How can you really measure when you’ve “not failed?”

Hyper adventure

A 20/20 Special on ABC news in 1998: “Nuts for Nintendo” suggested that Nintendo may be the most addictive toy in history.”

As a kid in the 80s, Nintendo’s “NES” had just come out in the US - and it was really fun, but it was never as exhilarating as a neighborhood game of capture the flag or a good bike chase. However, it offered a different set of rules and a different way of thinking. I could “die” and try again. The stakes were higher and lower at the same time.

Failure was expected

When I played The Legend of Zelda or Super Mario Bros, my goal was to go on an adventure. My aim was to try really hard to get past the level and MAYBE even ‘beat the game’ one day. Failure was expected. The game was hard! That’s why it was fun.

Most of the time (just like real life) you’d be failing at whatever you tried. The chance that you’d pull ahead and learn a new trick was what was very exciting. And that was only going to happen if you tried.

The unknown

Like spoken stories around a fire, and books, and the choose-your-own-adventure tails before them, Video games create a magical world where the adventure is larger than life - but they are also constricted to just a flat screen.

In Zelda (my all-time favorite) It took hundreds and hundreds of hours to wander around trying to learn about what to do next. There really was just no directions. Just a little character and your sense of discovery. Sometimes I would get so frustrated, I would swear off the game for months. It was just that much more exciting to come back and try again.

The unknown was what was so exciting.

If you try to succeed - instead of ‘trying not to fail’ - the world is a completely different place.

It’s 2021! And that’s sorta exciting?

In Los Angeles, someone dies every 10 minutes from COVID.

Yesterday - a group of maniacs proved to the world that you don’t need much brains or planning to get into the white house and kill the leaders of our country.

Deaths on the road are way up because people drive like complete assholes with no care for human life.

If you’re black - and fall asleep in your car at a drive-through - you get murdered by police.

If you’re white and you storm the capitol - Donald Trump says “we love you.”

But - there are also some positive things happening

There are a great many things to be thankful for:

We launched Perpetual Education. We’ll be able to train people who will train people who will train more people - and they’ll solve all of those problems above.

If we fill the world up with DESIGNERS - they will design the things / and they will validate those designs - and the world will change.

Some cool things!

Perpetual Doom put out a new record from Steve Heath!!

I made this video about time management! (or rather NOT WORKING MORE)

That’s all for now!

A bunch of you had babies. What the heck! New people are in the world!!!

What else is going on? What are you excited about for 2021? Or are you just going to keep your head down and work and wait for 2022 to be excited, like me?

Design/Conversations

Trying not to fail?