[OFF-TOPIC] Two Kinds Of People

An unhinged rant disguised as a video game analogy.

In motorcycle riding, you go where you look. The only way through a turn is to look past it. If you stare at the wall, you’ll hit the wall. We call that target fixation. Giving mindshare to where you don’t want to be is dangerous and will make you crash.

When your desires - not impulses - your purpose, values, and morals - scream louder than your fears of criticism, hardship, or failure, you gain a clear destination and sense of what you’re willing - and, more importantly, unwilling - to do to get there: an identity.

This tends to be the point at which someone’s impulses change from feelings of being pushed to run away from things to feeling of being pulled to run toward things - it’s also the point at which adversity begins forging people rather than destroying them.

Leveling Up

What you want to do can’t be done alone. You need a team so you start solo grinding the stats necessary to effectively use your spells and abilities in a team environment.

External motivation collapses under adversity. Internal motivation carries you, but it burns out. Intrinsic motivation - from purpose - is a superpower we call obsession.

Purpose also makes it easier for people to decide if they want to play with you. For starters, they can see if you’re playing Rocket League, Mario, WoW, or StarCraft 2.

Matchmaking

Boom, you’re a mage. You know where you want to go, what you have to get there, and what you need. You found a priest (partner) to play 2s, a rogue (best friend) for 3s, and a core group for 5s. Two of them are in the same guild as you (coworkers)!

Your teams overlap, and poison in any one spreads fast. You’re unbothered because your priorities are unfucked and everyone knows where they stand. Your partner, friends, coworkers, and family members are your teammates. They’re also your teams.

The gap between the levels of love, trust, and respect you grant yourself and what you can accept from others is your matchmaking rating band - and it is entirely up to you.

Team Composition

Every team is unique. You can’t run Mage/Rogue like Mage/Priest, or play either of those the same way against Warrior/Paladin and Hunter/Druid. How fast you learn your teammates’ tendencies and cadence - and how well you complement them - determines how well your team plays. Are you playing with a Druid or a Warlock?

Depending on your comp and what you’re up against, someone’s getting ran the fuck over most matches. If you’re the Mage in Rogue/Mage/Priest, it’s you. Your job is to survive getting DP’d by a Warrior and Hunter until your Rogue lines up the burst.

It feels like you’re getting fucked the whole time, but you just pulled off what most people couldn’t even dream of - because your team played well under pressure and you were able to trust someone else to carry when the stakes were extremely high.

Losing

All teams do well when things go well. Top teams also perform when they don’t.

Our team lost in the world semi-finals for 3v3 Arena in 2015. Everyone knew who and what caused the loss. All of us had important things riding on the line. Our teammate who misplayed wasn’t able to house his folks, or send his sister to college. It sucked.

When you care about what someone brings, you’re afraid of losing them. When you care about them, you’re afraid of hurting them or letting them down. Only one of those will keep your team afloat when a key member can’t bring much to the table.

We practiced for another season, couldn’t recover, and disbanded in 2016. I’d do it all over again because going for broke and getting blown the fuck out is easier to live with than the what-ifs of compromise or the guilt of going at it half-hearted.

Winning

Is valuable because it bonds. It’s best served when you have people to celebrate it with, and those people were in the shit with (and especially against) you. That said, people who don’t know the difference between opponents and enemies are unfun.

In 2018, our team took world first and $600K with it. Our guild and other pro teams were staying in AirBnBs near Anaheim. The teams we played against celebrated at the house afterparty. The amount of shit that got talked deserves its own numerical prefix.

Most of my favorite memories exist because I don’t know how - or when - to give up.

There is no point to this post. It’s Halloween, I just worked another 120+ hour week, and wanted to write a bit to help me decide whether I’m going to bed or the bar 🤗