I’ve noticed personally just how different my mind works when I am constantly presented with data for my actions. Even though these random data points have no real affect on my life, I’m still drawn to having those numbers be bigger than before. From the votes I receive from a social media comment to the reactions from a meme posted in a discord server, all I want is more attention through a click of a button from someone else’s screen.

I hate it. It feels like my value is placed into a number. For me, I prefer my value to come from how I treat other people. I feel a far greater sense of self when I am able to put my time and effort into helping other people. I get to learn the inner workings of someone else and teach them to empower themselves. It feels rewarding when later on those people I helped express their gratitute and trust in me. That is far more rewarding compared to the quick hit from any brain chemistry when looking at a bunch of data points or a bunch of money.

Unfortunately, I can’t make money this way. Not in the way I want to learn, teach and empower other people. I’m terrified of going into a career that will destroy my innate desire to help others. I know it’ll wreck me in the process. Again.

Capitalism destroys everything it touches by sucking all the life, creativity and humanity out of it until there’s a empty shell left behind. An empty shell that looks like every other empty shell. All those empty shells can be counted, given a value and sold. Reducing us and the human experience to yet another data point.

I truly hope more people come to understand that these data points don’t have to put us in a competitions with each other. That our value as people can come from places that don’t have/need to be from a number value.

One day, our planet will die. One day the last historian will die and all that data and preserved knowledge will sit and decay. It’s human knowledge and it’s meaning has more value to humans than any other living creature on our planet.

Personally, I’d rather live a life where my actions are responsible for the wellbeing of myself, my community and the land under my feet. It doesn’t matter to me anymore if my value can’t be reduced to a number.

I’ve been enjoying the use or weird lately. I’ve had some strong personal opinions on language lately. A lot of it comes with a huge increase of new words that sort of seem abstract from it’s meaning.

I think with how rapid information can spread to large groups of people, it’s just too fast for my mind to keep up. All of a sudden I feel like I’m in a war with words and who knows which landmine of a word will get you in trouble. It causes me even more anxiety when someone comes at you with manipulative intentions in order to control the direction of the discussion.

I think weird works because it’s an almost basic word. It’s simple and descriptive. It’s not a newer, more specific word that requires a deeper understanding of a broader topic. It’s understood by more people. People with varying degrees of language knowledge including people whose native language is not English. It’s easier for more people to understand.

It’s a lot easier to understand someone is weird compared to someone being a fascist.

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I’ve found myself lately a lot more interested in games that don’t focus heavily on graphics but instead allow other parts of the game to speak for itself. This allows for the imagination to fill in the gaps, as you mentioned.

I’ve been playing a lot or Caves of Qud recently. It’s a rogue-like game with tile graphics and colourful text. Somehow this menu simulator game has drawn me into it’s harsh and unforgiving world. The tile based graphics actually allows for an amazing amount of creative freedom both from the developer and player point of views. The developer has created this futuristic planet with mutants and cybernetics roaming the planet trying to survive. The player has the freedom to play as they like and create the most unique characters they can imagine. My current character has two hearts, a scorpion tail, a fanged beak, two dagger wielding claws and a habit for stabbing.

I think the rise of constantly better technology has inadvertently encouraged a focus on better graphics over other aspects of video games. While there are some absolutely beautiful games with higher hardware demand, I think as of late, I’m yearning for games that focus more on story or gameplay. Games where you can feel the developer’s passion. Games with polish and attention to details in the most unexpected ways. Games that attempt to push boundaries within certain limitations (think hardware or graphic styles for example).

I think what I want is a game that feels like I’m reading a fiction book in a way. What I mean is that when you read a work of fiction, your imagination is filling in all that visual information. A game can provide you more than just text, but if it can balance graphics, gameplay and story, it can really transport and immerse your imagination into that world.

A long time ago I came across a game that was part of a 1mb challenge. It’s called A New Zero. I played it quite a lot, just flying around and dive bombing boats was entertaining enough for me.

I was impressed with 1mb but 13kb and 96kb is pretty amazing. I really enjoy seeing stuff like this.

This game has caught my eye. The visual style alone is what really draws me in to the world.

There’s something about the Half-Life-ish graphics and unique style that sort of hits a personal nostalgia for me. It has a wonderful combination of weird and abstract with a touch of familiarity. It also feels both vibrant and gritty at the same time. Something I didn’t realize I was missing so much. Especially after playing Baldur’s Gate 3 which has absolutely gorgeous but very busy graphics.

After I get over my Caves of Qud hyperfixation, I am definitely going to pick this game up.

It’s much easier to understand that shorter, milder winters means you can make people be even more productive. Now winter can’t slow down that road widening project.

Who care about consumer spending when I’ve been watching the current biosphere die off for my whole adult life?

I’m supposed to save for a future in a society that’s pretty obviously collapsing as the biosphere deteriorates?

The only type of news I consistently paid attention to over my teenage and adult life was environmental news. These two questions strongly inspired me to do something in my life for myself instead of blindly following in other people’s footsteps.

When I was in my mid 20’s, I abandoned the idea of retirement. Took all my money out of stocks and retirement plans. Sold or donated the majority of what I owned and went off to explore and have experiences. I don’t regret it but I’m still filled with so much sadness with how much damage and loss is happening all around us.

In my mid 20’s, I blindly predicted that ecological collapse would happen when I would be in my 80’s. That number has been dropping rapidly with more news coming out about the current state of the environment. Everything is casually happening faster than expected.