I'm 100% sure that this belief of mine is due to ignorance about how the world works. I'm still a Junior in college and have little experience. Because of this I'm free to hold on to certain ideals, whether or not they really make sense when applied to reality.
Here's the belief: in order for one to create a game* one must master all aspects of development, starting with the fundamentals and progressing towards skills that build off of the fundamentals.
*Creating a game, in this context, refers to act of starting with nothing but a computer, compiler, art tools like Photoshop, and whatever is needed for audio development.
I have recently realized that this short belief is deep rooted in the my person. I have great reverence for mastering fundamentals and basics of most tasks or activities I have experienced. I recall, as a younger boy, chopping loads of firewood on the farm I lived on. I recall perceiving how poor I was at actually chopping firewood, and thus would self-reflect upon my swing and aim and attempt to master the chore. Luckily I was able to observe the man of the house in action and learn from him. I started with feet and hand placement, and slowly worked on refining the more subtle muscle movements involved carrying an axe to the firewood.
As time went on I learned some interesting skills, such as where to strike, with what force, stripping bark off of the side of the log as a pre-step, finding dry spots, avoiding tree knots, using a wedge for huge logs, what axe to use when swinging, how and where to place a log into the ground, how to easily retrieve an axe once stuck in the log, clever ways of maximizing axe momentum while exerting minimal amounts of effort (swinging over the shoulder while pulling the axe handle towards your hip).
I played competitive StarCraft in the past. I started with the basics, things that are so basic other skills and actions build upon them. In the end I focused too hard on mastering fundamentals and eventually ran out of time to play.
I grew up in a Christian home; the bible had stated I needed to learn and study in order to show myself approved under the lord. Though I'm not Christian anymore I believe that careful study is a necessary life goal for all people. In this way I'm ashamed of myself whenever I'm being lazy.
Game development is not very different in my mind. If my goal is to make a game, then I myself need to master all aspects of game development. In order to master some high level skills (like game design), a mastery of everything that it is built upon is first required. I must master programming and software engineering in order to code a game from scratch before using a game engine. In this effect, I must create my own game engine. I must master traditional art before using a wacom tablet. The same goes for all sound and music creation.
Luckily my end goal is not to create a game entirely on my own. However if this ever becomes the case, there will be a lot of self-study and introspection in order to achieve such a goal.
This sort of self-reflection and discipline I feel is something that everyone should respect and strive for. I'm an INTP; life is about improvement. We aren't perfect in this world and have an obligation to strive for perfection anyway. Though this goal may be impossible, what is possible to achieve is the goal of getting as close to perfection as we can.
This is why I work so hard and so long. I really haven't taken a break from studying or self-improvement for more than a day for about 4 years now. I've finally taken a few week-long break or so to do nothing much except browse the internet. I think this was partly due to a relationship breakup, but I'm back on track now and am a bit ashamed of missing out on so much time.
As a little kid I recall having a religious story told to me: A long time ago when man was first created the devil was scheming in order to gain hold of the world. During this scheme the devil asked his demons "How can we keep humans from reaching it to heaven?". After a few replies from the more unintelligent demons, such as "Lie to them.", a very smart demon replied: "We can lie to the humans and tell them there is no rush, no hurry.".
This "no rush" referred to the act of a person searching for answers as to which world view ought to be subscribed to, or striving to come to a better understanding of their subscribed world view. I was taught that those who are lazy and do not search for answers will be punished for their laziness. I still believe it wrong to waste any potential.
I've recently run into a problem with this belief. Sometimes I project this belief onto others when I really shouldn't. I was taught that you'll be judged in the end in the ways you judge others. I don't know everything about other people, and shouldn't be quick to judge others. However when I see someone who I think is cutting corners it offends me.
This transcends into a strange sort of internal discrimination I have against fellow game designers here at my university. I feel game design, when applied to video games, is cheating. I feel one can't master game design without mastering all aspects of game development first, as game design can only exist if the others are in place first. It might be just me, but I feel that a lot of student game designers are super lazy and lack all aspects of discipline.
