can have a better time?” That’s pretty irrational. Pretty much nobody is going to do that for me.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In fact, the more they know that I will be playing inefficiently, the more they can maximize the likelihood of their victory by being boring, because I’m more likely to tilt and overextend and fall for the same stuff. If I play to win, then I risk boring </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">myself, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">the win is less fun, losses hurt more, and errors upset me more. I can end up winning and hating it. Then </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">nobody </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">wins.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I haven’t even touched on issues of reputation or the expectations on my performance from others and myself, but I don’t think I have to; I think we’ve got enough to deal with as is.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Framing</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I think that how you frame a situation changes a lot about it. The best solution for dealing with pressure is approach the situation in a way that reduces pressure </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">from the beginning. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Getting yourself out of emotional states is actually quite tough; you’re going to think in a way that perpetuates it. Depressed minds think depressed thoughts. Angry minds think angry thoughts.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In this case, my goal is simple: find a way to approach the game so that I can try my hardest to win, using the best tools I know, without getting bored or pissed.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I said simple, not </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">easy</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I was recently at a small tournament at a local player’s house, and I was getting incredibly upset. I had to deal with matchups I didn’t like, almost losing to another player while tryharding, making dumb mistakes, and I had no idea what to do. A friend of mine talked with me for awhile to help me sort through my feelings, and by the end of the tournament I felt much better, played much better, and I feel deeply satisfied with this way of framing the game for myself. It lets me feel like I win </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">no matter what, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">takes pressure off my mistakes, reduces expectations on myself, and lets me feel satisfaction from a situation even when my opponent outplays me. It lets me deal with potentially boring opponents, and it lets me feel like every match is meaningful.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It is rooted in a philosophy I have about competition: your opponent is your teacher, your student, and your test, all in one. They show you where you are weak, and teach you how to be stronger. They try to learn from what you throw at them so they can defeat you. They test your skills and try to match yours. With that in mind, the things that I really enjoy doing are all present.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I like teaching people things and seeing them succeed. When teaching people Smash, I am perfectly content to sit there and f-smash their shield a hundred times while waiting for them to master their wavedash out of shield. So in this regard, it is perfectly fine for me to play as optimally as I know how, because in doing so, I’m teaching my opponent the matchup and testing their ability to deal with it. If they beat me and it stops working, I can take satisfaction in knowing my student learned. If they lose and I advance, I can take satisfaction in knowing that my best play has withstood another test.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I like learning new skills, and I am content to work on the same puzzle or problem for a long time while I grind away at an answer. In this regard, if my opponent is better or using an abusable strategy on me, they are giving me the opportunity to practice dealing with it. If my opponent is strong and I don’t know how to beat them, then I feel no qualms about throwing my absolute best at them to try and win, because the outcome is uncertain, and that’s exactly how I like it.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I like showing people that I’m skilled. If I win, I have done so, and I can feel satisfaction. If I lose, I’ve shown myself what I need to work on, and now I have something to practice and study, and can feel satisfaction.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Moving Forward</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I am going to try and hold this frame of mind in my head as clearly and squarely as possible while going forward. I will still do my best to explore and test and try new things, particularly in friendly matches, but from now on I want to be the best possible teacher </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">student in tournament as I can be. My hope is to be able to use my strongest knowledge and strongest techniques in matches without losing the satisfaction that comes from learning and having fun.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This means that when you watch me play seriously, it is going to be less wild and less wacky than the playstyle you’re probably accustomed to watching. I also am determined to see satisfaction in every situation, even if I play poorly or lose when I am putting everything forward to win, and keep focused on being a source of positivity in the game and the tournament scene.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I believe that when you compete earnestly in something you love, in a community that shares your passion, you are able to find ways to always win, even if you lose the game, even if you make mistakes, even if you feel like you failed. It’s hard to keep focus on that, but hopefully this frame of my mind lets me do that.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’ll see you guys at Evo! Take care.</span></div>
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EskimauxRobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13037945662977655232noreply@blogger.com72tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9136309127101332180.post-83825922597205167002016-02-25T05:03:00.000-08:002016-02-25T05:03:20.986-08:00Local Maxima<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s weird when I feel those bursts of inspiration to improve at Melee again. Also weirder when I write about them in a blog.</span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-51314391-187b-4b5c-ea3d-12e2020bed16" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I just came back to America from my first international tournament, BEAST6, in Sweden. It was a wonderful time, and I’ve had the chance to reflect on a lot of things. One of those things is that I got 7th place, and I would much rather have won. Another is where I’m trying to take my training and development in the game.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When I tell people that I am trying to win and get better, their first response is usually “start wobbling again.” Normally, my response has been “but it’s boring” or “I don’t like playing like that anymore.” I’m starting to take something of a different attitude right now; this newer attitude is based on looking back at my thoughts and emotions while playing, as well as the fruits of my different playstyle.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You are blindfolded, standing on a hill. You can feel wind whipping around your face, and you gingerly put your foot out, trying to find ground to walk on. After spinning around a bit, you find a direction that is sloping upward, and you start to climb the hill.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s slow going, but you poke around and feel with your hands and eventually it feels like you have climbed a fair distance. Finally, you reach a point where nothing leads up, and you are at the peak of the hill. Happy, you take off your blindfold and look around to survey your progress.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It turns out that you are actually at the base of a massive mountain, and its peaks are soaring high into the clouds. Your hill, by comparison, is incredibly tiny.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Your hill can be called a “local maximum.” It’s the highest point in its immediate vicinity. Every change from your current location would be a downgrade. But if you ever want to climb the mountain, you will have to leave the hill, and you will have to go downward. If you want to go up, you have to go down.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is, funnily enough, a problem in machine learning. A program will learn how to do something, and improve its results, and then get stuck doing something “optimal.” Because any immediate change will reduce its results, it never changes, repeating itself. However, it only found an “okay” strategy or idea and perfected it; it has to go in a much different direction to achieve truly great results. When you want a computer to do the learning for you, you need algorithms that don’t get it caught up in local maxima.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(Recent book: The Master Algorithm by Pedro Domingos. It’s really good!)</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Though there are very bright people who have found ways to handle that problem, many non-machine learners get stuck in it as well. Currently, this is the problem I’ve been thinking about in Melee with regards to my character.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Right now, most ICs will use the infinite to secure kills. They will also use styles that emphasize the grab game, to get as many of those infinites as possible. This works pretty well against a lot of people, and consequently, Ice Climbers that wobble a lot will win a lot.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Unfortunately, it seems like we’ve hit a peak. When somebody is skilled at avoiding that grab… what do we do? Well, generally speaking, we lose. Our answer is typically “we have to get better at grabbing somehow,” and despite that we are </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">not </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">getting that much better. In fact, certain players absolutely </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">eviscerate </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">us, leaving our sad eskimo entrails spilling all over loser’s bracket.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We have pretty much reached the peak of that hill, but the real mountain is sitting right next to us, tall and imposing as ever before. It also makes people think that the character lacks the potential to succeed. You just have to look at how badly the best players destroy us.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The real answer, I think, is to start climbing down, so we can start climbing up.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Originally, I just wanted to avoid wobbling so I could do crazier, sillier things with my character and have more fun. Now I am actively trying to avoid thinking about it because I want to attain the skills that other players have, and apply them to my character.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One problem is that our infinite is just *too rewarding.* It skews your thoughts towards getting that next grab. Even if it doesn’t, it can make you complacent, letting you ignore certain mistakes because you’re still winning by a fair amount. It also causes you to avoid certain difficult situations, because they won’t </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">lead </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">to grabs, so why bother? Especially when those positions are risky!</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">However, this means we are ignoring facets of the game that </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">every other player has to master. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We aren’t focusing on our defensive smash DI. We aren’t focusing on the close-quarters scuffling that every Fox learns because he has a Falco for a training partner. We make lots of little technical mistakes, or simply fail to optimize them, because those don’t necessarily pertain to our grab game, and then they cost us.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In short, we are falling behind. We are falling </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">below</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Other people are climbing up the other peaks, and we are idly shuffling around, trying to find the best spot on our hill to watch them.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Another problem our character has is that… well, our character is very very different from the others. We have a different neutral, one that is heavily based on the wavedash, like Luigi, rather than dashes or air mobility. ICs are also the only puppet character, which involves desyncs, understanding the other Climber’s AI, and playing miniature 2v1s constantly during matches. We have a group of skills to master that no other character worries about, which spreads our attention. Lest I sound like I'm ragging on other ICs too much, that isn't our fault at all, and it's part of why we're struggling.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Again, this means that while other players are using smash DI on jab-resets to avoid guaranteed followups, or practicing reaction tech-chases, or mastering invincible wavelands, we are still trying to figure out the mystery of how Nana knows the exact worst time to taunt every match.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We are playing a different game. Our emphasis on grabs (with a character that itself is bad at grabbing skilled players) is making it a much </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">smaller </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">game. The infinite also tricks us by giving that small game a huge payout, making us think the hill is the peak of the mountain. But it’s not.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So enough about us, let’s talk about me.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One of my current weaknesses is that I’m trying to play extremely fast all the time. I am currently trying to push my technical skill and eke out every frame from every situation I can. I am trying to use invincible wavelands (and SD’ing). I am trying to master pivots for the small benefit they give in close quarters microspacing. I am also trying to add this to quicker reactions, particularly in scuffles (those situations where two players are on each other in close range, hitting lots of buttons). </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The result is that I’m making a lot more errors. These errors are costing me games and sets, and I’m just going to have to deal with that. You have to go down the smaller hill to start climbing the bigger mountain. Other players are using these kinds of advanced tools and using them consistently, so I have no excuse for not integrating them.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I am also trying to avoid wobbling as much as possible. If I get a grab, I intentionally convert it into a different scenario. Originally this was just for funsies, but now I think that it is, in fact, the right thing to do if I want to improve. Mind you, there is no point in truly forsaking such a strong punish game. It kills people dead. As far as punishment strategies go, it </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">pretty much the peak for my character, whenever it’s available. That is why this past weekend, I tried to use it as often as I could, especially in my (super close) top 8 set against Professor Pro. I am still highly competitive. I would like to win!