GE & Me

[mcgarbage]

Hey y'all

It's been nice playing GE lately. It feels good when things start going your way.
I've obviously seen some of you around, but haven't really met or talked with too many of y'all.
I wanted to give just a quick little whatever about me and ask for some advice.
I'm currently just working at a grocery store, graduated college and really have no direction at all atm.
My degree was in photography (rip), but I'm not really interested in looking for work in it.
Anyway, what I love so much about GE (and photo honestly) is getting to work really hard at something very small and see in how many little ways you can improve it. GE is a hard thing to have in my life at the moment because improvement is so clear, direct, and gratifying, and life is not.
I am really just trying to figure out what to do, and wanted to run a silly question by you guys:
Have any of you guys found a career that utilizes your GE brain and drive?

I'm truly just looking for hard work to do or a great goal to strive towards, something that comes too easily in GE.
Extremely stagnant and extremely itching

[deletedprofile.u]

I believe the concepts of speedrunning (GE or otherwise) can be applied to many areas of life, honestly. Concepts such as mental fortitude, active attention to detail, noticing and correcting errors in a swift manner, and understanding how to set achievable goals are extremely valuable to have in your life. Applying them in GE seems almost trivial (take it from a guy who spent 80+ hours to cut one second on silo agent). Trivial because we justify the time investment as necessary to improve our interest in the game, yet in the grand scheme what comes to fruition is absolutely worthless. I mean this in regards to strictly speedrunning alone - not taking into account supplementary avenues such as streaming for revenue, YouTube growth, etc.

Whereas if we can apply these same concepts (and others I didn't mention) in our lives focusing on career and relationship growth, the possibilities are seemingly endless in what we can achieve.

This is a main reason I don't play much anymore. I was living an entirely different life when I sunk so many hours into GoldenEye. There was so much I didn't understand about what's truly important to me, and how I want to find my place in the world.

Yes, GE/PD/Kart etc can be insanely fun to play and excel in. However, your long-term time investment is well worth placing in more meaningful activities and paths.

I'd personally suggest finding what you enjoy most about the process of playing GE and use that to focus attention on something relevant to you in your own life. I can match this with a small example from my own - Playing silo agent for 160+ hours, and facility agent for 120+ took a serious amount of mental fortitude. At the time, I hadn't set realistic goals for myself as to what times I wanted to achieve (102/44), but that's beside the point. What it took was a spow and steady progressive effort towards something I wanted. I'm sure many  of the more talented and great players can attest to similar experiences while playing. Anyways I took that same mental fortitude and applied to to my post secondary education and my career pathing. I produced amazing work in my post-grad program that I'm really proud of; many, many levels above that 102 or 44. I aoso have career opportunities lining up because of certifications and extra courses I've been taking to pack the resume full of good stuff.

There's always opportunity out there for you, man. I hope you find what you're looking for and go for it. 

[Blue Khakis]

I haven't started speedrunning yet, so I could be chatting shit, but the things you value about speedrunning seem very familiar to me.

I'm working towards a career as a professional drummer, and the practice one has to do sounds very similar to what you describe. My practice routine often is simply taking a particular drum pattern and playing it at one tempo marking twenty times in a row with no mistakes. If I can't do it at 100bpm, I move it down four clicks to 96 bpm, if I still can't do it, I move it down to 92 bpm and so on until I can do it twenty times in a row. Then I go up 4 clicks, if I get the next one wrong, I go back down four again, and so on.

So if I have a difficult song at 170 bpm, I have to break it down into individual sections and do this with each section until I can work my way all the way up to 170bpm, I then have to start putting the sections together, which often means going back down to lower tempos before going back up again, but the process is the same.

This is a really nice 30 second video to demonstrate the basic concept.

The process can really be a grind, but it's SO worth it when you start to reap the rewards.

Alec makes some excellent points in his post, though I disagree that what comes to fruition is worthless unless it can be measured materially; I think the feeling of doing something sick and also bringing joy to others who appreciate your work is a noble end in itself. If I play a gig where I nail a super hard song that I totally sucked at a few months ago, and the crowd love it, but I don't get paid much, I don't view that as "worthless". I gave a bunch of people a great experience watching me demonstrate my skill, and that makes it totally worth it for me. My ultimate goal would be to be able to quit my job and play full time, but tbh I see that as a potential bonus of the primary goal of just doing something I love really well.