There are a rare few that, to me, seem to work very hard in their studies. I have no resentment towards them. Perhaps the hard working disciplined game designers simply choose to omit the study of game development, much as I choose to omit the study of computer hardware, electrical engineering, and anything else game development is built upon.
Not only game designers, but programmers and artists are also amongst my peers. In my mind there aren't very many truly hard-working artists I've had the experienced of coming across. I really believe that the art degrees at DigiPen aren't as strong as the computer science degrees due to a disparity in discipline. It would seem the faculty at DigiPen agrees with me, as Freshman artists used to have a rigorous course with a certain professor, in which he would attempt to hammer young artists into a more humble state in which they could grow. Sadly, this faculty member abruptly left the school one year, and has not yet been replaced.
I find myself sometimes walking around with resentment towards my peers. You have to understand I grew up in a teeny town and spent a large portion of my childhood on an isolated farm. All I knew for a long time was that people should work very hard. My mother constantly works hard, and so did my father. As a result I worked very hard too. When I finally leave my small world and come to a university, I expected the people to be more like myself. I was always told that the friends you'll make in college are much better than your highschool friends, because you both chose to go to the same place and are likely similar.
Really I feel more alone here than in my home. It's hard to come by really truly hard working peers. Many go home and play lots of video games, or go partying, or this or that. I have tons of video games I plan to play once I graduate, but I choose not to. I'm spending hundreds of thousands of dollars I don't even have so I can study. Shouldn't I study really hard? If I should study really hard, why wouldn't others?
I just came to this school expecting to find people like me, and ended up finding a couple people like me. My father always told me that "The world is full of lazy people. If you can go out into the world with a strong work ethic and discipline you'll have an advantage over everyone." Mind you my father was quite rooted in Christianity, and I really thought he was just letting isolation get to him. The world couldn't really be full of a bunch of lazy selfish people, could it? That sounds absurd.
Really, once I got out into the world a little bit I realized more and more that my father was right. There aren't very many people that are like us, in specific ways. I know I don't know much about how the world works, but this is what I've gathered thus far. The people who don't lack discipline aren't very hard to spot. They are either wildly successful students or professors. Though not all the professionally successful students are what I'd refer to as "disciplined" all of them certainly work, or at least did work at some point, very hard for a long time.
Laziness just plain offends me. I have to be really careful not to mistreat others because of some silly beliefs that I have. Other people are free to spend their time how I want; what is important is how I spend my time. It is wrong of me to resent another person like this; I don't really know all the details of their life and can't possibly hope to! It isn't my place to judge.
This has all lead myself to be pretty isolated from the rest of my peers. Most of the time I would choose to study at home by myself. The rest of my peers would be at school interacting with one another. I'm now going into my junior year and realizing that I don't know hardly anyone in my class. I've pretty much alienated myself because of some silly belief that I'm somehow doing what I should, while other people aren't. This is very hypocritical! It's hypocritical because I feel I'm mistreating someone without knowing much about them, and definitely don't want people to do the same back to me.
I suppose the real belief I hold onto is something like this: One must study and improve themselves over the course of their life; mis-used potential is wrong. There are a lot of people less fortunate than I, and it is my duty to help them as best I can.
Duty, discipline, do I sound Asian to you yet? The one thing traditional asian culture has confused me about is honor. But, this is off-topic.
So there you have it. I can be a judgmental hypocrite. Starting this year I'm going to be spending much more time at school and amongst my peers. Whether or not they are lazy I myself will at the very least be focusing on my own work ethic. I'll hold onto the people that work hard, and try to offer help to anyone that needs it. No reason to mistreat anybody. Luckily I haven't actually mistreated anyone (that I know of), and have really only had a subconscious resentment. Perhaps I stayed home so often because I intuitively knew I had an issue to deal with before interacting with everyone at my school.