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">However, if I use it every time, particularly in tournaments and pressure situations, I’m depriving myself of the opportunity to train </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">other </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">skills in those situations. If I keep doing that, the result will look a bit like this:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Okay, tourney time, I’m going to use the stuff that’s consistent and not give away any openings.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Oh shoot, I just flubbed that pivot.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Uh oh, my smash DI and CCs are pretty bad, I should probably play on the outside more.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I can’t seem to get these autocancel u-airs right now, I’ll stay grounded.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Well, at least my wobbling still works, I’ll just focus on that.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; line-height: 20.24px; white-space: pre-wrap;">I will just end up doing what I'm most comfortable with, which is my <i>old </i>stuff. </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And it will keep happening, because if I don't train the new stuff under pressure, I will botch it under pressure. </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I will only incentivize myself to keep doing the same old thing, the same old strategy that will </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">not </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">keep working as my opponents improve. As they get better, I will become more and more paranoid about taking a few steps down my little hill.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Somewhere in here is a happy medium for pushing myself without sandbagging pointlessly and developing lazy habits with regards to my grab game. I'll let you know when I find it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Finally, this is a list of some things I’m trying to work on. You will notice that this list is actually </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">kind of long.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Most of the stuff is also hard.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">--Invincible ledgedashes</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">--Smash DI’ing small hits into counter hits, or to escape </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">--Shield angling to avoid pokes</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">--Shield impact DI to guarantee punishes or evade followups</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">--Tighter on-shield actions to stay safe, like aerial->jab</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">--Tighter control over aerial drift, for staying safer, dodging hits, and placing aerials better</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">--Better reactions in tech-chase scenarios</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">--Implementing effective desyncs in neutral</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">--Implementing </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">faster </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">desyncs in neutral so I don’t lose my setups under enemy pressure; also using hit-stun and shield-stun desyncs on purpose to generate advantages out of nowhere.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">--Smarter CC’ing--making it intentional so I don’t DI wrong, but implementing it intelligently to score counter hits and earn respect for my space</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">--Tighter dash dance game, especially around get-up attacks and landing aerials.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">--Intentionally clinking with moves to force my way into range or prevent enemy dominance over the footsies game</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">--Accounting for enemy hitstop on Nana and avoiding those extended hitboxes when counterpoking</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">--Tracking Nana’s AI in fast-paced situations and remembering her various methods of getting me into trouble</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">--Avoiding extended shield-based play, since it’s mostly just bait for shield-grabs, but it increases the odds of getting shield-poked.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">--Not getting into crummy situations in the first place so I don’t need to use risky tech-skill to bail myself out constantly</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I could probably think of a few others but those are the ones that came to mind off the top of my head. This is aside from simply trying to up the consistency on other skills I already have. If it seems ridiculous, that’s probably just because our game is ridiculous. More importantly, the best players also use </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">all </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">of those skills (well, the non-IC-specific ones) and use them consistently because that’s what gives them an edge. If I want to step into their realm and keep ascending with them, then I need to gain access to those skills as well.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The downside is that it means willfully entering situations when using tools I lack experience with. This means more errors, more free losses, and sometimes throwing away things that I </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">know </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">will work in favor of stuff that I </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">hope </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">will pay off. It means losing matches I might have won if I’d played safer, more within my comfort zone. It also means more frustration as I commit unforced errors, but that’s just another weight to carry up the mountain with me.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Those are some of my thoughts lately. I am very determined to start training a lot more and try to achieve some of these in my game, and hopefully show people we’ve still got a long way to climb. Thanks for reading.</span></div>
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EskimauxRobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13037945662977655232noreply@blogger.com47tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9136309127101332180.post-72379303073985393432015-10-21T11:25:00.001-07:002015-10-21T11:25:44.880-07:00Mindfulness<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If there’s a tool to becoming a more successful </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">anything</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, it’s probably mindfulness.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’m not 100% sure if there’s a universally agreed-upon definition for it, but I kind of like Wikipedia’s. From the <span style="color: white;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mindfulness" target="_blank">mindfulness article:</a></span> “the practice of mindfulness involves being aware, moment-to-moment, of one’s subjective conscious experience from a first-person perspective.”</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There’s a lot to that concept! However, it’s a tremendously handy process, one I’m surprised I haven’t really explicitly written on. I touch on it, but I haven’t explored </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">this </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">specifically. In many ways it’s the cornerstone of self-improvement in all areas! Let’s get cracking.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Listening to yourself</span></h4>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Maybe you’ve heard somebody being a hypocrite, or saying something exceptionally stupid or ignorant, and you thought “if only you could hear yourself right now!” That is, essentially, mindfulness.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The hearing part, not the stupid hypocrite part.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It means taking an active awareness of your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">right now. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Usually, it also means doing so while withholding judgments about them. However, if you do have judgments, you also observe </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">those.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I find the most passive, observer-oriented phrase to use is “I notice that…” and then I follow it with what I notice. “I notice that I’m feeling angry.” “I notice that my jaw is tense.” “I notice that I want nothing more than to go home and play video games.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I just </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">notice. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That’s it. No other big gameplan in mind other than to quiet down, listen, and collect some data.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There is a form of meditation called “mindfulness meditation” (surprise surprise) based on this. Rather than attempting to clear your mind, you attempt to </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">observe </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">your mind. You sit still, somewhere quiet and comfortable, and you just listen to your thoughts. Often they will run away with you, but eventually you notice </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">that</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, and you bring it back. You wait patiently for the thoughts to come through, and then you just watch them go by without forcing anything.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s actually a lot harder than it sounds. Especially for me, since my thoughts </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">really </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">like to rev up and take off without my say-so. After awhile, however, you </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">do </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">start getting the hang of it, and you bring yourself back to noticing rather quickly.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">With practice and time, you will become more skilled at doing it in everyday life. It’s an internal process, so while you’re standing in line somewhere, you can stop for a moment, and honestly listen to your own thoughts as if you were an outsider. You can listen to your </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">body </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">as well, being mindful of the tension in your limbs, or maybe the pains and aches you’ve blocked out because you’re so used to them.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The skill of mindfulness is a nuanced one that takes time to cultivate. Over the time I have spent practicing it, I have become more and more aware of automatic, formerly unconscious processes in my head. It was almost like getting to “see” my thoughts in higher and higher resolutions, noticing gaps and shifts where I hadn’t before. Our motives, our thoughts, our beliefs, our wants, our desires, they can take on fractal degrees of complexity. And even though I knew that consciously for a long time, it amazes me how many little zigs and zags are inside my mind. I have always been an introvert, but mindfulness has an entirely different flavor to it.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Why do this, again?</span></h4>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There are a few objectives with mindfulness.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One of them is to avoid getting carried away with long trains of thought. Like I said, I struggle with that in general. It gets worse for me when I’m in competitions, when I’m nervous and anxious, when I’m trying to sleep, when I’m bored in school, things like that.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In many ways, writing has been a mindfulness tool for me, because it displays my thoughts on screen or paper, and that forces me to confront them as an outsider, to structure them, challenge them, understand them. It doesn’t seem like we should have trouble understanding our own thoughts, but if you just observe them, you will quickly confront how illogical and paradoxical your own mind can be. You will wonder, “why did I think that?” Then you will notice that you wondered...</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And you will stop. You won’t get whisked away on that bullet train of the associative stream of consciousness; you will watch it from the hillside, noting its turns, its hooks, and places where the tracks could probably use some repair. Which is the second reason you do it.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When you work on a math problem (which I seem to spend a lot of time doing nowadays), you may spend a lot of time trying to figure out why you’re constantly getting a wrong answer. It seems like everything is going right, but you’re just not getting the answer from the book, or that the teacher has given you, or whatever.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Usually this happens because you have a faulty interpretation of how to solve the problem, or a faulty interpretation of the tools that you use to solve it. Sometimes you’re just going too fast and making a mistake without noticing. So the simplest thing is to become mindful of your thought process, and in this regard, you might describe it to yourself, noticing every component of it, one at a time.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Then you realize that, somewhere in the problem, you were hastily zipping over the part where you calculated “six squared,” and you kept getting “forty-eight,” and it was ruining everything.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">With mindfulness, you turn your gaze onto your thought processes. You don’t judge it, you just </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">observe </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">it. You watch the train go by, you don’t necessarily get on it.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And that’s the third big reason. Noticing something, like a stressed or anxious thought, can help you get a bit of distance and perspective. Have you ever given great advice and then noticed just how bad you are at using it? Happens to me all the time.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When I am mindful, I see my problems or my thoughts from an outsider’s view; because they don’t carry me away, I also don’t receive the emotional components of them. At least, I don’t receive them to the same degree. This relieves that pressure, which lets me give myself the advice I would give somebody else.</span></div>
