How much are you worth?

My Nerdy Dream

With much of my life wasted on runescape, it may come as little surprise that I love high fantasy, in particular MMORPGs. As with a lot of people that play games I was a constant critic, thinking I always knew better than the developer. Lauding criticism on every new update because of my protective nostalgia. Furthermore I have friends that did/still do play world of warcraft, it success always puzzled me, as I despise its shallow stories and weak attempt at gaming as an artform. Despite this bitterness and these shortcomings, I think I actually know a thing or two about rpgs.

Perhaps its childish I don't know but for a long time ive been writing plans and scribbling down ideas for my rpg. I had a little notepad with all my ideas on, actually that does sound pretty childish, although I can't really remember the last time I let such silly social conventions rule my life. I don't really know where i'm going with this, just wanted to get it out.

Hard Work

"Hard work: I don't like it"

That's what I've had written on this post for a long time, just that, in draft form. It's like I can see some vague prize in the distance for equally vague "hard work" but it isn't enough motivation to do anything. As a result I don't really like hard work. More logical analysis tells me I should think differently. If I take this blog for example, has required quite a large amount of work, more individual chunks of work, but overall hard work none the less. My vague prize hasn't been achieved in a conventional sense, I haven't received stardom as we as so often told. Not even money or recognition. Even so I think I've achieved something deeper, I've achieved some satisfaction. Satisfaction for just doing work? That seems silly, like hard work for the sake of hard work. Although perhaps that explains the addictiveness of simple games.

Take angry birds for an example, the reward for firing agitated birds is pretty meaningless stars (perhaps they are angry because they are jealous of their naturally flighted brethren, but that's an irrelevant side note, shut up brain). Where was I? Meaningless rewards are nevertheless something we want, for complex machines we are pretty easy to fool to be honest. Note to self, award myself gold stars...

My Cambridge Experience

Originally posted on the Guardian by me
 "I think the general criticism in these comments is inevitable but not wholly fair. My experience of Cambridge, visiting St Catherine's and being interviewed by Jesus, was mostly positive. I wasn't hit by prejudice from stiff upper lip middle Englishmen but instead by academic prejudice. The interviewers were scary and intense people because of their rigorous thinking, something that is quite easily mistaken for snobbery. Two out of three of my interviewers were warm friendly Eastern Europeans and the last one was a softly spoken man, a million miles away from the usual image that people conjure up. I'm sure somewhere I read about them complaining about someone's dress code. Well I turned up in Jeans and a faded polo neck, and frankly they didn't care what I was wearing.

I'm happy to have received an offer from them to do Maths (explains my grammar) with Physics but either way I would have still respected the university. Coming from a state school I was aware of the slim chances of getting in so I was under no illusions. On the other hand I knew that people from public schools weren't innately cleverer than me. If innate ability is uniformly distributed across the population then the cleverest in a state school of 2000 is as innately clever as the cleverest in Eton. All that is left then is to work on that and achieve potential, something which is sadly neglected in most normal schools. I've seen peers clever enough to go to Oxbridge but thanks to lack of passion or coaching, they have failed. Had they been in a public school both of these would have been commonplace. It's a sad fact of life that the natural flow is for the rich to get richer and the poor to get poorer. Social mobility isn't a simple or new problem by any means."

Wasting Time

Why do I waste so much time? We all do it, come in, find the nearest internet connection and plug ourselves in. Every time I look at the clock it has jumped ahead, like its waiting for me to look away before changing itself. Now that would be impressive time travelling if it wasn't for the fact I was just wasting my time. I'd love to question the idea of wasting time and throw up a clever point that all time is wasted but I'd just be trying to save face. I find myself looking back and wondering where it all went, not being able to show anything for the time that's so magically disappeared. I find this endlessly frustrating but day after day I do it. And I know its irresponsible, but I even do it during exam periods (like now).

Note to self, do something useful tomorrow...

Why I don't care about money

Especially in these times of austerity, it can be a fashionable statement to claim you care little for the vice of money. In a strictly logical sense money is one of the most important things, it is the promise of goods or labour; money is literally power. So it would be irresponsable to dismiss money altogether. Despite this, I like to say im immaterialistic, even if I do frequently wish I had more money. This doesn't seem to make much sense but there are a few distinct types of mindset. Some people are "wanters", they constantly window shop, always looking towards the next item they want. Perhaps its due to my irresponsibility or childish mindset but I don't tend to want, The only thing I currently want is a raspberry pi, literally, I'm fine with my frankly poor phone and (most of the time) I couldn't care less what I wear. Instead I long for experiences, like spending money going out with a special friend or even just my regular ones. One such friend poked a hole in my (frankly awful) logic in saying that actually its the same as wanting objects because they too long for the experience of ownership. Despite this, I think (very modestly) that I do have the right end of the stick. As they do say up north, "there's no pockets in shrouds" so there's no point in hoarding money or possessions. Instead of objects and money, I'd rather live an experience filled life.

However, I guess inevitably only time will tell if I'm a raging consumer, just like I don't know if I'll be a heroin addict or not because I've never tried it.