T+x

As I said in the very first posting, I wasn't going to make this blog a burden for myself. This is the reason I did not write anything when the deadlines started to approach. The two games were part of a bigger project: getting me graduated before xmas. The sheer amount of work writing all the reports and finishing the loose ends felt pretty masocistic at times, but I'm now very happy that I finally reached my goal.

I think I might just stick with this blog btw. The name "Keely 440" has kind of funny vibe. I know there won't be too many readers, but I write for myself mostly so it doesn't matter. I have no idea that I'm going to write about, but I guess I'll just write whatever feels interesting, whether it's gamedev-related or not. Now I feel like writing a few passages of post-mortem about school, so here goes:

I never had great ambitions for education or consider graduating some kind of larger-than-life event. At some point earlier in life, I actually made peace with myself on the subject: If I'd graduate, great. If not, no biggie. Six years ago, I applied to our school, because that was something "everyone does" or something that "you are supposed to do". I don't regret the decision. I made it based on what I felt was right at the time. If I could rewind back time, and be myself six years ago, with the self awereness I have now, I would skip the ordinary education and teach myself. I think by now, I'm an expert - when compared to our school organization - on how, what and why I need to learn. I also think that - albeit trying to foresee the future is kind of retarded - the working culture is shifting more away from the formal education and the degree I now have probably makes a near zero impact on my career or life in general.

School had a positive impact too. I met alot of interesting people and new friends along the way. I'm still in touch with many of the guys we started the school with (even though they graduated 3 years before me). Also, now in the final months, I suddenly had like dozen new gamedeving pals through the Gamelab @ school, when earlier I had none. There was big chunks of "free time" in school to think about what I want to do or what is it that makes me tick. All great stuff.

But, for a critical thinker that I am, these are all pretty much false arguments. It's pretty hard to predict what kind of people would I have met or what kind of positive situations might have risen, if I had skipped the school all together. No way of arguing one way or the other. It is called results-oriented thinking, and narration of random events into what seems like solid arguments. This kind of phenomena is very common in a very complicated modern society, where people like politicians, businessmen and other decision-makers, have to cover their ego from the fact that there is actually very little that they know or can do in terms of making the right choice, because there is no such thing as right choice to begin with.

We are all children of the primitive men of the savannas. Results-oriented thinking makes sense, when you avoid getting killed by lions or try to hunt for rabbits. It doesn't make sense in the complex society of 21st century. There is just no way to measure a value of a hard decision, like going or not going to school, before or after, with the way you measure a simple decision like "should I hide from this lion to tree or run for the caves". Back then, you got an instant and accurate feedback. Fast forward a few million years of evolution and BOOM, here we are: Children of these primal men, now in a totally different new world of information and complex structures, crippled by our past.

Of course there is randomness in the lion example too. You could find your mates in the way to the caves, who make the lion back away. Or maybe all the trees nearby could be too hard to climb. But when you compare this to the randomness of the modern world, you might understand where I'm getting at: We are trapped by our primitive genes and protect ourselves and our precious egos from the fact that many of the big decisions we make, are just a diceroll with a tiny fraction of determinism. It is hard for a human being to let go of the idea, that you could control your destiny. I'm not even sure that anything positive follows from my realization, that there is very little I can do, or atleast no proof to think otherwise. Sometimes I think that I'd actually rather be the ignorant young fool that I used to be, but I can't help being the critical thinker that I am now.

Wisdom brings pain, but I hope some more joy also. Maybe the ultimate conclusion that you can derive from this, is that not everything in life is random, and you can still try to make good decisions. It's just that you should not get too stuck with the negative results of your hard decisions when they (eventually) arise. When you can indentify the sheer amount of "dicerolling" taking part in the course of your life, you might become more relaxed to face the hardest of decisions and the worst of results, and still be able to enjoy the ride.

Now I'm going to make some nice cup of coffee and just watch my dogs play outside. I've earned it.