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<h4 style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The improvement part</span></h4>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“What gets measured, gets managed.” -- Peter Drucker</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I dial you up and ask you to help me fix my computer. You ask me what’s wrong with it, and I hang up instantly, disgusted that the problem isn’t fixed.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You stare at the receiver, confused. Why on earth would I ask for help fixing something, but not give you any information on how it works, on how it’s malfunctioning? No description? </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Nothing</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">? How can you fix what you have no information on?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“How do I get to the restaurant from where I am?”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I don’t know. Where are you? </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I hardly see how that’s relevant.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Uhh……..</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mindfulness means you can measure your thoughts. You can collect data on the mind. With data comes patterns, shape, and structure. You can see flaws in your thought processes, dysfunctions, the places where you are causing </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">yourself </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">issues. This, however, is where it’s important to withhold judgment on your own thoughts.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There is a bias in psychology called the “social desirability bias.” Basically it means, if I ask you a personal question on a survey, you might not answer it accurately because you don’t want to look bad. This sucks for me, the survey collector, because I don’t want data that makes </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">you </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">look good, I want </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">accurate </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">data. Otherwise I’m not measuring things right. I’m certainly not going to manage well.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">For instance, if I bring a box of bagels to my office, and then I have a jar for payment or donations or whatever, and I ask people how much they give on average, they might try to say a higher number than is true. I’ll compare the averages, and notice that I should be walking out of that office with $200 because my co-workers are apparently </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">just that generous. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Well bad news, I know you’re not that generous, and now I know you’re all liars, too. Not that I’m judging, of course.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If we are too judgmental of our internal thoughts, we can easily trigger that bias, even when we’re completely alone! It can be painful to confront a negative truth about ourselves, to accept that we have acted irrationally, or out of line with some value we hold dear. We may try to be more desirable and good </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">in our own heads, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">because we don’t want to feel negatively towards ourselves. Even when it means lying to ourselves, making things up, or completely avoiding certain thoughts</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is the root of the cognitive dissonance model (look it up!), which explains so much goofy human behavior it’s kind of scary.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So you must not judge. You can’t say, “I notice that I’m angry </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and that’s bad because i’m not supposed to be an angry person oh god what happened to me I’m just like my father.” </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If you </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">do </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">judge, you must notice the judgments (and don’t judge them either!). You may want to (don’t judge that either), but resist. Because if you don’t measure it, you can’t manage it, and if it’s </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">your </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">thoughts causing a bunch of your own problems, that is going to cost you dearly down the line. The line they carried you down.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">However… if you become mindful, if you start noticing your thoughts in a calm and dispassionate manner, you start getting </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">real </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">data. You also reduce your own tension and anxiety about the thoughts (since the judgments often trigger those things), which will help you be more accurate and useful with your assessments.</span></div>
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<h4 style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Being here, now</span></h4>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 11pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“There was a tale he had read once, long ago, as a small boy: the story of a traveler who had slipped down a cliff, with man-eating tigers above him and a lethal fall below him, who managed to stop his fall halfway down the side of the cliff, holding on for dear life. There was a clump of strawberries beside him, and certain death above him and below. What should he do? went the question. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And the reply was, Eat the strawberries.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">― </span><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1221698.Neil_Gaiman" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Neil Gaiman</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, </span><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/1970226" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">American Gods</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(taken from goodreads.com)</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I thought I understood that quote, but its weight actually hit me hard recently.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I was walking through my campus, immediately after a class, headed back to my car. I was stressed out thinking about the homework I had coming up, and then I was stressed because I know that stress just </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">destroys </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">my ability to focus and study. When I’m stressed, I have this tendency to bail on the stressful situation, and do something comforting instead, especially if I can convince myself I have enough time to take care of it later, when I feel better.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Procrastination! The absolute best. Best best best.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Anyhow, I wanted to cut down the stress, and I mentally began cataloging the methods I had at my disposal. Listening to music helps me a lot. Going for walks helps. Deep breathing. I started to wonder </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">when </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I was going to do that. Maybe I could do all that once I got home? Pop in headphones, go for a nice slow walk (it was good weather), and…</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That’s when I realized that I was walking across my college campus in lovely, mild weather, and my headphones were already in.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I was so stressed about becoming stressed that I didn’t realize I was </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">already doing the thing that fixed it. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Because I wasn’t paying any attention to my relaxation methods, I wasn’t receiving the benefits. Without noticing the breeze on my face, without hearing the playlist that always gives me energy and motivation and confidence, I was </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">completely wasting my own time. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It was worse than waste! I was receiving no benefit </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">adding stress to it by dwelling!</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">To bring it back to that quote, I had my metaphorical strawberries, and I wasn’t eating them.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Actually... to talk about that quote a bit, it’s important not to oversimplify the idea. You don’t just </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">give up </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">when you’re in a stressful situation and look for the nearest serotonin/dopamine pump to distract you from real problems. Hey, we’re all gonna die, we’re surrounded by tigers and spikes and cliffs. Eat the cocaine infused strawberries.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">No. Not quite.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The point is </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">be here, where you are, right now. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Do not get sucked away into thinking about things in the past you can’t change, or into future stuff you can’t impact by worrying. Don’t meta-worry by stressing out about the stress. Don’t become anxious about the anxiety. Don’t get nervous about your nervousness.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Look at where you are, right now. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Do something productive based on that. In my case, it was “focus on my walk, and enjoy my music on the walk to my car.” That was the stress reducer that would help me focus more when I needed it. It was exactly what I wanted, so I did just that.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is one of the applications of mindfulness. You hear and observe your own thoughts, you become aware of your feelings, your behaviors… but you also become more aware of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">where you are right now. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That lets you act more productively! It can even save your life, like when you get into your car but you’re so busy thinking about something else that you drive like crap.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If you observe, calmly and without judgment, you can also avoid over-focusing on the things that</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> just aren’t helping. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You notice them. You notice they aren’t giving you solutions, so you look elsewhere. You can start to see things you didn’t before.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You might see strawberries, but you also might see a handy ladder. These are the things you might be too panicked to notice because you were imagining your fall, or you were still staring at the tigers above you.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If we generalize this to competition, we begin to notice thoughts like “oh god I hope I don’t lose,” and realize we aren’t using the tools that normally calm us down instead. We notice that we are just standing there fumbling with our controller, that we’re just tapping an empty energy drink on a nearby counter nervously when we could be warming up or stretching.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We notice that we’re obsessing on the crowd, and we ask “well, does focusing on the crowd help me play better?” I repeat, I repeat, I repeat; </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">judgment needs to be turned off for this. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Otherwise you get sucked into a different thought current. Things like, “ugh, I shouldn’t be so distracted by the crowd I’ve been playing for eight years now, why can’t I just learn to </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">deal with it, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">why do I always do this right before I play…” Stop!</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sorry for yelling.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Take that moment to </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">notice </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">without judging. Take that moment to observe yourself, to be mindful. The advice you might give somebody else might come to mind, things like “take some deep breaths, stretch those hands, and start warming up, it’ll help you take your mind off that crowd.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You may also realize that because you’re focusing on the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">thought </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">as its own object, rather than </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">what the thought represents, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">its emotional association is already weaker. You are already calming down. You are already asserting a control you didn’t have before. That lets you get to business.</span></div>
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<h4 style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When to turn it off</span></h4>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There is definitely a weakness with mindfulness and introspection and stuff like that. Rather than a weakness, we’ll call it a danger.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I mean, it sounds </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">really awesome. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’m examining my thoughts! I’m being productive and being more “right” more of the time. It’s better than getting lost in the moment and not realizing what I’m doing, right?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Rrrrright…. wrong? Rightwrong?</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If the goal of mindfulness is to keep yourself centered on your current moment, to be accurate and productive and notice where you are… then you </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">do </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">want to be in the moment. Just not </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">lost </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">in the moment. Immersed is a better word. Immersed, but not lost.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The inside of your head is not always the moment you need to be in. Sometimes the moment is laughing with your friends and having an amazing time. Sometimes the moment is focusing hard on this test, right now. Sometimes the moment </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">feeling badly about a wrong you have done, because if you don’t feel badly, you might not feel motivated to do things differently next time. Sometimes the moment </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">feeling nervous, because nervousness gives you the adrenaline to focus harder, to react faster, and deal with the situation as it is.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mindfulness, as a tool, is not about constantly exerting tight control on your mind. It’s about being able to step outside and see where you are, so you can re-orient and continue. It’s about figuring out which moment you’re in so you can immerse yourself in </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">that, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">rather than in something that isn’t useful or productive.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A comparison might be riding a horse. You are the rider, your mind/brain/emotions/body/whatever is the animal. The rider does not get down and start moving the horse’s legs for it. It doesn’t jerk the reins around crazily to make sure the horse does exactly what it wants all the time. The rider wants a light and delicate touch that keeps the horse on the path, then it lets the horse actually do its job. The rider might let the horse know it needs to pick up the pace or slow down, it might stop the horse completely to check and make sure it’s healthy. It keeps an eye out for things the horse might not notice, but also trusts the horse will be aware of things it’s not. In an ideal situation, the rider and the horse are working together. </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The rider also wants a horse that actually listens to it when it really </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">does </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">know what’s best, which is why they train and ride together. No rider is quite the same, no horse is quite the same; with time and understanding, they figure each other out and get used to each other.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Most of us are not that rider, and our bodies/minds/brains are not that horse. We can get by, but it’s a little bit of a struggle. Or a huge one, depending.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But that’s mindfulness. You quiet down listen to yourself. You don’t judge and deny or distort the observations with other preferences. You just notice.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You learn the patterns, you learn to manage yourself, to keep yourself calm, and you figure out how to keep yourself on the path. You measure yourself so you can manage. But when you’ve put yourself in the right place, pointed in the right direction, you don’t keep trying to steal control. You just ride.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Thanks for reading. See you next time.</span></div>
