The Fruit of the New Year
I love catchphrases so much I have my own catchy slogans, and a yearly Theme is just that — a catchphrase for the year, a direction to drive metacognition and decision-making, a great alternative to New Year’s Resolution. In 2023, I picked a theme and it helped me confirm my decisions.
This year, I had a few candidates for Themes, and I drafted from among them.
2024 Yearly Theme HONORABLE MENTION:
Constitution
Credit: Randy Vargas, Heroic Intervention from MTG / WOTC
[CONSTITUTION] ticked several boxes for me. First was the connection to the six D&D core statistics (how I rated my first State of the Darren in 2021). In Dungeons & Dragon, CON is kind of a boring, staid stat: it gives you life points, means your character has some endurance, and you can resist some things better, like poisons or fatigue.
That appealed to me on several levels. Health is an increasingly important concern for me, and something I overlooked in 2023. I want to work on my health this year — but nothing spectacular, no ultramarathons (not even a half marathon). I want something simple, boring, quotidian, and everyday, so I can do it everyday.
Endurance was also a quality I looked for. I’m finishing my Master’s and it’s the final stretch: I need to cling on and not blow up1, and it’s important to me to finish the final stretch strong. Plus, the ability to endure, and to resist things and fight off fatigue — all those resonate with me.
[1]2 Morgan Housel recommends a simple investing strategy: Don’t blow up. Keep playing, take good returns over great, but most importantly don’t blow up. I admire Morgan as a writer and a storyteller. Also he’s rich and he didn’t blow up (except as a popular author) so he’s doing something right.
[2] Yes, I’m doing footnotes in the middle of my blog. GNU Sir Terry Pratchett.
Something else that tickled the boxes were the other meanings of Constitution: the process of setting something up or structuring something, the system of governance and polices, the written document describing it. I’ve been trying to write more and more, and the idea of writing something down, building a system, being bound by and adhering to it felt resonant with the theme of the year. I don’t just want to practice what I preach, I want to blog it, too, and be held to my words.
Call it a declaration of independence from distractions or distress. Constitution could serve really well as a motto, a key focus for the year.
Except…
Except that it felt a little one-sided. It felt very niche and focused. And I don’t know that a single-minded focus on health was exactly what I needed. I wanted a little more flavour in a different direction:
2024 Yearly Theme I-Suggest-This-Every-Year:
“Levelling Up”
Credit: Jason Rainville, Conclave Guildmage from MTG / WOTC
Call me a Japanese car company, but I really believe in continuous improvement, tinkering, upgrading, Kaizen, and all that. Looking for a better way to do things, better things to do, better understanding of what ‘better’ means appeals to me, which is why for every past Theme I’ve considered “Levelling Up” in some form.
(Also because there’s a D&D connection; and also because I am getting older by a year).
But to me, if I were to level up, I would also want to do things differently, do things better. Compared to 2023, I don’t think I really reached my full potential in all directions. Certainly, I did my best in school (“Discipline, Practice, Will“), but that was a very specific focus that held me back from other things…like having a life. Enjoying my life. Meeting friends and things.
I wanted more Life. I wanted to play more board games and meet more friends and meet more friends for board games more often. I wanted to move on and progress in life — maybe move out, maybe find a life partner, maybe find a life goal or career path.
I like the sort of board games where you try to build an engine to score points (yes I like Euros) — indirect nonconfrontational games of economy, efficiency, and theoretical opportunity and pattern optimization. And besides, I spent all of 2023 scoring points for my degree.
More Life, and to earn Points… I’ve already revealed and foreshadowed it, so I should announce my 2024 Theme:
Winner: My 2024 Yearly Theme
Life Points
Credit: Ryan Yee, Fruit of the First Tree, from MTG / WOTC
It took me a while to find an artwork that resonated with my theme, and I like the artwork. It’s clearly a stretch goal, reaching for something beautiful and important, but also a lot is going on in the background and you can be easily distracted. Despite this, her eyes are on the prize, and everything seems magical (like my magical thinking that a Theme will change my life).
For 2024, I want to focus on earning Life Points.
Life Points are a Resource to help you Resist, Endure, Persist, Recover
Life Points is close enough as a concept to Constitution that I can steal similar angles from before: being able to resist what unexpected might befall me, being able to endure and persist through difficult and fatigue, some vague gobbledegook about recovering quickly, and so on.
Life Points, in some game are a resource — in order to advance, you have no choice but to take some damage. Similarly, it’s a reminder to myself, of tradeoffs and sacrifices that must be made in order to advance — even if it hurts, it might be necessary to move forward.
Life is a game, with Points to be scored where you can
One reason I love “Euro”-style board games where you build an engine is that it’s kind of a puzzle to tinker with, I love building (my spirit animal is an Engineer), and mostly, you can figure out how you you want to achieve things.
There’s a kind of freedom — sure, the goal is Line Goes Up Big Big Numbers, but you have freedom in how you achieve the goal.
I might never make Big Money Big Money3 in my life, and I may never live up to my classmates’ level4, but maybe that’s OK. I just have to play my own game, water my own garden5, and earn the Life Points I want to earn. 2023 was about building my engine; 2024 is time to generate Life Points.
[3] I swear, when I was young, contestants on Wheel of Fortune used to say “Big Money, Big Money!” when they spun the wheel. Now they don’t say it, and I wonder why.
[4] My classmates are wildly successful. One is a Director of Machine Learning when I’m barely a Data Analyst; another has 3 children; another made VP at a Bank while I was a fresh PR minion. At least three have PhDs and two have Master’s; it’s a Big Bang Theory of degrees, except they all have overseas scholarships, a marriage, and have all bought a big house.6
[5] Oops, I misquoted Voltaire from Candide: We must cultivate our own garden. I can quote Voltaire because I actually did read (a translation of) Candide.
[6] Why, yes, I do have an inferiority complex, and I do find myself falling prey to comparison, the thief of joy, fairly often. I should write about it in the future.7
[7] Too many footnotes? It’s your fault you decided to read my blog, you know.
[5] Oops, I misquoted Voltaire from Candide: We must cultivate our own garden.
A trap you can fall into for Eurogames is peaking too fast, or peaking too late. Some engines create tons of points, then blow up (and we all know the strategy is to don’t blow up1), while other engines take too long to build and not enough time to earn points. It’s possible to love building so much you forget about the game and just build, like I did last year.
But, moreso than health, moreso than just big money big money the only thing anybody in Singapore cares about, my raison d’etre economic victory career advancement, I want to live Life and have fun and experience Life. I want to grow in all directions like a flower’s petals and leaves. I want to live, and to grow.
And…
Life Points run out eventually
Life runs out eventually.
I’m 36 this year; officially half-dead (by actuarial tables). I spent more than 20 years under the shadow of depression, insecurity, inferiority, and pure darkness. Maybe it’s time to choose hope, and light, and a happier perspective, while I still can, before Life Points run out.
Another way to think about “Points” is that I only have so much Life left; where do I want to assign my Life Points? Are minor distractions worth spending Life Points on? Do I really want to spend 2 hours of life points searching for MTG Art Images like in the writing of this blog?
Hopefully, this encourages me to metacogitate about where better to spend my Life (Points).
…
That’s a bit of a grim note to end on, but it is all growth, it is all forward.
Credit: Barbara Rosiak / “Ravietta”, Growth Spiral, from MTG / WOTC