Video Games Archives

This Virtual Soldier's Speech Explains How to Have True Purpose in Life Cover

Humans are agents of change.

From the moment we are conceived, our body begins to evolve. It grows until we’re born, and then it grows some more. Our bones, cells, muscles, even our brains — they constantly renew themselves. Day after day, month after month, year after year. It all changes until it can’t change anymore.

In time, we start to decay. Decay, too, is change. It’s not a bad thing, you know? As Steve Jobs said, “Death is very likely the single best invention of life. It clears out the old to make way for the new.”

We don’t change just on the inside. Between birth and death, we change everything we interact with. We change nature, culture, and others. Throwing a rock is change. Discussing remote work is change. Patting a friend on the back is change. Even sleeping is change.

Change is the most human thing we do — and the most powerful way to enact change is through purpose.

You Will Learn To Love the Work You Choose

March 22, 2021August 7, 2024 Nik

Our brain turns memories into stories. The difference is that a story will always make sense, while your memories may not.

If you’ve ever told an anecdote at a party and left out a tiny detail in service of the punchline, you know what I’m talking about. Maybe, the car had already stopped when you jumped in to save the puppy. Maybe, the wall you climbed wasn’t all that high. Shhhhh! It’s ok. I won’t tell anyone.

The most curious aspect of this is that the more you retell a story, the more polished it becomes. With every iteration, your memories warp a little more to match the consistency of the story — until the line between them gets so blurry, you start believing the story is the memory. That’s how strong our brain’s desire for coherence is.

While it’s harmless to take some liberties with a childhood adventure to make others laugh, when it comes to your career, you must resist your brain’s addiction to narratives.

If you don’t, one day, you’ll no longer be able to make good decisions — simply because they don’t fit the story arc you’ve created in your mind.

30 Lessons Learned in 30 Years of Life

February 18, 2021February 28, 2024 Nik

Yesterday, I turned 30. When I was 18, I thought by 30, I’d have it made.

My 20s were a long, slow grind of realizing “made” does not exist. “Made” is past tense — but you’re never done! The only finish line is death, and, thankfully, most of us don’t see it until we’re almost there.

Instead of the binary made/not made distinction, I now see life as round-based. You win some, you lose some, and different rounds have different themes. There’s a carefree-childhood season, a teenager-trying-to-understand-society season, an exuberant-20-something season, and so on.

At 30 years old, I’ve only played a few seasons, but each round feels more interesting than the last. If that trend persists, I can’t imagine what one’s 60s or 90s must be like. By that time, you’ve seen so much — and yet, there’ll always be new things to see.

Most seasons last longer than a year, and there’s plenty to talk about with respect to the important, defining decade from 20 to 30 alone, but today, I’d like to do something different: I want to share one thing I’ve learned from each year I’ve been alive.

Video Games: The Important Message We Miss

July 6, 2020July 23, 2024 Nik

In Final Fantasy X, you must dodge 200 consecutive lightning bolts to obtain the magician’s most powerful weapon.

The Final Fantasy series has a reputation for gruesome challenges that force players to grind for hours on end to obtain the games’ most precious rewards — but this one clearly takes the cake.

One area of this game is cast in a perpetual thunder storm. As you traverse it, the screen will randomly flash white for a split second before lightning hits you — unless you press X in perfect sync, upon which your character will dodge the strike.

To get one of two upgrades for one of the top weapons in the game, you must dodge 200 lightning strikes in a row. If you miss one, it’s game over. If you miscount in your head, it’s game over. If you accidentally get hit on your way back to where the reward is, it’s game over.

Needless to say, many a controller has been broken over this challenge. Many hours have been wasted. Even using every trick in the book, it’ll still take 20 minutes of perfect execution, which begs one question above all: Why?

If you’re not into video games, you might shake your head at someone putting 10, 20, 30 hours into something that amounts to nothing more than a shiny icon on a screen. A grey blade or a green one, what’s the difference? To you, nothing, perhaps, but to the gamer, the difference is everything.

How Nintendo Got Us To Advertise Them for Free

May 21, 2020June 28, 2024 Nik

It started with a few Youtube comments.

“I think it needs music, honestly.”

“This would be perfect with Titanic music in the background.”

“No music…You know what to do :)”

And then all hell broke loose.

On November 11th, 2018, Nintendo released the trailer for their new game, Super Smash Brothers Ultimate. Since its original launch in 1999, the fighting crossover series has sold 60 million copies worldwide.

Fans always complain about whichever famous character is missing, but this time, the award for “most notable absence” went neither to Mario nor to Pikachu but to the music. Of course, that didn’t last long.

A few hours after the trailer was posted, a Twitter user added the music from Smash Bros. Melee, a prior installment in the series. The tweet got over 1,000 retweets and 3,000 likes. An hour later, another tweeter added a DMX rap song and racked up even more shares.

Less than halfway through the day, a gamer named “Mythical Mew” broke the social media jackpot. He synced Queen’s Don’t Stop Me Now to the one-minute clip, and, well, it’s literally music to your ears.

If You’re Ambitious, Find a Hobby You Won’t Obsess About

January 28, 2020September 25, 2023 Nik

Peanutbeer. For most of 12th grade, I was in a heated competition with a guy named Peanutbeer. At least, that was his screen name on Xbox Live. His real name was Marc. He was the younger brother of one of my classmates.