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EskimauxRobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13037945662977655232noreply@blogger.com25tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9136309127101332180.post-12355628350182099342015-08-06T11:06:00.001-07:002015-08-06T11:30:19.510-07:00Empathy<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">In a way, competitive gaming taught me empathy. That's not to say that I didn't have any to begin with. But it definitely encouraged me to think about it from a different perspective.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">That’s not exactly where I’m going to start though.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">At a group dinner (might have been a holiday), I remember somebody saying, “rationality is not part of empathy, it’s an emotional process,” and I stared at them funnily for a bit.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You have to legitimately think your way into another person’s mind to try and understand them. Why do they think how they think? If you don’t </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">already agree </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">with them, then your emotions probably won’t do the trick. You will just go, “no you’re wrong,” and the process will shut down. Anytime you see somebody screaming “you need to be more empathetic!!” at somebody, they should probably </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">be screaming at themselves. Because it’s really hard to scream and yell at somebody if you have actually bothered to understand them.</span></div>
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<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Rationality becomes an important part of this process. You do not experience the world the way others do. So if you try to use empathy, but you do it lazily, you just wind up being </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">yourself, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">except in a slightly different perspective. The two phrases “if I were you” and “if I were in your position” sound similar, except they’re very, very different.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Empathy is the process of using the first sentence to more fully understand the world. The second one is used for advice, or angry blogging.</span></div>
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<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One case I see in real life is religion. You may believe that tolerance is a virtue, and you should never force your belief down somebody else’s throat. But this is only virtuous if it’s a value that you already hold.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But let’s </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">imagine. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Let’s use a bit of rationality too.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Imagine that you live in a world where you </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">truly believe </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">that there is heaven and hell. Let’s imagine that you </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">truly believe </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">that the wrong behaviors, thoughts, and attitudes will send you to a domain of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">eternal pain and suffering. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Now stop panicking, because that’s actually terrifying.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Now let’s pretend that you truly care about your fellow human beings. You tell them these things (because apparently they don’t know) and they say “go away you’re annoying me.” Your response?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’m annoying you? That is nothing compared to having malevolent spirits torture you and your soul for an unfathomable length of time. This tiny amount of irritation you feel, the social discomfort </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">feel knowing that people find me a bit insufferable, this is literally </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">nothing </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(as a ratio) compared to the evils that await non-believers and non-practitioners. You do not understand. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I am trying to help you.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> And if I let a bit of social discomfort stop me from doing my damndest (ha) to save you from an eternity of pain because it </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">annoys you</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">? What kind of awful, terrible person would I have to be? That is so awful that *I* would go to hell. How can you honestly ask me to do that? If tolerance, as a virtue, means letting my fellow human beings endure infinite pain, then it’s not a virtue I want to have!</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Empathy is such a strong tool that people don’t really want to exercise it. I think it’s because they fear that using it on somebody they dislike means </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">becoming </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">what they dislike. And in a way, it is. But not really. You can have empathy and sympathy for a viewpoint without adopting it. I am not religious whatsoever. But I imagine somebody religious, who truly wants to be good and save people's souls (remember, they </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>honestly believe </i>your soul is in danger)</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> would think this way.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s the kind of thinking that makes a missionary give up a comfortable life at home to travel into a foreign land filled with disease and spiders and angry natives, to try and save their souls when they don’t even want to be saved. If you ask somebody filled with that belief to stop because they’re being annoying, you probably have not bothered to try and understand.</span></div>
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<span style=" font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“In the moment when I truly understand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him, then in that very moment I also love him. I think it’s impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves. And then, in that very moment when I love them.... I destroy them.” -- Ender’s Game</span></div>
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<span style=" font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">To compete against somebody successfully often means seeing the world the way they do. You must know what they want so that you can prevent them from getting it. To do this most effectively, you must have a tremendous empathy for them. You must adopt their worldview, you must know what they are looking for, and then you can prevent it.</span></div>
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<span style=""><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You do not understand how to defeat a certain character in a given matchup. What do you do? Well, you might think the best thing to do is to study the best players who have won that matchup. However, it can be equally effective--if not more effective--to try playing as the opponent’s character. This gives you a significantly greater feel for their weaknesses and frustrations. You may come to understand that things that </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">seemed </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">invincible were full of holes. You may find a technique that seemed broken and overpowered was risky and preventable.</span></span></div>
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<span style=" font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You are suddenly your opponent. Where do you find yourself weakest? Where do you find yourself strongest? What suddenly becomes your gameplan, your target? Once you understand those things and you reverse the situation, you can begin the process of defeating them.</span></div>
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<span style=""><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Curious sidenote: At some point, almost everything in Splatoon frustrates me when I’m trying to win. But there is </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">one thing </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">that has yet to actually annoy me, which is the Inkzooka. It is easily one of the specials with the most raw power; it’s a long range, one-shotting cyclone of ink that can take out an entire team, shut down any weapon in the game, and is </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">especially </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">brutal in a laggy online environment.</span></span></div>
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<span style=""><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This special, however, is part of the kit of my favorite weapon, the Tentatek Splattershot. My strategies with that weapon depended, in part, on using the Inkzooka to win situations that would otherwise be unfavorable. I have used that special </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">too much </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">to get mad when it’s used against me, because I understand how important it is for it to exist, otherwise the weapon would not be nearly as effective. Compare that to other weapons I use far less; when they beat me, I have decent odds of thinking, “ugh, that’s so stupid.” But not for something that I know in and out.</span></span></div>
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<span style=" font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I also know when somebody on the other team will want to use it. As a result, I attempt to shut down the other person when it would be most inconvenient for them. This helps me win. By thinking my way inside the mind of the other person (because I’ve been there) and this provides me an advantage. It helps me come up with answers to it faster, and the nice part is, when I see things I don’t expect, I can relate them back and use them myself.</span></div>
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<span style=" font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So the act of putting myself in another’s shoes makes me stronger, in a variety of ways. Use empathy, and destroy your enemies. That sounded better in my head.</span></div>
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<span style=" font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This isn’t just about the game though. It’s also more about the spirit of competition in general.</span></div>
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<span style=" font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I had a brief and silly conversation with a friend after losing a tournament match against them. I jokingly admonished, “how could you beat me? I wanted to win.”</span></div>
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<span style=" font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So they said back to me, “yeah but… I did too.”</span></div>
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<span style=" font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This seems like the dumbest, most obvious conversation two people could have after having a tournament match. But let’s think about it anyhow.</span></div>
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<span style=" font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You and I both show up to a tournament. We both play to win. We both do what we think will lead to victory. Neither of us want to be eliminated. Neither of us want to play badly. Both of us prepare and practice, both of us are looking for ways to advance. Only one of us gets to. Only one person gets to win a tournament. How do you get to be friends outside an event while trampling each other’s dreams inside it?</span></div>
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<span style=" font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Well, empathy. You know what it’s like to be them. So you understand. That’s what the “good luck” is for at the start of the game, and the handshakes after. It’s partially for politeness, but also an acknowledgment that you both are there to play and win. This is why you don’t hold it against somebody for defeating you; you both know why you’re there and what you want.</span></div>
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<span style=""><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Of course, you don’t </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">always </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">use this empathy. Sometimes we hate on people for doing something, when we would have done the same thing in their shoes. We don’t stop to think from their mind. Sometimes it takes a lot of extra thinking and questioning. Questions like, “what would it </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">really</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> be like to be this person? If I </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">really </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">was in their position?” You have to use imagination and reasoning that can lead to uncomfortable conclusions.</span></span></div>
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<span style=" font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But it certainly does help. It can help you win, and can also help you when you lose.</span></div>
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<span style=" font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Thanks for reading.</span></div>
