parameters for success

One of the reasons that video games are popular is that the parameters for success within them are clearly established. In the game Clash of Clans, for example, as long as one player destroys a certain amount of his opponent’s defensive towers and property he is rewarded with trophies, stars, and in-game resources on top of what was gained through raiding. He know that he must wipe out at least fifty percent of the other’s things or kill the opposing town hall in order to be a success. He feels good after a win, and bad after a loss.

In the world outside of video games, however, the parameters of success (and the celebrations and positive feelings that should accompany doing something well) are often lacking. For freelance workers who lack a direct command structure, the success of accomplishing tasks and meeting deadlines is rarely celebrated, acknowledged, or even recognized - even though progress was made. The correct emails are sent on time, but only infrequently do clients issues words of encouragement and praise. The job of the client, after all, is to receive things and pay for them, not soothe egos or boost morale; it’s up to the worker to stay motivated and light of heart.

As kids, our parents (hopefully) praised us when we got something right and helped us to regroup when we didn’t. As adults, however, and especially as orphaned adult freelancers, we bear the twin burdens of establishing the parameters of our own success as well as instituting rituals to regularly acknowledge and properly praise ourselves when we stay on target and get things done. Given our trying economic realities and the supreme value of time, this author recommends that such rituals be kept cheap, short, and simple. A minute or two of quiet reflection during which one imagines putting the completed project in a box and giving it to the recipient, to the sounds of cacophonous fanfare and much rejoicing, is better by far than wading once more into the breach, without pause.

By copying the video-game model of clearly established success, it’s possible for life as a freelancer to be both rewarding and bearable.

americanifesto / 場黑麥 / jpr / urbanartopia / whorphan

on lacrosse – America's native game

Long have we Yankees watched, celebrated, and played non-native, imported sports. Baseball and ice hockey come originally from Canada; American football derives from British rugby; and tennis, let alone soccer, are European sports dreamed up by tards in the Old Country. (Basketball, as a makeshift sport created in America during the middle of the 20^th century, may well have been invented here, but, compared to lacrosse, too recently to be truly and exclusively American – it is a game for the modern world.) With invasive sports taking over our airways and poisoning our hearts, we ask, Where does it stop? What native-born game shall henceforth entertainment us? To the amateur patriot seeking to wring from his republic every last drop of terrible beauty; to the action lover yearning for the speed of soccer mixed with the crash of football; to the sadist lusting after the sight of blood spurting from well-bruised, moving flesh; to all these people, the game of choice is the game that thrived here long before the white man arrived to rape, to pillage, and to defile the good dark soil with his asphalt and concrete.

Lacrosse – brutal, quick, stunning lacrosse – was played on this continent well before the first paleface made landfall. For centuries prior to the arrival of European settlers, for generations before the white man lied and cheated and murdered his shameful way into the country's vast interior, this harsh sport blossomed amongst the democratic, resource-conscious First People nations in the Chesapeake Bay watershed area, and beyond. What better way to celebrate life than to try to bash one's opponent to death?! What better way to display one's vigor and fortitude than to take one's licks and to charge at the enemy with gentle, heedless rage?! Lacrosse requires hand-eye coordination and upper-body strength similar to that of tennis or baseball, stamina and agility similar to that of soccer, and bodily contact such as that felt in football, with an wholly unusual element: net-topped poles with which a player bashes and strikes at his opposing (ball-handling) player, hitting him anywhere about the upper body (excepting the neck and head area) even when he has fallen and is lying on the ground. (Lacrosse is played by both males and females, from the middle-school level onward.) Lacrosse is not a sport for persons with weak bones, inferior blood-clotting facilities, or a penchant for weeping – it is a sport for hardened operators for whom injury, pain, and deprivation are a way of life.

To the extent that each is a honorable, rugged, unflinching, team-oriented, and hard-hitting individual, the lacrosse player resembles the self-sufficient, resource-conscious American patriot. Watching lacrosse is akin to peering back in time to the days when our problems were solved quickly and according to clearly defined rules, to a time in which decision-makers hashed things out by bashing each other nicely over the head while attempting to pluck from the sky a small, rock-hard, fast-moving round object. Oh, if only the long-silent war-whoops would once again sound from the throats of proud and self-less warriors.

場黑麥 ioanni elymucampus fecit