Somehow, Peanutbeer and PandoraNiklas found themselves in a constant battle for Gamerscore supremacy. Who could beat the most games with the highest completion rate in the shortest period of time?

Each Xbox game offers up to 1,000 Gamerscore, points you get for beating the game on various difficulties and completing many, often hard-to-pull-off challenges. If you think video games are fun as they are, this extra layer of gamification will easily get you addicted. Besides optimizing each playthrough around garnering the most achievements, it also incentivizes you to try things in the game you otherwise wouldn’t have.

With Peanutbeer and me, it quickly became an 80/20 thing. We focused on getting the most bang for our buck, both literally and in terms of Gamerscore. We’d rent 2–3 games over the weekend (you didn’t have to pay for Sundays) and try to rack up as many points as possible. It was a blast.

By the time I graduated high school, I had amassed over 24,000 Gamerscore — the equivalent of beating 24 games to 100% completion. That’s nothing compared to world record holders with over two million points, but in our local Xbox community, no one came out ahead. No one, except Peanutbeer.

If You Want to Be Happy, Make the World Small

January 15, 2019August 9, 2024 Nik

One of my favorite scenes in Man of Steel is when young Clark first discovers his powers at elementary school. His senses are hypersensitive and, by activating all at once, trigger a seizure.

Suddenly, he can see not just people’s appearance, but their insides, bones, organs. He can hear not just loud noise, but every noise, even tiny ones far away. Overwhelmed with all the impressions, he runs away and hides.

The whole class gathers outside the closet he’s locked himself in, but, ultimately, his mom must come to his rescue. At first, he won’t let her in.

“The world’s too big, Mom.”

But then, Martha Kent shares a piece of advice that could only ever make sense coming from a loving, compassionate mother:

“Then make it small.”

What If Our Addictions Are What Makes Us Successful?

September 25, 2018August 9, 2024 Nik

I have a theory:

Everyone’s addicted to something.

Not addiction in the clinical sense. I’m not talking about a chemical imbalance that might lead to substance abuse. That should be treated professionally.

When I say ‘addicted,’ I mean that you do something just a little more than you probably should. And even though sometimes that “just a little” isn’t all that little anymore, if you had a shrink, he wouldn’t recommend sending you to Shutter Island just yet.

Here’s an example: When I was 15, I was addicted to soccer tricks.

How To Move Around Your Mac at the Speed of Light

January 30, 2018June 3, 2024 Nik

Note: This guide is for Mac users, but most of these have Windows counterparts.

One of the biggest ideas in psychology is the concept of hedonic adaptation. Also known as the ‘hedonic treadmill,’ it asserts that even substantial rises in our income or material wealth rarely lead to a lasting increase in happiness.

Historically, most of our newfound amenities have relied on technology, but since the dawn of the internet, innovation has grown exponentially. By now, we’re used to our devices becoming stronger, better, faster each year, and so, technologic adaptation is on the rise.

In an interview, Louis C.K. describes the phenomenon, using smartphones as an example:

“This is what people are like now: they got their phone and they’re like: “Ugh! It won’t…”

Give it a second! It’s going to space! Can you give it a second to get back from space? Is the speed of light too slow for you?”

Remember how mad you were the last time the wifi broke down for five minutes? That’s technologic adaptation par excellence.

What’s ironic about this is that most of the problems with our tech aren’t caused by the devices, but by us. Operating errors. We get annoyed at tiny external delays, when the biggest lags reside in our own behavior.

What if you knew you were using your laptop as efficiently as possible? Wouldn’t you be a lot calmer when it actually does fail you?

For the past five years, I’ve studied not just through macOS, but macOS itself. As a result, I navigate around my laptop much faster than the average person.

Today, I’d like to show you the three components of that speed:

Muscle memory
Markers
Search

Let’s do this!

3 Ways To Be More Productive That You Can’t Train at Work

January 23, 2018June 3, 2024 Nik

Getting Things Done is one of the most popular productivity books of all time. Published in 2001, it has sold over 2 million copies, been translated into more than 30 languages, and affected the work of hundreds of thousands of professionals.

Naturally, you’d expect the man behind the phenomenon, David Allen, to be a swift and efficient person. A ‘corporate suit,’ if you will. In a 2017 interview in his Amsterdam home, his appearance couldn’t be further from that.

As he casually sits in his chair, the top of his shirt unbuttoned, sleeves rolled up, he admits he wrote the book in part because he is “lazy, frankly.” Diving deeper into the origins of his fascination with the topic, he continues:

“I got into this methodology primarily because I was into clear space. How do I get clear space? I love clear space. [Through] my training in the martial arts, meditational practices, spiritual practices, [I] discovered how productive it was to be able to actually have nothing on your mind other than whatever you wanted on your mind.”

That doesn’t sound very systematic, does it? When we learn about GTD, we read about the five stages, about collecting, processing, organizing, planning and doing. As the system is propagated around the web, emphasis lies on boosting efficiency, minimizing dead time and checking off more boxes.

Maybe we’re missing something. Getting lost in the manual, while the lessons lie elsewhere. Maybe, being productive is not really about what happens at the office.

Category: Video Games

This Virtual Soldier’s Speech Explains How to Have True Purpose in Life