The Perks of Following the Fun
Or, ruthlessly prioritise creativity over fixed plans
đ Hey there! My name is Abhishek. Welcome to a new edition of The Sunday Wisdom! This is the best way to learn new things with the least amount of effort.
Itâs a collection of weekly explorations and inquiries into many curiosities, such as business, human nature, society, and lifeâs big questions. My primary goal is to give you some new perspective to think about things.
Owing to my pathological need to pick up new hobbies, I got into game development this week, and created a rudimentary game on the Godot game engine.
Even though Iâve been telling others that game design is my new found passion, itâs only a joke. Iâve found many a passions over the years, so I donât really trust myself unless I do something for quite some time.
On the other hand, itâs equally important to pick up new hobbies every now and then, even if you donât stick to them. Be promiscuous with hobbies. Date many, marry a few, and make sure not to get divorced anytime soon.
Q: When should we prioritise creativity and when should we just stick to the plan?
Indie game developer Gabe Cuzzillo wanted to make a stealth game where you had to move silently through corridors and sneak up behind guards â to grab and throw them on walls.
By the time the game was completed, it was a completely different one. There was no stealth; not even a human player. Instead it became a smash âem up game with an ape as the central character. The grab and throw mechanics became the central theme. The game was called Ape Out.
This is a common practice in all creative endeavours. You start with a script or a plan, and soon you see yourself deprioritising them in pursuit of creativity. In game design, this methodology is called following the fun.
Little experiments, random bugs, or unplanned side-effects often become interesting enough to define the central theme. In Ape Out, the grab and throw mechanics added most of the âjuiceâ to the game for it to take centrestage eventually. Henceforth every design decision was anchored to it. This is what I call the Anchor Mechanics.
Once you figure out what your Anchor Mechanics is, you can start to prioritise ruthlessly. What doesnât fit can be rejected â be it a game or a business.
Burbn was a mobile check-in app released in 2010. It let users check in at particular locations, make plans for future check-ins, and earn points for hanging out with friends. It wasnât terribly successfully, and was very similar to Foursquare â another popular mobile check-in app. However, the founders kept tweaking it. They later added a photo-sharing feature to differentiate it from Foursquare.
When they paid attention to how people were using it, they realised that people werenât using the check-in features at all. What they were using, though, were the appâs photo-sharing features. They were posting and sharing photos like crazy.
After that point onward, the founders focused solely on the photo-sharing infrastructure â their Anchor Mechanics â and scrapped everything that didnât fit. Burbn became a simple-photo-sharing app called Instagram.
You may start off with an initial plan, but it isnât written on stone. Treat it as a guess, not a roadmap. We get 90% of the ideas after we sit down to write. Similarly, we figure out the business model after we start the company.
The game streaming startup Twitch spun out of the general-interest streaming platform Justin.tv. Once the founders realised that majority of users were live streaming video games, it became their Anchor Mechanics. Similarly, Twitter started as a personal status updating platform before focussing on breaking news and entertainment.
But instead of letting things take their natural course, we have a tendency to force our preconceived notions. This is topdown design. Topdown approach starts with a big picture, and breaks down from there into smaller segments. It may bring order and structure, but it hinders creativity.
A bit of chaos is necessary to enhance creativity. This is true for designing a game, writing a story, or running a startup. Innovation has no fixed path â itâs chaotic by definition. Therefore, you have to allow just enough chaos in the process to foster creativity â as long as it doesnât turn the whole project into a chaotic mess.
Do little experiments. If something works, do more of it. If you follow the fun, or repeat what works, it would feel like the creation is creating itself. Itâs an indication you are on the right track. Eventually youâll stumble upon something that is good enough to become the central theme, or the Anchor Mechanics.
This process is counterintuitive. Itâs consciously letting go of things, and deliberately losing grip of your project. But thatâs the point. A creation is more about the creation than the creator. Ego makes us feel that itâs about us, but itâs not â be it an art, a story, or a startup. All good creations create themselves. We all are mere experimenters who facilitate the process.
In the 1990s, when two Stanford friends started with a thought experiment of downloading the whole internet, they didnât set out to build the next Google. They stumbled upon it while trying to solve interesting problems.
Getting started with a mindset of figuring things out on the way gives you an unfair advantage â because as othersâ plans are failing, you are just getting started.
The Langdon
The Langdon is a joke format (often heard on BBC comedy shows) where two elements are introduced; one of them is talked about; but at the end it turns out we were talking about the other one all this time.
For example, âBoris Johnson and his girlfriend introduced their new dog to Downing Street yesterday. âHeâs a bit scruffy and wants to shag everything that moves, but weâll get used to him,â said the dog.â
This is an interesting proposition for a joke where you already know the ending. So the focus is on how absurd is it gonna get, or how far they are gonna push it. Because you know whatâs about to happen, you enjoy the journey more.
This reminds me of a methodology of creating tensionâoften seen in Hitchcock films. Suppose thereâs a scene of people dining on a table. It goes on for 5 boring minutes, and suddenly a bomb goes off! All the audience gets is 5 seconds of shock. Now, letâs flip the narrative. What if we inform the audience that thereâs bomb under the table and will go off in 5 minutes. Now the audience has 5 whole minutes of tension. Link
The Lives of Others
Thereâs a subculture of people who have a passion of reading diaries of others found on eBay and antique shops. Itâs a unique way to feel connected to a stranger from a different country, culture, or generation.
Unlike books, diaries tell us about cultures, societies, and lives in an unfiltered and personal manner. After all, it was from the diary of a young girl that we realised the hardships of Jews during Hitlerâs rule.
People compare their lives to celebrities and influencers, and think they donât have a story worth telling, but thatâs not true. We all have a story. We all suffer hardships, and we all have great joy. Our diaries are our mementos. Link
You Are Wealthy IfâŚ
Morgan Housel lays down alternative forms of wealth. Following are some of my favourites.
Covid has forced many of us to spend unprecedented amounts of time with a few people (spouses, kids, roommates). Youâre wealthy if you still enjoy their company after eight months of unbroken socialisation.
You have emotional stability, accepting reality without it driving you crazy.
You have enough time to prioritise eight hours of sleep with stress levels low enough to allow sleep.
Your expectations grow slower than your income. Itâs the only way youâll feel wealthy regardless of how much money you have.
You donât have to pretend to look busy to justify your salary. Link
Before You GoâŚ
If youâre finding this newsletter valuable, share it with a friend. Also, consider subscribing. If you arenât ready to become a paid subscriber yet, you can also consider buying me a cup of coffee.
Iâll see you next Sunday,
Abhishek đ
Loved that game you created. Any chance you can share the completed version?