I find that having a skill helps in other areas of life too, I used to be super awkward around girls, but getting really good musically helped with that too, as it meant I had other shit going on in my life other than just feeling angsty and horny. Got rejected by a hot girl? Well, that sucks, but I can still go home and practise soloing over the top of latin foot patterns, which is AWESOME. Consequently, I started being far more carefree in social situations, and just gained more confidence in general knowing I rock at something.

What are your interests? Maybe that would help give a clearer picture regarding things you could immerse yourself in?

[wishiwasfamous]

Sounds like I'm just repeating Alec and BK, but for me, having the mental fortitude to grind any level in GE/PD for hours/days/weeks applies to learning huge organ works for recitals and weekly church services. It's the attention to detail and muscle memory that I find to be very similar between speedrunning and music practice.

The one thing GE/PD can't do that I wish it could (except TAS) is practicing only sections of levels, specifically level endings that you don't always get to on every level restart. With music you can practice wherever you want. So your openings of levels can be really good, but your endings of levels can be awful. That's why you don't practice music from the beginning every single time because you crap out at the end. 

Also, since I'm a runner (gg muscle mass  ) I always listen to my music cues on my ipod similar to speedrunning a level on GE/PD for checkpoints. I sort of equate it to racing a course ghost in MK.

Not terribly insightful, but speedrunning skills can translate into IRL skills.

[Wuldntuliktono]

You could always give the military a try mate. If you can mentally do the 80 hour grind for a pb you can do the grind 2 make it thru basic. Plus since you have a college degree you"ll likely go in as a specalist or pfc instead of an E1 private. Alot of great benefits come with it and youll be proud to serve your country. If you actually have a 4 year degree abd you can score high enough on your asvap you can get in as an 09 sierra and start off as a commissioned officer. Not for everybody but something to think about.

[Petey]

This really resonated with me, since I've also just finished college (in August 2018) and am directionless for the moment.

I'm not good enough at GE yet for it to really feel that way (and haven't been able to play much in the last year because of pretty terrible wrist pain that lasted about 9 months after i quit playing), but hopefully it will give me that feeling one day.

This little program im working on (current version in the pinned stats thread in the ge forum) to scrape the rankings data is a similar sort of thing, incremental improvements, and it's so rewarding to see your ideas come to fruition in real time. While it may not be useful to anyone else, it was just a little challenge i set for myself, and it's been consuming my thoughts like speedrunning goldeneye did when i was playing for dam 53 and archs 16.

This program is one of the only things I've had any type of passion for that I've done recently which has given me some enjoyment and motivation. I started it the day after i started back on wellbutrin, after years of not being on any antidepressants, so that could be something for you to look into (wellbutrin in particular, as it is not an SSRI, but affects dopamine, instead), if you're willing to try antidepressants.

I'm hoping this will be the thing that kickstarts me to the point where i feel able to work, because I've not been anywhere close to feeling that way since i graduated, and I've got two good degrees. I guess this is why i chose comp sci in the first place, because it does have that same feeling of reward you get from getting a PB, even when you just get part of a program working the way you envisioned it. Maybe there is a similar thing with photography, and i guess there could be with anything you are passionate about, but for me, personally, programming is the thing that scratches that itch.

Good luck mate, hope you can turn it around, and hope i can as well.

[Retrix]

One of the best things i ever did was get out of retail. Find a better job. It takes way too fucking long to move up in retail and the pay increases hardly reflect the work you pour in.

