Monday, June 26, 2017

Expectations

            When selling products at shows, there is a distinct type of let-down felt when a usually successful show turns out otherwise. It is quite different from poor sales at a new event, where the success of the show is unknown, or somewhere where sales have been poor in the past.

            It all comes down to expectations. If you go into an event expecting success, the joy is less when you are successful and the disappointment worse when you are not. On the other hand, if you expect failure, you won’t be disappointed when you fail, and you’ll be overjoyed when you succeed.

            Looking at the end results of expectations, the next logical step is that it’s a good idea to always expect failure. After all, then you won’t ever be disappointed and you’ll be very happy if you succeed. However, there is a glaring flaw in that logic: your performance.

            If you go into everything expecting it to fail, you will put less effort into it. Worse, you’ll likely be unhappy, which will have a negative impact on everything you do. As a result, you’ll be less likely to succeed.

            Ah hah! says Logic. In that case, expecting to succeed should make you more likely to succeed! And yes, that is true – but only to a certain degree. The sad truth is that it is far easier to fail than succeed. Yes, you’re more likely to succeed if you’re expecting success, but there are too many elements outside your control for that alone to lead to success. In other words, by expecting success, you are setting yourself up for that special kind of disappointment while stealing the joy from your success.

            It is far better to approach things without any expectations at all. Or, as another way of looking at it, with curiosity. I wonder how this will turn out; let’s find out! You keep an open mind, striving for success while leaving yourself open to the joy of achieving it. And if you’re headed for failure, well, just make the best of the situation and try to mitigate your disappointment.


            Having expectations doesn’t help with anything. It’s just our way of trying to predict the future, which we really can’t. Or, if you can, you really need to invite me to a racetrack some day.




Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.



Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Monday, June 19, 2017

Timeless Fantasy

            I’ve often pondered over why I enjoy the fantasy genre so much. The reasons I find are numerous, but there is one aspect that stands out: Timelessness. Fantasy, well written, has the potential to last forever.

            Before I continue, I’ll add a disclaimer saying that this is a blog based on my particular reading preferences and – in spite of what it may seem like – I am not saying other genres are horrible; I’m merely using them as a basis for comparison.

            Books come and go, and part of the reason when a book goes is how well people can understand and relate to it. This means that within sixty or so years of having been written, books based in modern times are out of date – because society and technology changes so incredibly fast. If my parents were to write a book about their teenage years, I would be able to understand it, but everything was so much different by my teens that I wouldn’t relate. Likewise, if a modern day teenager (in a generation where everyone has a smartphone) read a book I wrote based on my teen years (around the time when only about half the teens had cell phones – flip or slide, rather than smart), they would find they had a very different life experience. Most of them wouldn’t have a chance with my parents’ book containing record players, cassette tapes and stuff I don’t even understand.

            Science fiction, on the other hand, is based in the future. It teaches people about a possible view of the future and other worlds. It’s fun and awesome, up until we pass the story in time, culture, or technology. Look at Back to the Future – now out of date because we passed the time when we were supposed to have hover boards and flying cars (yes, we have some reasonable facsimiles, but not what we were expecting). On the other hand, there’s the early Star Trek which, while doing very well for when it was made, had a culture that we have advanced beyond.

            Fantasy differs from other genres in one major aspect: it is deliberately taking people to another world, and therefore assumes that people need to be taught about that world. A lot of time and effort is put into teaching about the fresh world and cultures, without making any assumptions. As such, it never goes out of date – assuming, of course, that the writer hasn’t allowed too much of their culture to leak into their work.

            Historical fiction, of course, comes close to fantasy for timelessness. Once again, it is taking people to a place that it’s assumes they don’t know much about and, as such, it teaches them. Of course, with a subject much closer to home, it is easier to make assumptions that the readers will know certain things, which could cause the story to get out of date.


            So, as you can see, fantasy has the best ability to last forever. Will The Hobbit ever go out of date? I think not. That said, it’s still possible for books from other genres to last throughout the ages. Perhaps more of them could do so if they were created with the specific intent to do so; written in a way that taught about the world without making assumptions. However, I believe that fantasy is the only genre to which timelessness comes naturally.





Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.



Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Monday, June 12, 2017

Work or Play?

            I have often wondered about the appeal of certain aspects of video games. These aspects are not, by any means, in every video game, but they show up in a lot of them. So, why is it that we enjoy playing games that, when it comes right down to it, are a whole lot of work?

            I’m currently playing one of the older versions of a game called Harvest Moon. This is a game series where you play a character trying to run a farm in a little village. You basically have to build the farm up from scratch while trying to make money and trying to be part of the small community (maybe even getting married). But there is only so much time in the day, your character only has so much energy in a day, and you start with very little money. In the beginning, the game is all about time management and money management – once you get a ways in and have your farm established, it’s about maintaining a daily routine to keep your farm going. Doing the same thing, day after day after day.

            Sounds an awful lot like work, doesn’t it?

            Another game that I played way too much of when I was younger is Runescape. This is a Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game. There are many aspects to the game, but an important part is trying to get various levels raised. At lower levels, this is fairly quick and easy, but at higher levels you can literally spend days just mining, or cutting down trees, or fighting monsters, or cooking, just to gain one level. Day after day, doing the same thing.