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EskimauxRobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13037945662977655232noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9136309127101332180.post-50180246304068409332015-05-31T18:13:00.000-07:002015-05-31T18:13:05.249-07:00Thoughts on Splatoon<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Splatoon came out recently, and I know a lot of people have been pretty excited about it. I’ve had several hours to play it, so I thought I'd talk about it a little.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">First, the game’s a terrific time thief. You will “one more game” yourself through a whole day if you aren’t careful. That’s usually a selling point, as far as entertainment goes.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Second, it reminds me that the hidden star of the show for video games are their sound effects. Splats and splortches abound, they make everything extra satisfying.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Third, it’s pretty and smooth and stylized. Rather enjoyable to look at, overall. Plus the use of opposing colors is such a smart way to guide the player’s eye, and the initial moment of the match (where you start spraying ink over the level) is a great moment to acclimate the player to “this is my ink” and it mentally turns into your “good” zone. This draws you mentally to the other team’s ink as the “bad” zone and so there’s clear objectives everywhere. This means you can easily keep up with the shifting lines of attack and possibility. You see a big pool of enemy ink, it’s both a target but a hazard, and you instantly know this.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But really, let’s talk about the gameplay!</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The two most common complaints that I’ve heard are pretty simple; there are only 5 available maps, and there’s no voice chat. The maps one… well, I disagree. Here’s why.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Play Counter-Strike (any of its versions) and 95% of the games are on Dust2. Play TF2 and you will see 2Fort and Dustbowl. DotA, League, HoN, and for the most part they all use </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">one map. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Most fighting games don’t have meaningful differences between the levels.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Smash is the obvious game to point out here, but having played it with numerous groups of people over the years, I can say this; only a fraction of the levels get used, whether your friends are casual players or tournament players. In fact, tournament players get criticized for taking out the casual levels, but </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">all </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">groups of casual players spend over 80% of the time playing on </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">one level, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">which is Hyrule Temple (well, for Melee). Over the games, you'll find that people mostly want to play Smashville, Battlefield, Final Destination… and most stages end up forgotten. People will dip in once in a while, then go back to their standbys.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">For Splatoon, there are five maps. This is already more than most people gravitate to in any given game. If the five maps are well designed, then there isn’t </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>actually </i></span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">much to complain about. So far I have a favorite level (Blackbelly Skatepark), a least favorite (Saltspray Rig, because I am awful there) and I enjoy the other three fairly equally. So I </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">enjoy </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">four of Splatoon’s five maps, and the fifth one I can tolerate. To me, that’s a winner. Especially since there </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">will </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">be more later, I’m fine just learning these and exploring them as deeply as I can.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I want to give some credence to the other perspective, however. Some people enjoy the feeling of exploration and constantly trying out new things in a game, and </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">that </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is the appeal to them. The value of a game lies in how many new things it has to offer, and so the complaint goes “I can’t believe I paid $60 for five maps.” Because once somebody knows a map, the map stops being fun. So for them, fun correlates to the amount of content.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There is also a very wise reason for making numerous maps. If you don’t know </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">which </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">map or stage is going to be the most popular, then the shotgun approach can be the most valuable. Make twenty stages, end up with two that people play forever, and you’re golden! Conversely, if all of Splatoon’s five stages fail to become the game’s version of Dust2, people will quickly stop playing. They will feel cheated of the money and time they’ve invested. Then you’ve got a dead game. No bueno.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If somebody tells me that makes them </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>wary </i>about the game, then I understand. But judging the maps before playing them doesn't seem fair.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My own preference tends towards “depth in simplicity.” Or rather, include few features, but make them </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">excellent </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">so they last a long time on their own. Take a map that is </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">really good </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and you will enjoy it for a long time, finding new strategies and tactics, then perfecting them. Take a game whose basic rules are simple but well thought out, and it creates emergent gameplay. I like when a simple idea gets expounded upon in numerous subtle ways, and I have hope Splatoon is going to do that. The fact that you can approach positions from so many angles because of the ink/movement combination means that stages feel very dynamic. The feel of the levels changed tremendously as I improved. That’s a good thing, I think.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I think this will apply to the game’s mechanics as well. First off, it’s a team game. I hope to see synergies between coordinated players as the game develops more and more. Strategies for taking different parts of maps, coordinated two person tactics, balanced team loadouts, things like that. I have a few ideas in my head for some basic tactics and the roles that various weapons might play, as well as how the stat modifiers on the equipment might influence gameplay to suit preference and strategy.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One possibility is simply two players trying to attack over a hill or ramp; one hides in ink, the other fires a line of ink up the hill, and his/her teammate swims up the ink trail to surprise whoever is holding the position. Another is the use of various subweapons and super weapons in conjunction to control large amounts of space. Those are just the ones unique to the game; any squad based shooter should always have elements of flanking, angle control, and target diversion for teammates to make plays. Splatoon, when players get better at it, should have that as well. I feel like the game is going to evolve in a very interesting fashion, as long as the players push it intelligently.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So moving on, this is also why I have to agree with the voice chat criticism. Nintendo’s philosophy on the subject is “people will be mean to you and ruin your fun, so we won’t let them.” That’s entirely understandable; after growing up on a variety of online games, I know too well how that goes.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">real </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">solution to that is just have voice chat disabled by default (for the kids), and let players activate it if they’re interested. Then let them mute each other if somebody is being a twerp. This lets the communicators communicate while avoiding trolls and jackasses.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I have another few criticisms, most of which involve menus and how the game handles lobbies. You have to leave the lobby you're in if you want to change </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">any </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">settings. If you’re having fun matches with a lobby full of equally skilled players, but you’re tired of using your current loadout? You have to leave, or just play with the same setup. You can’t even change things like aim sensitivity or axis inversion. This turned out to be a source of hilarity when I was swapping the controller with my friends, since I use X-Axis inversion and they don’t. So to change </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">one thing </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">meant going through multiple menus and leaving the lobby. That was irritating.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">I think having the ability to save loadouts would be useful as well. The clothes you wear offer stat bonuses, and one outfit might be tailored more for a given weapon. So if you want to switch weapons, you not only need to leave your lobby, but also individually select each part of the outfit. Saved loadouts would be unbelievably convenient, and it saddens me not to see them.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Menu annoyance continues. You can’t cancel from joining a game; once you’ve said “yes I’m joining the lobby,” you’re stuck. These criticisms aren’t part of the gameplay per se, but they still can inhibit it and annoy the player. If the annoyance comes before the fun, then you’ve done the fun a disservice. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Because, as it turns out, I find the gameplay incredibly fun! I enjoy using the ink and squid form to navigate and attack from surprising angles, I like predicting enemies, I like setting up positional traps with teammates, and I like camping a tiny splotch of ink around a blind spot then popping up and getting a double splat. I look forward to playing with buddies and setting up team tactics (of course, this necessitates me actually getting a Wii U somehow, rather than just playing it at my friends’ place).</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I noticed a tremendous difference between how the game felt when I was new compared to when I’d practiced a few basic maneuvers. Being better at the game makes it feel more and more fun, which is always a good sign. Hopefully this trend continues and the game will be worth playing for months to come.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Some other thoughts:</span></div>
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<li><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">I like that you claim territory with your weapon. This means that while camping ink in squid form has power as a surprise attack, it’s not an unstoppable strategy . It also means you can cut off people’s escape by claiming the ink behind them, and that puts them in awful position.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">Again, I cannot wait to see how people manage team synergy. I’ve got some pictures in my head of different setups and purposes for various weapons, I hope a couple pan out as viable tactics.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">A few of the duels I’ve had in areas with relatively even ink-spread (constantly switching to squid form, trying to predict their position, all that) have been pretty fast paced and intense. Hopefully this continues to be true as average player skill rises.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’m glad that splatting happens so quickly, considering the power of squid form as an escape. If you lived too long then it would be too easy to escape and counter-claim territory and the gameplay would go nowhere fast.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The sniper squiffer guns seem pretty weak. Aerosprays are very strong and prevalent among high level players. The roller is amazing when everybody in the room is bad; once they become good at dealing with you, you suddenly require some finesse and intelligence. Splattershots (Jr. and otherwise) all seem solid and have various purposes. Weapon balance </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">seems </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">mostly decent, for now.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Being efficient at covering territory is a </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">darn useful skill. </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Time is the resource you consume to spread ink; wasting even one extra second in every place you spread ink adds up to tremendous loss over the course of the game. The same is true with hunting for splats; they’re fun to get, but they only matter if it means denying the opponent territory. Chasing somebody for six seconds while their teammate paints half the map is no good.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">Using the walls well is amazingly fun. I’ve gotten out of some awful situations by wall riding to safety, and also done some tricky ambushes. Squid form is 85% of what makes this game interesting, so getting good at maneuvering in it is key.</span></li>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That’s all for now. Thanks for reading. Hopefully I’ll be able to play with some of you soon!</span></div>
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EskimauxRobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13037945662977655232noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9136309127101332180.post-62346442781441017132015-04-25T17:52:00.000-07:002015-04-25T17:52:19.589-07:00Knowing Matchups<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You can know all the facts about a matchup you want, it does not mean that you will win the matchup every time.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Being </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">strong </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">in a matchup can go beyond </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">knowing about the matchup. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It can mean knowing facts, implementing them, understanding nuances, and executing well. However, just because you are strong in the matchup does not mean that you will still defeat the opponent.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Why should this be so?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Consider games like Street Fighter, where certain characters have remained--in concept--nearly identical over the years. Specifically, the one that comes to mind is Ryu. It is hard to imagine being surprised by Ryu if you’re at all familiar with the game. It is also hard to imagine that somebody familiar with the series doesn’t understand, on some level, how to deal with him. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Little differences could easily matter, of course. Without being a Street Fighter frame-data guru, I could </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">imagine </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">variations of Ryu’s fireball that are more or less easy to deal with based on frame data and hitboxes and whatever; these things are facts about the matchup, and whether you know those facts would be a factor in deciding how strong you are. That, in turn, could influence how well you know the Ryu matchup for a given incarnation of the game.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And yet, even though everybody sensible ought to “know the Ryu matchup,” Ryu players can still win. Because sometimes, despite your matchup knowledge, the Ryu is just the stronger player.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(Side note: I would argue that this is one of the hallmarks of a game that has a robust foundation; if knowing a matchup means winning it 100% of the time, the character is probably very gimmick centered without good basic tools, or to put it less nicely, awful.)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is because knowing a matchup does not mean you are prepared to fight the strongest version of that matchup. It also probably means that there are fundamental elements of the game, things that have a say in the outcome, which are independent of matchups.