The song Radioactive by Imagine Dragons strikes me. Some of the lyrics speak of "waking up", and to me these lyrics sing of self-realization and improvement. This might not be the intended purpose of the song, but to me it's about self-revelation. As a person one might one day "wake up" and revolutionize their life for a greater purpose. I feel like I'm constantly seeking such a feeling of elation, and this song brings me to it:
Even the image in the video is striking. A man in a business suit, perhaps just strolling along in his monotonous life is now experiencing a radical change: he is floating in midair as a way to express this crazy waking up.
Another piece of media that has struck me is The Last Samurai. I'm sure anyone that's seen it and has read my post up till now can imagine why. The perfection portrayed in the lives of the Samurai is something to be revered, and yet it was cast away and forgotten by the naivety of man in possession of technology. The possession of technology or knowledge does not make you superior, it increases your responsibility and should only allow a greater respect for how little you know in comparison to what is yet known.
I don't know, maybe I'm a little strange but sometimes this imagine dragons song almost makes me cry. There's just a lot of feels that suddenly come up. What if my father is right? How can the world be so full of potential with so many people suffering? It leaves me a little distraught. For now I just accept that I'm very young and wild, and with age will come the ability to process all these feels properly. I think I've heard others say "hot blooded". I think it's safe to say young dudes in their early 20s have some pretty hot blood. I'll mature with time.
In the words of Albert Einstein, I'm just a young kid: "Confusion of goals and perfection of means seems, in my opinion, to characterize our age." Edit: Age meant a period in history, but still applies to me.
What do you guys do with your lives? How is your life being expended? Does this post make you uncomfortable? I'm pretty used to others leaving me or shunning me when I talk about this sort of thing. People just don't want to wake up.
I think the idea that it is desirable or effective to master every element of a trade is quite an immature and old fashioned idea. Not that it would be a theoretically bad thing, but in that in a modern situation it is simply not possible and will drag you into mediocrity inevitably.
Your type of approach was viable in the olden days when one person could master every aspect of a craft, but we don't live in that world any more. Think about the computer itself. During early development of the tech, sure, the whole damn thing was designed and built on the vision of one man. Nowadays is there anyone who even has the basic technical skills to oversee the complete fabrication of a single modern computer from he ground up? Maybe a simple one. In the time they spend acquiring these skills and working on this process, a computer 500 times as advanced can be constructed by a team of specialists who truly understand only one or two aspects of the product.
Its an advance that mirrors the advances in human civilization moving from an hunter gatherer to an agricultural to an industrial society with the accompanying specialization of labor. I don't care how much time and effort you put into learning graphic asset creation, game design, programming etc. You are going to be worse at each specific field than someone who just devoted all of their time to mastering one aspect. Much much worse. You seem to have a high opinion of your own skill, dedication, and intelligence compared to other people, but what you have to realize is that it doesn't matter if you are incredibly more proficient that 99.99% of the population. Who cares about all those people? You aren't competing with them. There are BILLIONS of people on earth. The chances that many of them will be far far better at any single facet of game creation or any other task you try to "completely master" is 100%. No matter how much time and effort you put into your game, a group of these specialists will shit on you systematically. Sure, the unified knowledge of every intricacy of the design process is nice when trying to coordinate the whole project, but as the product increases in intricacy it becomes more and more impractical, and it makes more and more sense just to have a general working knowledge to assist in coordination.
TLDR: Bruce Lee feared not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times. You should too.
In the words of Albert Einstein, I'm just a young kid: "Confusion of goals and perfection of means seems, in my opinion, to characterize our age."
Perhaps you are, but you misinterpreted that quote. With "age" he didn''t mean a person's age but age as period in history; it's "Zeit" (the times) in the German original.
I really like your attitude and can definitely relate in many ways, especially when it comes to your work ethic and perfectionist ideas (of the non-psychological kind), but I don't quite understand why you think you've been a hypocrite - after all, you do practice what you preach, so that can't be it.
You should also keep in mind that while helping others is a great thing, i.e. furthering their perfection is something we should strive for, there is a significant limit to how much you can make a horse drink the water that you lead it to. So because our ability to bring about the perfection of others is limited, our duty to do so must be limited as well. So I would keep that in perspective.