            Hey, that sounds kinda like work, doesn’t it?

            Even in combat-heavy games like Starcraft or Call of Duty, you get an aspect of this – at least if you’re competing against other players and want to do well. You don’t just pick up a controller and become the best on the team – you have to work at it. At the professional level you have to practice and train, day after day.

            Doesn’t that sound like...? Well, yes, okay, at the professional level it is work, but you get my point.

            I believe the presiding theory about this is that video games give a sense of accomplishment without any risk to the gamer. This is a fair theory – you gain a level, and that is a reward for all your hard work. You defeat a difficult opponent and they reward you with treasure. You accomplish the same repetitive tasks one hundred times and you earn an achievement.

            Yet, it’s still just another type of work. Yeah, we don’t take it seriously because it’s a game, but it’s still work. And the general consensus is that work is bad and boring.

            What this tells me is that work can be made fun. All it takes is some gameification – the process of turning life into a game. Like Mary Poppins always taught us (not the blue one). This can be done fairly easy with a variety of apps, or simply setting goals and rewards for oneself, but that only goes part way.

We need employers finding ways of making their workplaces more fun. Having a fun work environment wouldn’t only make employees happier about going to work, it would raise productivity as people try to earn achievements or beat their best score. It would likely improve the employee-customer relationship – especially if the customer was happier at their job.


The augmented reality – being developed by companies such as Magic Leap – would make transitioning workplaces into fun, game-like environments almost simple. Can you imagine what the world would be like if everyone loved their job? That’s a future I’d like to see.





Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.



Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Monday, June 05, 2017

Failure to Win

            We live in a very competitive world. Or, rather, the world is competitive because we’re brought up to be competitive. Win! we’re told. Get out there, do your best, become your best, and win!

            It’s a mentality we either pick up through osmosis, or is outright given to us. When we play a game, our goal is to win. When we play a sport, our goal is to win. When we go to war, our goal is to win.

            Yes, you may say, winning is good. Winning is how you get ahead in life, how you show you’re the best. However, says I, when the focus is on winning, the more valuable part of any conflict is lost.

            Have you ever been playing a game or sport and found yourself despairing because you had no chance to win? Have you ever given up on a puzzle or a problem because it was so frustrating, and you just couldn’t figure it out? Have you ever found yourself in the middle of an argument where you’ve realized you’re wrong, but you keep arguing your point because you have to win?

            Have you ever paused to consider why it is we challenge ourselves to puzzles, why we compete in games?

            ....

            Back when I started highschool, before I fell in with the group of friends I came to spend all my time with, I spent my lunches playing chess. Not as part of the chess club, mind you – I actually stopped playing when that formed. No, I played chess with a specific friend that I met outside French class on my first day of school.

            Now, this friend, to the best of my knowledge, was a genuine genius. I was no match for him at all – he knew all kinds of famous chess plays and I can’t even begin to guess how many moves he planned ahead. I lost every single game. Yet, every lunch hour, there I was – playing a new game. And, slowly but surely, I got better at chess. Much better, because every time I lost, I learned something. Then, one day, I came thiiiiis close to winning...! And the bell rang for end of lunch. But we both agreed that I probably would have one this time, something that delighted us both. I had become quite the strategist.

            Years later, at my grandparents’ house, my brother and I were playing an old strategy game from my dad’s childhood. I quickly analyzed the game and, after a couple rounds, developed a strategy I believed to be unbeatable (I even figured out the one way to counter it, and how to prepare for and counter that counter). I defeated my brother in every round of the game, but at the end, he still wanted to play again. He kept trying different strategies, and I kept winning. Finally, I asked him why he kept wanting to play when he couldn’t beat me. I’ll never forget what he said:

            “You’ve learned only one way to win. I’ve learned twenty ways how not to win.”

            Even more years later, around the end of highschool, I got a strategy game called Khet – basically chess with lasers and mirrors. Once again, I soon came up with a strategy that was nearly unbeatable. I took challenger after challenger, and only rarely lost. But, when I did lose, I discovered that I enjoyed it! In fact, I enjoyed losing more than winning. And I couldn’t even allow myself to lose to get that enjoyment – because the fun came from trying my hardest and learning where I went wrong. The joy came from facing a challenge and growing from it.

            Now, my examples are all from strategy games, but the same applies across everything in life – from a Sudoku puzzle to searching for a job to running a business. Puzzles and games challenge us for the purpose of helping us grow, and we learn far more form losing than from winning. Life will always throw challenges at us, and when we fail we have the opportunity to learn what we did wrong and fix it for the next time.

            Our competitive society puts the emphasis on winning, rather than overcoming the challenge. But have you ever played a game where you were guaranteed to win? Was it fun? The fun doesn’t come from winning, the fun comes from the challenge.

            As a society, we need to shift our focus away from winning. Yes, winning should still be the goal – what’s the point if you don’t try your best? – but the reward should be the challenge.


            Think of how great the world would be if everyone stopped caring about winning, and started caring about the process of overcoming the challenge.




Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.



Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.