[flukey lukey]

[mcgarbage]

hey dudes thanks for all the responses.
It's clear that we are all on the same page about skill building and confidence building, and I really appreciate everyone relating their experiences. It is exciting to get better at something, and exciting to think about what else may not be out of reach.
When I made the original post, I was really curious about potential fields that specifically reward this type of mindset. I think that any field could be improved with careful attention, but I imagine that something like computer science will reward technical and specific improvement over anything customer service related, for example.
Have any of you found careers that need this type of thinking applied to it?
I love GE as an example of this. It's as if the-elite are a group of employees, and while some people figure out important things and generally lead the group in a specific direction, individual people can split off and accomplish small but important things that other people may not have time for. (Statue & Runway for example)
I've realized that I don't think I need an especially important job, but just a job that is helping something that is important. Like even if I was buying coffees, sending emails, or making copies, if I felt like the people I was working for truly had way better things to be doing, I would be happy to assist them so they have time to do something actually useful. (and learn while doing so)
Luke I am not sure if I understood what you were showing me in that video. Magnus seems to think he is useless at everything except chess lol but I am curious what you think about the vid. I also would love to talk about your career in architecture if we ever get the chance. It is an extremely attractive field to me, not only the design and artistic aspects of it, but the engineering and structural aspects. I'd love to chat sometime about what you actually do and what your attraction to the field was.
Thanks for all the words, dudes.
Hit me up here or discord to chat

[flukey lukey]

Hi Brent,

I was about to attempt to make a proper post the other day but didn't get around to it - so just posted that video instead. Particularly the part where Carson talks about constantly improving at something. He said he's not necessarily the one to pick things up the fastest, but he is the best at consistent improvement. "I haven't run out of inspiration yet."

A voice chat would be the most fruitful way to discuss this topic though, I would be down to chat for sure.

[GoodleShoes]

Imo the skills learned in speedrunning apply to everything else as has been stated above. You learn what you need to do, watch videos of how to do those things (or most times IRL read something) and then practice at those things to gain consistency. You must act as if the work you are doing is the activity that is your purpose at that time. Does that mean it's your purpose in life? It's more like that is your purpose at that time. If you let your mind focus on other things while you are doing work you will never feel fulfilled. If you can focus on work while you're at work, focus on home stuff while at home, then you'll be much better off. It's like when you're running a game but not fully focusing and thinking of other things in life that are occurring in your life. your runs will suffer as will your mental state. That being said, I've never had a retail type job before and I would probably not do well in that sort of environment so I'm just lucky enough to have a job related to my field out of college so take it with a grain of salt. If you sit/stand there thinking "man I wish I wasn't here right now" your life will simply be worse. Imo all negativity is unproductive and only causes suffering. There are 3 decisions that can be made within any situation. You can change the situation, you can leave the situation or you can accept the situation. Anything else is unnecessary suffering. There will always be circumstances that will make you say yeah obviously those are the things that are viable but-. Just pretend there is no but. If you're in a bad situation then that really sucks but just pick one of those options and work toward it. (Even acceptance.)

[Wodahs-Reklaw]

You must act as if the work you are doing is the activity that is your purpose at that time. Does that mean it's your purpose in life? It's more like that is your purpose at that time.

100% this, I have found that I am my most successful, or at least happy with my work, when I am in the moment.   The task at hand may not be "my purpose in life" but it is my life for that short period of time.

I think everyone should try to just "be in the moment" every once in a while, not even necessarily doing something in particular, but just being aware of all the life and lifelessness that there is around you and how you are connected to it all.

At some point I would like to do a follow up to a the Goldeneye odyssey video, since that really captured the state I was in at the time, and perhaps reflect back on how I am different now compared to then, etc.

At the end of the day it's a journey that we are all a part of.

[mcgarbage]

I totally agree with that sentiment as well, which is exactly what makes my life hard at the moment. Feeling like GE is the only thing I’m progressing at is a little hard to deal with, and spending the day thinking about something I’d rather be doing, only to go home and realize I should be doing something useful is a pretty bad cycle. I love having structured and directed leisure time, but when the workday feels like a total joke the concept of leisure doesn’t quite nail it.
I don’t think I’ve seen that GE odyssey video, I’ll have to watch it soon.
We’re planning another Dabfest this weekend if you’re around Wodahs, it’d be cool to chat or play sometime.
You guys are definitely right on though, people function so much better only taking on one thing at a time, I just need to find what to aim towards.