I'm not quite sure how to comment on your habit of judging others. If people differ in the values they uphold, and you believe their life is worse because they don't share some of yours, then even if you are right and they truly are worse off, they might nonetheless still be good people, both morality- and personality-wise. The one thing that I believe you will come to realize soon enough is that you can be excellent friends with good people that otherwise don't share some of your core values (or in this case your work ethic).
I'm curious how you go about cultivating discipline. Do you have a specific method?
I personally can't focus on things that I know are a huge waste of my time, like chopping wood in your example. We have tools now like chainsaws and log splitters that make using an axe horribly inefficient. Using an axe to split wood is like using a spoon to dig a hole.
I took the myers briggs test here to double check that I was a INTP like you. It didn't seem like all those traits of a INTP were directly in line with me and I was right, I ended up being a INFJ (Introvert(11%) iNtuitive(75%) Feeling(12%) Judging(56%))
Having years on other people (age) only means one thing, that you have had more time to process these thoughts longer than someone who is younger than you. That is why older people tend to have more overall knowledge banked up in their heads than younger people. Your father's advice is spot on and probably comes from being a generation up on you, you should try to seek a different meaning to it in the coming years.
You should step off the high horse you feel that you are on compared to your peers and humble yourself. The most important reason you go to a college is to spend resources and time to get a degree. The second most important reason is to utilize the social networks that colleges have like networking so you have a job lined up by the time you get out of college or joining a frat/befriending people in different fraternities to be able to access their extensive alumni later on when looking for a job.
answers to your questions
What do you guys do with your lives? I work as a part time cashier, play starcraft2, and read the financial news sections of national newspapers. I work just enough so that I have a small flow of money coming in and devote the majority of my time to watching and playing sc2. I also occasionally will hang out with friends
How is your life being expended?kind of redundant to the first question lol, but I will answer this differently.
I am on an eternal quest for knowledge. I watch an extensive amount of TV shows in a wide array of categories in order to learn more about American culture and to pick up on the psychological elements that are instigated in different tv series.
As of right now, being a cashier allows me to say that I've gotten X amount of experience in CUSTOMER SERVICE, so I am perfectly content with being a cashier for the immediate future.
Does this post make you uncomfortable? no. In fact, I get drawn to these kinds of posts to see where other people are in their lives
edit: just a little laugh out loud moment about my personality test,
"INFJs are gentle, caring, complex and highly intuitive individuals. Artistic and creative, they live in a world of hidden meanings and possibilities. Only one percent of the population has an INFJ Personality Type, making it the most rare of all the types. " I feel like a rare holographic charizard pokemon card now!
On August 10 2013 07:09 Sauwelios wrote: but I don't quite understand why you think you've been a hypocrite - after all, you do practice what you preach, so that can't be it.
Ah, I updated my OP a little. It's hypocritical to judge others before getting to know them, and not want others to do this back to you. It's the entire theme of the first Shrek movie, yet another media creation that has struck me deeply.
Thanks for the kind words man
On August 10 2013 07:12 Ghin wrote: I'm curious how you go about cultivating discipline. Do you have a specific method?
I personally can't focus on things that I know are a huge waste of my time, like chopping wood in your example. We have tools now like chainsaws and log splitters that make using an axe horribly inefficient. Using an axe to split wood is like using a spoon to dig a hole.
Well chopping firewood was never about efficiency. It was about discipline. Sure we needed firewood, but we didn't need very much and are too poor to afford expensive and more efficient machinery.
To me I feel discipline can come from repetitive hard work. I've always been told "hard work builds character" by my elders. There's something about raw physical labor that doesn't compare with any sort of intellectual training. You must train the body to train the mind. Once you accomplish a physically laborious task, other problems in your life will feel less significant.
On August 10 2013 07:16 Race is Terran wrote: You should step off the high horse you feel that you are on compared to your peers and humble yourself.
Yes! Being humble is something I greatly appreciate in others! I continually strive to try to do this myself, and is one reason why I wrote this blog. I've always held the belief that: "The moment you think yourself better than another is the moment you cease be on equal ground; you fall beneath them". Thanks for answering my questions
On August 10 2013 06:57 CecilSunkure wrote: Yeah, it really is immature to try to master everything. Though my biggest qualm is really just against laziness.