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This concept is interesting to me because I think it applies elsewhere, outside asymmetric competitions like fighting games.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">People ask me for advice on handling anger and stress during competition, because I have allegedly become pretty good at doing so over the years. You could say this means I understand the matchup between myself and my anger, my frustration, my stress.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But does that mean I am prepared to fight the strongest versions of my angers, frustrations, and stresses? Does that mean I will always win?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Without visualizing myself as a character in a goofy 2D fighter trying to zone out the embodiment of my own salt (too late, just did), I feel like the answer is no. There may be times when I encounter an incredibly strong version of my own anger, and it attacks me harder than other versions. Though I may know how to deal with it, I may not succeed.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Not only that, a player’s performance can vary on a given day. Why can mine not? Maybe you and the best Ryu player in your city normally go even, but you generally win. Then you play on a day where you got barely any sleep, and on top of that you had a stressful day at work. You play, and you lose.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Does this mean you suddenly don’t know the matchup? No. But it does mean that you will not always be equipped to handle </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">every </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">version of a matchup that the world can throw at you. It means that there will be times where your performance varies, and things get the better of you regardless.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And sometimes, even when you </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">think </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">you know the matchup, somebody finds a little hidden technology to throw your way, and get the upper hand. In parallel, sometimes you find something unexpected depressing you or upsetting you, and you’re not really equipped, in that moment, to deal with it. So, for the time being, it defeats you.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This isn’t really one of those advicey posts where I have something clever to say to handle everything. But I’ll throw out a little bullet point of ideas that might pertain.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">For reasons above, just because you lose a matchup (literally or proverbially) doesn’t mean you don’t know it. You might have forgotten something, you might have been a bit off, or it might have just been the strongest version of that matchup you’d ever encountered. Don’t overreact, analyze and try to understand.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If you’re in the heat of a moment and the matchup throws a curveball at you that you’ve never seen before, two options come to mind. First is solve it very quickly. If you can’t do that, then your best bet is </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">avoid the situation entirely </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">until you reach a point where you understand how to deal with it.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Steal. See how somebody else better at the matchup handles the thing you don’t understand, do what they do, and see what happens. It might not work for you perfectly but at least you’re gathering data and learning.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The best way to learn a matchup is to encounter it repeatedly, often losing in the process. The only way to learn how to handle an emotional issue is to face it and experience it; avoidance can only last you so long.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Those are my thoughts. Thanks for reading. Let’s try and get another update soon, I have been away far too long.</span></div>
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EskimauxRobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13037945662977655232noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9136309127101332180.post-40170130197575749932014-12-13T14:03:00.004-08:002014-12-13T14:09:04.186-08:00Where Learning Happens, Being a “Math Person,” and History Class<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Learning happens where you actually study the information in front of you rather than gloss over it.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Studying information doesn’t just mean reading it, or hearing it, or repeating it until you’ve memorized it. Studying can mean </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">imagining an application</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> for the information. It can mean trying to relate that information to </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">other </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">information in a way that makes sense.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Humans need air. We need water. We need reliable wi-fi. We wither and die without these things. What do information and knowledge rely on? Their air is application. Their food and water are the relationships with </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">other </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">pieces of information and knowledge. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Why is it hard for people to learn things? </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">They do not actively strive to relate information to other information, nor do they seek to apply it. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">They gloss over and hope it sticks. When it does not stick, they assume they just aren’t smart and give up. Hey, sometimes information is hard. It's tricky to understand why something is the way it is; sometimes you struggle to find that connection. But sometimes the information is </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>not </i>tricky, and sometimes it's because you are not figuring out where or why it applies. You are not figuring out what you could do (or will end up doing) with that information. So, removed from the soil, it rots.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Taking college classes again made me realize this. That’s another way of saying that it made me realize what I had failed to do my </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">first </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">time in college. What I did in the past was learn information specifically so I could repeat it on a test, get my grade, then let the knowledge (and time spent gaining it) die. Then wondered why I hated school so much.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Nowadays I try to be more active with the information I acquire. This very blog helped me a lot, because writing it forced me to try and explain the things I thought about and read about. I had to try to make them relate (or rather, to see the relationship those facts already shared). Even if my initial guesses and ideas about those relationships were wrong, the fact that I searched for helped make the facts stick</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">During this past semester (which, go figure, interfered a bit with the blog, which is why I announced a glorious return and then didn’t update) I was a lot more active during my classes. Taking statistics, I was constantly playing with my calculator, because I wanted to run equations back and forth to make sure I understood </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">why </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I was getting the answers that I got. I tried--very actively--to relate every equation and concept to one another. If the teacher gave us an equation without explaining it, I began ignoring her and looking it up (okay, maybe not the #1 student role model). This had some interesting results.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Result number one: I did better in this statistics class than any math class I’d taken before.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Result number two: When I studied with other students, I was constantly explaining material to them, because I had done way more mental footwork while listening to the teacher. They called me “really smart.” That felt good.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Result number three: One of them also said, when I was explaining a concept to her, “look, I’m just memorizing it to pass, I’m not a math person like you.” This was the first time anybody had ever called me a math person, and I made a weird snorting sound at her, like if a cartoon pig was also an evil bureaucrat in pantaloons. I was never a “math person” before. It just no longer made sense to me to try and memorize something without figuring out its applications.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s not that I was doing something she </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">couldn’t</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, because I was magically mathematical (mathemagical?) and she wasn’t. It’s that I was repeatedly doing things she </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">wasn’t. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Things that younger me </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">also </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">didn’t do, when he also assumed that math wasn’t his thing. Turns out, it’s not that math is fun, or that figuring out how the calculator performs its binomalpdf function and writing my own equation for it is inherently fun. It’s that </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">finding connections </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is fun. Applying the knowledge of those connections in a demonstration of my ability is fun; I get to say to myself, “look what I can do!” In this regard, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">every subject is fun. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There isn’t a single subject (as far as I can tell) that doesn’t contain those elements of forming connections and implementing applications.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I realized this very clearly during my history class. I think the reason many people struggle with history is because they feel that history requires memorization (question: what year was the 24th Amendment to the US Constitution ratified? Better question: what was the 24th amendment to begin with?). This is sort of accurate, but probably less accurate than most people think.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">History is the study of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">people </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">who did </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">stuff </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">for </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">reasons. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As your picture of the people involved becomes more clear, and your picture of the reasons and motivations they had becomes more clear, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">what </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">they did and </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">when </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">falls into place. You can use an almanac or a textbook or scribbled notes on a sheet of paper to store the minutiae, though with </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">enough </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">detail, it all makes sense anyhow.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It sounds like a lot of effort to learn the “why” of a historical fact. But learning that “why” makes it </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">progressively easier to learn everything else</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. A lot of people have no trouble remembering the long and drawn out details of their favorite television shows or books or movies or whatever. Yet many people struggle with history, when fundamentally your favorite TV show and your least favorite history class </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">are the same thing. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">People doing stuff for reasons. Why did this character on Game of Thrones stab that one through the neck? You know because they’re both people with motivations involved in a conflict that you’ve come to understand. As long as the thing you’re reading or watching isn’t crappy fiction, the actions will make sense to you. Even when there are twists that surprise you, they (should) make sense in retrospect. Because you know </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">why.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">For the same reason, you can easily learn </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">why </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">one country invades another, or why one politician doesn’t get elected. These “why” questions </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">force you to form a better picture.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> The more facts you acquire and the more you understand </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">why </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">those facts are true, the better the picture synchronizes with itself. Then, if you </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">don’t </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">actually remember something, the things you </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">do </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">know can help you </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">recreate the fact. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It will be the only thing left that makes sense, given what you know.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">History is the biography of everybody. Knowing this, history should be significantly more interesting to significantly more people. When you look at how obsessed some folks can be on social media over the most minor happenings, it’s a surprise they’re not </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">more </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">interested in history. People love politics and drama! Just ask high-school students.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But to be fair to the high-schoolers, the classes and textbooks and sometimes teachers do a tremendous disservice to history. They present a series of facts in the dullest manner possible and say “go forth and forget.” How are you supposed to remember the year Texas broke from Mexico without something to relate it to? Imagine trying to put a puzzle together by memorizing the coordinates of every piece without ever looking at the picture. That's how many people study history, and--coincidence?--why many people don't like it. Without a why, your puzzle pieces are blank.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Be the annoying child. “Why?” your world to death.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Not just “why?” but “how?” And not just “how did that happen?” but “how can I use that?” and “how does that fit?” Not just “how does that fit?” but “what does it fit with?”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Life is full of information that you gloss over. And in truth, that is totally fine; if you </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">didn’t </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">gloss over a lot of the world, you would get very little done. Your questions would spiral down to the quantum level in an endless cycle of why and how and then you would notice that you forgot to eat. Then you would be too busy finding your hunger a curious happenstance, and something else would eat you instead.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But you don’t get to gloss over the stuff you want to keep and use. Many of us go through the “why” process automatically when we’re excited; we look for applications of things when we’re having fun. We ask questions just because we are curious, we search for applications because it’s fun. Once novelties wear off, however, once the obligations set in and you just want to clock in and get it done and go home, the learning stops too. Being an auto-mechanic for twenty years doesn’t mean you’re good with cars, it means you spent twenty years in a garage. Being an auto-mechanic who spent twenty years learning, tinkering, exploring, researching, asking questions, and making all that information relate to each other is what makes you a good auto mechanic. In fact, it’s probably what makes you a great one.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So do that! You learn a new fact, “how could I use this?” You learn another one, “how can this be used with the other one? How do they relate?” Even if your guesses are wrong, attempting to relate them is a form of using them, and helps them stick.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is how learning happens. When you learn consistently and automatically, you develop something that looks a bit like genius, but is really just unconscious, persistent effort.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Thanks for reading.</span></div>
