Earlier today I walked to the Nice airport at 4 am. This sounds wild, but it was probably the nicest pre-sunrise walk I've ever done, hugging the waterfront path beside the beach while half-asleep. I'm not sure what ethereal entity possessed me to make such a non-sensical decision, but it might have something to do with my fiery desire to beckon in new experiences.
I sit down at the halfway point underneath a breezy palm tree. It's lonely on this pier, yet the solace is that you see the world differently at dawn. I think there's tenderness in this kind of loneliness: the lack of urban seating branding the natural exterior, the craft of construction workers buzzing in the distance, and the contours of the waves breaking on the sharp bank. The colours glow faintly but grow steadily with muted intensity. The early-bird runners intermingle with the young partygoers. The streets shudder with the slightest sound of a stray car or scattered footsteps, but reflect a hopefulness back within their emptiness. The only reason I'm able to stay hyperaware of my surroundings is deprivation. For once in the week, all my senses share the same source of attention, nothing competing for my sanity. All I know at this point: Nice is truly nice.
When I playback moments from the past 8 months, the most surreal part to me is that all my decisions (from big to small and calculated to chaotic) have somehow worked out in the end. From journeying through booming metropolises in Cairo and Paris, to traversing coastal beauties like Beirut and Barcelona, to immersing in the ancient jewels of Damascus and Rome. Saudi hospitality, Spanish energy, Syrian spirit. The common link is that there were cool people all around to interact with, to learn from, and to build memories with. Ava describes this mode of being with eloquence:
I guess what I’m trying to say is that I occasionally do things that don’t make sense with absolutely no plan and putting it that way makes me sound reckless and dumb but it’s also so fulfilling. I pursue what I want in an experimental and dogged way because I believe there is something about intense desire that is more important than almost anything else; it doesn’t mean you’ll get the thing, but it points you to an important truth about yourself.
I sound like a broken record at this point and you can probably predict the same range of thoughts crossing my inner mental cavities. Experience-seeking, solo-stimulus, experiment-crafting, artistry-in-motion... But May feels different. There's a tonal shift in the air, the forces of nature combining to uproot any existing, stale patterns within the present. What do the wise people say about May again? May showers bring angsty hours, or something like that.
I realize the key missing ingredient in my life is something subtle and hidden that goes against the entire nomadic philosophy I've been nursing. I raise one motivating question: how might we design a fulfilling life that mirrors the same vibe of a mad scientist's laboratory, where you have multiple co-conspirators working on their own version of Frankenstein. In other words, I seek a kind of gathering place — one that promotes open experimentation with people who want to work on hard problems and who care about consistent connections.
I'm playing with the idea of IRL multiplayer mode. When I was young I used to be a huge fan of Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs), like Club Penguin and Maple Story. Pick a custom avatar, peruse tailored quests, and pursue your own destiny in-game. Modern tech circles cite these as case studies for community-driven products, but to me, they were a gateway to understanding and relating to very different people under a shared context. You self-select into a curated culture of super nerds all trying to explore and evolve within the walls of a seemingly never-ending world. You're faced with the choice to balance solo adventure time with selective community building. Unlike the real world though, it's easy to toggle between both and transport yourself to any nook and cranny of the universe, and just be.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm starting to broaden my ideal view of how life should be lived. In this case, a life lived together. I also wouldn't drop a game design reference without reiterating the adage that has consistently filled my existence with playful energy: life is one long game made up of shorter games. Some of these games have higher stakes than others. It's important to win at least a few, but the most important part is to keep playing. Everything good in my very good life (even in single player mode) continues to stem from an unconditional love for play. And I think the best version of play is found in multiplayer mode, where we frolic, twirl, and groove with the rhythm of others.
I'll leave today with a beginner engineer's favourite script: Hello World! Not a bad way to earmark my re-entry into the Western world eh?
running sam.june:>> print("Hello, World!")>> Multiplayer mode Sam is coming back... full force!
To reply you need to sign in.