Are you really so obsessed with self-improvement and dedication? Or are you just using it as an excuse to avoid (social) situations you are uncomfortable in?
You say that it should be everyone's goal to strive for perfection of some sort. Why? Who or what are they trying to be perfect for? You later mention "There are a lot of people less fortunate than I, and it is my duty to help them as best I can". Do you think that's what you are doing? Lets be fucking honest here, if you wanted to really help people less fortunate than you, you wouldn't be spend hundreds of thousands of dollars studying game design at a university while people are dying of starvation. They you turn around and resent your peers because they aren't working as hard on their video games as you? I think you need to get your own goals and morals in line as to what you are trying to accomplish here, because currently they aren't coherent.
On August 10 2013 07:18 sob3k wrote: Are you really so obsessed with self-improvement and dedication? Or are you just using it as an excuse to avoid (social) situations you are uncomfortable in?
Good question, I'm definitely being honest with all the talk about self-improvement. I used to just hang out with my friends in high school, and was friends with most people in the school (small school). As time went on I distanced myself from my comfortable situation. So really it's not that I'm avoiding an uncomfortable situation, it's that I intentionally withdrew from my "comfort zone" so that I could focus on what is really important. This can be related to my whole linking of the Imagine Dragons song.
On August 10 2013 07:18 sob3k wrote: You say that it should be everyone's goal to strive for perfection of some sort. Why? Who or what are they trying to be perfect for? You later mention "There are a lot of people less fortunate than I, and it is my duty to help them as best I can". Do you think that's what you are doing? Lets be fucking honest here, if you wanted to really help people less fortunate than you, you wouldn't be spend hundreds of thousands of dollars studying game design at a university while people are dying of starvation. They you turn around and resent your peers because they aren't working as hard on their video games as you? I think you need to get your own goals and morals in line as to what you are trying to accomplish here, because currently they aren't coherent.
Yeah, this highlights another internal conflict of mine. Is this really the best way to go about helping others? I'm not sure and it worries me at times. When I played competitive StarCraft this was still an internal conflict of mine, and I'd often share my own knowledge and learnings with the TL community in an attempt to help others in a way that still benefited my own personal growth. Docendo discimus. I have written a lot of educational content in these past 4 or so years. I'm sure I'll be writing for a long time as it really knocks out two birds with one stone. This makes sense as the INTP type is characterized by potential for being great educational writers.
However I have another belief: "You must first save yourself before you can save others". This this line was first shown to me in the context of Christianity and religious salvation, I feel it applies to every day life. If I myself am not capable of helping others, then I can't help others.
Honestly I think software engineering is such a good fit for me that it's the best path I could have chosen to gather a means to help others. Right now my goal is to make something of myself so that I have the best options to help others later in my life. I guess you can say I went for a macro oriented end-game style of play with life.
Man Cecil, we happen to be pretty similar. As soon as you mentioned chopping firewood i was like ugggg. Everything from how to use an axe to hitting the cracks in the log and splitting them in triangle shapes to stack. Pain in the ass. I also find myself walking around with resentment to other people, thinking that I'm much better than them. Since you mentioned bible references i would have to say that both of us are pretty similar to the pharisees lolol. I happen to be one of those people who never ask for help advice from online people i never met ya. But if it came to asking for someone's help I have a hard time doing it. I have no problem helping others when they need it, but I never ask for anything in return. I strive to master the fundamentals in about every sport I play and even in SC2 (also ran out of time to play). I can easily talk to people but out of all the people I talk to I only have 6-8 people i would actually consider friends.
If you seek to gain a working knowledge of related elements to your primary focus, you're working against laziness. I don't know how far you can conceivably get in mastering others. The degree of specialization in high-tech fields keeps increasing and increasing. For my analogy, I work in the chemical engineering field. I have learned some and read some on mechanical and electrical engineering, but the harder questions will leave me stumped.