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EskimauxRobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13037945662977655232noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9136309127101332180.post-77740207705417146092014-11-02T09:15:00.000-08:002014-11-02T09:39:44.929-08:00Understandable<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I understand how you feel.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You hear this sometimes. Maybe you’re venting a problem to somebody and they say those magic words to you. Sometimes they follow it with “but you’re being an idiot” and the magic of empathy dies faster than your little cousin on his first excursion into Dark Souls.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But it is good to know that somebody understands how we feel. It validates it and tells us “the way you feel makes sense to somebody who isn’t you.” It tells you that other people might have gone through the same thing. You aren’t an idiot for feeling this way, you aren’t wrong or screwed up. Maybe that feeling gets diluted depending on the person who tells you this.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Or maybe it’s amplified! Maybe you actually read or hear something from a hero you admire. That they </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">also </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">went through a similar situation and struggled with the same emotions. Maybe they </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">become </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">your hero as a result. Maybe it spurs on your success, because you believe a situation can be conquered and overcome.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Then again, maybe it can backfire. Maybe you wonder, “everybody else goes through this, why can’t I deal with it?” and you feel crappy. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Empathy and emotional resonance are strong things.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In fact people really </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">hate </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">it if you tell them you understand how they feel when you don’t (or when they think you don’t) because it feels patronizing. You haven’t gone through what they have, you don’t understand what it’s like, how could you possibly understand? It feels like they are cheapening your experience.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So all that wonderfully helpful advice that you give them gets ignored, because it clearly doesn’t apply here--or they think it doesn't. Likewise, if you </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">don’t </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">understand what they're going through, your wonderfully helpful advice might be (or feel) impossible to use.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is also one reason that we might look at somebody’s mistake and call it stupid; we can’t understand how the person was supposed to get from point A to point B, and reached point Q instead. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Usually we will understand the mistake if we ourselves have made it, but not always. Because we are wiser and better now, and maybe we’ve internalized a new thought process and forgotten the older one.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And that’s where the crux of it lies. Sometimes we </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">can’t </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">understand, even if we’ve seen other people make the error; we simply do not understand the thought process that led to the mistake, conclusion, or behavior. “I don’t get why everybody is/does [</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">dumb thing</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">].” You can’t see the (il)logical chain that led to the behavior, so you can’t empathize. Though maybe you can empathize afterwards when you see how bad they feel and tell them, “I would feel bad if I did something stupid too.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It is good to be friends.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Let’s Solve A Puzzle</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Two items together cost $1.10. One of the items costs $1.00 more than the other item. How much do the two items cost individually?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The answer is a little farther down.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s kind of a blessing and a curse, but I see many situations as puzzles, as having solutions, as being solvable. It’s a useful way to think because it can help you avoid lots of common errors. The field of rational thinking--that’s a field? you might ask--is the art and science of behaving in a way that maximizes goals. If you state a goal, then act in ways that aren’t optimal towards receiving those goals, you are considered to be acting irrationally under that definition. Irrational behaviors can be understandable and common, but when you break them down you see them for what they are: detrimental to your goals. In the rationalist worldview there’s some room for setting different goals based on your own personal values and emotions, though your values may change depending on how rational you attempt to become.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In short, trying to see situations as puzzles or situations that can be maximized is a rationalist worldview. It’s one I like and try to apply as often as I can.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">On the other hand, this viewpoint means you overthink things, or at least get accused of overthinking. It can mean you get bogged down with </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">every </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">situation because you don’t want to act in a way that is wrong. Then you see everybody sail through the same scenario and think “ugh, why am I struggling with this?” and the answer is, “I’m struggling with it because my brain </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">wants </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">to struggle with it.” Because, it turns out, that trying to maximize </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">every </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">scenario has costs associated with it that are equal to (or greater than) the costs of simply accepting non-optimal results in those scenarios.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This isn’t a problem with the rational view, but rather one’s </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">application </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">of it. Because you might be getting distracted with a short-term goal that runs counter to a long-term goal and generates you little value. But you don’t notice because, go figure, you feel </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">emotionally attached </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">to applying rationality in a situation, and it’s understandable not to want a bad outcome. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There’s a pattern there.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">To the puzzle above, did you answer “one item costs a dollar, the other costs ten cents”? It is the answer many people get and is also the wrong answer, and if you look at it for a moment, you realize why. One dollar is not one dollar more than ten cents. But it </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">feels </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">good to say that answer, because you see the $1.00, you see the $.10, you know there’s some addition involved, you get some number feelings in your head, and you answer. But kind-of-mathy-number-feelings are not really how you’re supposed to solve most math problems.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The best way to avoid an error in this problem is to ignore your gut, ignore what </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">looks good </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">feels good, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and just math it out. Straight logic. If you wanted to use algebra, you could do it like this:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">X + Y = 1.10 -- </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">added together, they equal 1.10</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Y = X + 1.00 -- </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">one item is a dollar more than the other</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">X + X + 100 = X + Y -- </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">substitute Y to remove it from the equation</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">2X + 1.00 = 1.10 -- </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">substitute some more</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">2X = .10 -- </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">subtract 1.00 from both sides</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">X = .05 -- </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">divide by two</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Y = 1.05 -- </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">add 1.00 to X to get Y</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So the real answer is “one item is five cents, the other is a dollar and five cents.” Hooray for algebra.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I might have biased you by telling you that there was a sneaky trick, or common error at the start of the problem. Or you might have made the mistake before. That might have alerted you and made you want to use logic. I don’t know what this bias is scientifically called, but I just think of it as the “puzzle bias.” If you know a puzzle is meant to be solved, then you may have more drive or determination to solve that puzzle because you believe it can be solved. Likewise, if I tell you there is a trap or common mistake in a problem, you may be more likely to double check your answer, just in case. It is why I also encourage people to <a href="http://www.compete-complete.com/2013/11/assume-there-is-something-more.html" target="_blank">assume a solution</a>. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Okay, tangent over. The point is that the mistake is very understandable. A lot of people make it! If you don’t stop what you’re doing and engage some math circuitry in your brain (and many people don’t really do that in their day-to-day life) they will go with something that looks kind of good and roll with it. They’ll respond intuitively and emotionally to the problem (respond emotionally to a math problem? Going with an answer that “feels good” without thinking hard certainly qualifies). This might work in a lot of cases, but sometimes the obvious answer is the wrong one. The understandable answer that seems right at first glance is wrong.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sometimes you need a bit of puzzle bias and you need to assume that there is a trick or trap in the situation because that can keep you alert. It can help you avoid understandable mistakes and succeed more, which is good because success is fun. Or, on the flipside, it can make you paranoid and second guess yourself, causing new mistakes. That is also fun.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So I Just Read All That For What Exactly?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There are a few things to take away from that.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">First is that you can have a completely understandable response to a situation. It will make you feel in a way that is perfectly understandable, and you will then respond in a way which is perfectly understandable, causing a perfectly understandable mistake. And everybody will tell you that they understand, and it will make you feel better, and it will make you feel supported.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You will still have made a mistake. One you shouldn’t necessarily feel like an idiot for making, but one which might still need correcting. Hey, these things happen.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Another point is that if you want to figure out why mistakes and behaviors happen, you need to figure out the thoughts and emotions behind them. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Not understanding </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">does not render the situation incomprehensible. Especially when you aren’t talking about math problems, where a behavior might not even </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">seem </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">like a mistake to the person engaging in it. So sometimes you have to stop and really listen to another person to figure out “hey, why are they acting in this manner that I currently cannot fathom?” Because it’s very possible that, without your background and substituting their background instead, you would be acting similarly.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Yet another point is that it pays, every now and then, to ask yourself “have I been here before?” The above puzzle is very easy to solve when you’ve seen it before even if you don’t remember the details. You remember there is a trap, and you remember that the obvious answer was not the right one… so you think a little harder and a correct solution comes to mind instead.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s less impressive to get that puzzle right (we mostly value the solution to a puzzle or riddle based on getting it right the first time we see it, since pattern recognition is cheating), but if you’re talking about real life situations, it’s important you learn the “solutions.” That is in quotes because real life scenarios do not always have clear-cut solutions like little math puzzles.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Understandable mistakes are insidious, because </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">they make sense at the time. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Your thought process will continue to tell you </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">this is a good idea </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">because the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">emotion </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is understandable and the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">logic </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is understandable so the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">action </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">seems smart, right up until it turns out to be wrong again. And again, and again.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But if you do take away one thing, take away that question: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“have I been here before?” </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s a handy tool, and sometimes it starts the train of thought that helps you remember how you responded </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">then</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, and what happened when you did.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Thanks for reading.</span></div>
