Lots of half-written drafts sitting in WordPress right now, which is a pretty appropriate metaphor for life right now: disjointed; half-finished things are piling up; I’m trying to keep things moving but there’s lots of friction to overcome.

It’s easy to overcome. I just clear my head of all conscious thought, and accept the slog.

This always works.

And yet, I have trouble remembering to do it.

If I’m having trouble getting motivated, it’s usually not because I hate the slog — that’s just an excuse. It’s because some part of me thinks that whatever I’m about to work on is not worth working on.

Which is to say, some part of me believes that very little of what I’ve been working on lately, is worth working on.

* * *

As long as I’m feeling rambly and introspective, let’s talk about what I think has been my biggest problem lately: context. Some examples of this being an issue:

• During board games, I’ll forget whose turn it is, or what we (in a cooperative game) were trying to accomplish.
• During work meetings, I will be asked a question and will have trouble answering because, while I understood the question, I will have forgotten what we were talking about that led up to the question being asked.
• Reading books, I frequently forget where the characters are and what they’re trying to do.

I like keeping my head empty as much of the time as possible. And while that keeps me calm and focused, it can also lead to issues like the ones above I guess.

As for meetings, my solution lately has been to keep notes during the meeting. I still get to stay in the moment, but if I’m asked a question, I can quickly peek at my notes to see what the context is.

* * *

It occurs to me that my favorite video games can easily be played in a contextless sort of way, and you’re not asked to remember a lot about what you’ve previously done. If I play a level of Alice or Amnesia, I don’t really care what the last level was. I just want to continue from where I left off. Conversely, playing something like Mass Effect or any MMO, I have to remember what skills my character currently has, what I have equipped, and maybe where I was traveling to… and I have trouble keeping track of this stuff and it gets frustrating.

* * *

If I had an RPG-like ‘stat’ for my ability to have fun, it would be like a 1. I turn everything into work. Which is not to say that I turn everything into something stressful; work can be calm too. But calm work is different than fun.

I mentioned earlier that I thought this One Game a Month thing might be good because I might actually relax and just make things I’d find fun to play, rather that trying to change the way people perceive this whole industry.

And I’m still hesitant to do this, because I’m thinking of these games as just benefiting me. And I’m not worth it, I think to myself. The work has to be for someone else to be worthwhile.

But really,that’s not a well-thought-out argument. Yes, the work would be for me, initially. It’s not like there would be anything stopping me from letting others enjoy the finished work after I’m done. The problem here is that I’m only looking at the most immediate, direct beneficiary of the work. It’s kind of short-sighted.