I think some of that isolation is to be expected. If your aims aren't in line with current culture, it does cause some distance from a large segment of the population. Luckily, in a big enough population you'll find like-thinking individuals if you look hard enough.
I also grew up on the Bible and draw my work ethic from it. Whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not men.The reward for work is in heaven and not on earth.
I appreciate your input in the programming thread, but if I can be of help, I'd say that talking more to peers can be useful as it may enhance your thinking and knowledge. You don't have to take everything at face value, only what you think is reasonable.
Relying only on your approach is lame. Everyone can teach us at least one thing.
hard work always pays off, no matter what. If you put everything you can into whatever it is you believe, than you can at least say you gave it your all. I really admire your attitude, and others who share it, especially since you plan to use your potential to help others. keep it up man, you are not naive but far from it.
edit: as to judging other who are lazy/non - hardworking, this is just plain silly and you have to get over it. Not everyone has to share your views for you to like them, they are people just like you and there are lots of things that you can learn from them, just like they can learn to not be so lazy from you.
As an ex game developer now teacher of it you are right but you dont (cant?) do it all yourself. You have to Master one and then let others master the other things you need. I create my own games now but elements suffer where when i was in the studio, my same game would have been 1000 times better as my tester was dedicated to his job, my grf artists was dedicated to my needs, sound and programming were my areas i just looked at putting their masterpeices in with my master pice. as much as i think i know everythign, i dont, neither does anyone else. Work hard at the one thing is my only advice here but your post is spot on.
people are brought up in different ways , mindwashed into thinking the way they do, they can't help it and you will probably find that a large portion of these "lazy" people actually recognise and despise their own laziness and would appreciate the support of a non-lazy person in their lives
Getting as close to perfection as possible is a stupid goal in itself. I'd ask yourself whether trying to be perfect is actually something you enjoy or whether it's something you feel you need to do. I've always found it very tiring constantly feeling like I have to be accomplishing things, especially when I realized that I wasn't doing it for myself. Maybe I'm projecting here, but make sure to keep asking yourself whether your motivation comes from within.Gl!
There's an essay by Bertrand Russell that's a diversion from the common sense view of laziness. It might only be tangentially relevant to your post, but it's an interesting take, imo. A quick summary of it is that the reason most people consider laziness to be bad is because it's propaganda advanced by the aristocracy and priests, so they can appropriate whatever they need from the peasants while enjoying a relaxing, workless life themselves. It mentions that instead of seeking to work as much as possible, people should have enough free time so they can indulge themselves in whatever they want.
There is a lot to learn from other peoples mistakes and Blizzard surely provides a good number of examples. They are too arrogant to change any of the really big decisions they made years ago, even though it is becoming clearer how bad they really are for SC2. They equally think that they should dictate how we are supposed to play the game (Terrans should play bio and not mech) and then enforce it by keeping one style less powerful on purpose and that is equally arrogant.
The best piece of advice I would have is to have no holy cows when designing a game and to be as open as possible and to try and make every option as viable as any other option.
To actually achieve this a sort of "quality control" is necessary and that can be done by answering a few simple questions - but be honest to yourself / objective when answering! - that try to Does this really improve the gameplay? [1] Does this make the game too complicated? {2[ Is this viable for every side in the game or does it favor one side more heavily? [1][2]
[1] A good example would be the unlimited unit selection in SC2. Sure enough it makes controlling a massive army easier, BUT if you are honest it only works if you are the attacker OR the defender when he is looking at his units. If the defender is just looking elsewhere it simply gives the attacker a big advantage ... which is bad for the game at lower levels of skill. [2] Adding an asymmetric production speed boost on top of an asymmetric production really gives too much power to one side at the end of the game. It also makes balancing the game harder than it should be.
When it comes to game speed - not necessarily the speed at which stuff happens in the game but also the speed of production - I usually compare it with cars. Some people can actually drive race cars well, but the majority can not do so. Making a game at "race car speed" will lock out a big part of your customers. Sure enough speed is important and is a tool to put pressure on the player to add to the excitement level, but you have to get the right speed for the job ... and be honest about it.
EPT