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EskimauxRobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13037945662977655232noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9136309127101332180.post-40458945853922141552014-10-29T12:32:00.000-07:002014-10-29T12:55:21.472-07:00A New (old) Challenger Approaches!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It is weird competing again.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I should clarify. I know most of my readers are here because of Smash and a lot of people in that community ask if I’m ‘unretired’ or what. The answer to that question is “sort of.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I play locally. I am sort-of-sponsored by a store in Dallas called the FX Game Exchange, which has essentially become the hub of Dallas Smash. It’s not a big deal, but the owner covers my entry fees to tournaments and I wear the store’s t-shirt. So if you ever look up results for local events and see me listed as “FXDFW Wobbles” that’s why. I have lots of respect for the owner and he’s gone to great lengths to support the local scene, even rearranging his store so there is more space for setups and streaming. Mutual backscratching has commenced, and itches are satisfied.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But I’m probably not going to be flying out to major events anytime soon, and I probably won’t be competing in them, since it’s not really in the “contract” for FX to pay for my travel, or for me to represent them in the global marketplace while expanding corporate synergies. I also find the longer weekends of play to be stressful and distracting, especially when trying to maintain concentration for an entire event (that’s another way of saying when I go to big events, I want to party and hang out).</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">However, as long as tournaments are nearby and people don’t get tired of me showing up, I will probably keep playing. It is really hard to dampen the competitive drive completely.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Like I said though, competing is weird. It’s stressful. Personal growth never really ends, and if you don’t keep tending to it you tend to regress. The downside is that you have a feeling of progress in your head, and it can be very frustrating to feel that regression. “I thought I was over this!” you might think.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I like to use weightlifting analogies when it comes to personal growth because I think many similar principles apply. One of them is “use it or lose it.” You don’t set a personal record on your bench press, then lie in bed for two years, then come right back and get the same results. If you don’t put effort into at least maintaining your progress, it does vanish. The same is true of your personal habits, changes to your mindset, attitude, lifestyle, whatever. If you don’t keep an eye on it and don’t constantly implement new techniques or behaviors, they will fade.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I was kind of disappointed/surprised/frustrated when I first entered a tournament after a long period of inactivity to find that I was not only making errors, but my old frustrations with myself kept bubbling up. I was cussing at myself for making mistakes (even reasonable ones!) and I was getting mad that I was getting mad. It was like 2009 all over again, except worse, because I thought I was supposed to be more mature and enlightened and et cetera.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In fact, I rediscovered that whenever the concept of winning and losing is involved, I turn into a bit of an asshole. I re-learned just </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">how much </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I really hate losing and making errors, and how stubborn I can be when it comes to my own prowess and proving it.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You know, ignore how little real practicing I’d done. Ignore how many neuroses and personal problems I had to try and pick apart over the years to improve my peak performance and happiness while competing. Ignore all that! I lose and I get angry. Grrr.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Seems silly. And it was and it is. But after observing myself and others, it’s a very </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">understandable </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">silliness.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">People, in general, hate loss. We dislike losing material things. We dislike losing competitions. We dislike losing </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">progress. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Because we get a bit stuck on how good it felt </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">then </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">to overcome the obstacle, except now we have to overcome it again. We go through the pain of the process with less of the pleasure of overcoming the challenge. We already did that. We’ve been here before, and it sucked then and it sucks more now because we don’t feel like we’re </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">gaining, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">we just feel like we’re </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">recovering lost ground. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It was really nice going out with a bang and feeling like I had achieved a big personal victory. It was not nice feeling like I would have to do it again, especially when feeling the expectations of people around me to keep being super good. Was I imagining them? Maybe. People still get excited about beating me in friendlies when I’m playing Donkey Kong, so I don’t think it’s totally unjustified. But a major part of overcoming my issues and frustrations was learning to relax those impulses. Ask the people who play with me lately, and you will find that this is certainly </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">not </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">the case right now.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Like I said though, it’s tough to dampen the competitive drive for good. The fire rises up inside and no matter how unreasonable it might be, you (well, I) want to win </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">now. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I have it pretty bad because I want to win at everything and be the best all the time. Channeling that fire in a productive manner can be tricky.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But that’s part of the reason I’m back. If you want it to, competition can keep you mentally sharp. My mission statement (of sorts) has been that entering the pressure situation and learning from it teaches you about yourself. When competing brings a problem to the surface, when it raises questions about yourself, you get to see how to handle that problem and answer those questions. Maybe you can expunge them, or develop strategies to deal with them.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I don’t think my competitiveness is inherently a bad thing. Sometimes I am my own worst enemy when competing, but that can be okay, because enemies and foes give you the information about yourself that you need to be stronger. If I teach myself, it might be worth it to come back for a bit.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Thanks for reading.</span></div>
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EskimauxRobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13037945662977655232noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9136309127101332180.post-19964658974849342102014-10-27T10:08:00.002-07:002014-10-27T10:09:07.738-07:00Hello Again<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Good news! The blog is back.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A number of people (greater than ten, and less than two million) have asked me in-person and online if I would start again. Until now, my answer was a hearty shrug, followed by "probably not."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">To be honest, lately I’ve been frustrated. I like writing about things and coming up with thoughts on a variety of subjects. I like reading and learning and synthesizing what I learn, and I enjoy putting it </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">out there somewhere </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">for others to take things away. I like the idea that I’m going to say something and you’re going to read it and it’s going to help.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But I get frustrated because of how hard it is to make changes. Changes require constantly confronting your old habits with a draining degree of self-awareness. Change meets resistance, and if going to the gym teaches you anything, it’s that repeatedly working against resistance saps your strength. However, the other thing it teaches you is that you need that challenge to become stronger. Eventually, if you keep at it, you may look back at your old challenges and think, “remember when I could barely handle this?” And you will laugh, and proceed to do something </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">else </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">you can barely do.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I want to help other people change successfully, I want to change myself, but I can’t always see those changes in action because change is hard. It often takes a while. Epiphanies and realizations are nice and inspiring, but putting them into practice is tough. It’s tough for me, it’s tough for you, it’s generally tough for everybody.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Not being able to see some kind of concrete result of my writing makes it difficult to stay motivated. But when people ask me if I’m going to write again, it’s like a little shot of espresso for my ego. It makes me feel like I did change something, because when the writing stopped, somebody noticed.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That is, ironically, a selfish reason to start again. In fact, it’s doubly selfish, because without people to write for, I don’t do a lot of writing. I originally started writing a blog because writing helps me think; it keeps me critical, it keeps me mentally invested in my own progress. But hey, as long as people want to read and I want to write, it should all work out in the end, I think.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">However, we aren’t just returning to the status quo! I’m going to try and do something </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">slightly different. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One of the last major events I went to, several people told me that I should start streaming or podcasting or something that they could subscribe to me, because they would totally pay me to keep writing or listen to me talk, or something. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And I thought, “hey, that sounds kind of cool.” Writing and reading takes me time and energy, especially when I want to come up with ideas that don’t stink. If it genuinely makes a difference to people and they want to support me, then I want there to be a way for that to happen (remember: selfish). So I’m thinking of starting a Patreon account.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If you don't know, Patreon is essentially crowd-funding. People can donate to me monthly as a form of support for the things I make. The difference between Patreon and, say, Kickstarter is that I don’t necessarily have a financial target to keep making the blog. The blog is not held hostage to a given ransom; you keep getting words whether you (and others) pay for them or not.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In short, the support is strictly voluntary. The incentive to donate is because you think me and my blog are cool. If you don’t think those two things are cool enough for [dollar amount per month] then you can give less. If [dollar amount greater than zero] is still too much, give nothing! And if [zero dollars] is too much to get you to read but you're here anyhow, then both of us need to rethink our lives.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But I also want to have neat incentives for people who support me, so I think what I’ll do are things like Q&A for patrons, topic suggestions for blogs, things like that. The patrons will--possibly?--have more say in the kind of things I write about and questions I answer, though everybody will get to read them. Honestly I am still not sure everything really works, and so I will be using the time-honored technique of “winging it” as I go through this.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I might still abandon the idea (the Patreon, not the blog) if, after some more looking into it, I don't think it's valuable. So if you have any thoughts on that, please let me know.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That is it for now, but rest assured there will be a new </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>and very interesting </i></span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">post this week.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Please react with all due excitement, and keep fragile heirlooms out of reach of your celebratory gyrations.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Thanks everybody. I’ll talk to you soon.</span></div>
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EskimauxRobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13037945662977655232noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9136309127101332180.post-89877665641720842372014-05-02T18:53:00.001-07:002014-05-02T18:53:28.128-07:00Hiatus<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Hey there folks. As you can read from the title, I'm going to take a brief break from the regular updates to work on some other stuff. Life things, other writing projects, etc. You may have noticed (or maybe it's just me?) that the posts have all lately run towards similar themes and felt kind of samey. I've got some other stuff on my mind to work on and kind of feel like I'm really digging around to find stuff to write about. I think it's starting to show a bit.<br />
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So for the immediate future, my recommendation is to expect a break from regular updates. There may be a random update here and there, and you will know through the typical channels (Twitter, Facebook, or vague ripples on the Internet that make your browser quiver like a purring kitty-cat).<br />
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See you when I see you!</div>
EskimauxRobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13037945662977655232noreply@blogger.com7