The daily Grind

When I wrote yesterday’s article, I skimmed over a really important item, Grinding. When we are working on something, and need to do a task over and over again, this is grinding. It can be used as part of gameplay to make the player feel like they are progressing.

As you progress in game, you feel more powerful. The Game is designed to make it feel ok to becoming the super man. In real life, we grind just to maintain the same level. Hobbies can become grinds if you have too much of them. For example, a single art piece is great, but a thousand can become a chore. Artists are having to grind to make great art, and it doesn’t always pay.

Scarcity as a thought process has been discussed in the last article. We used war, and how there are more people playing a game about a war than fighting in it. Scarcity when it deals with trade can also lead to interesting things. What is most interesting is that within a game, you tend to acquire needed items quickly enough to move on. Within a few months you are able to travel the world and buy armies to go to battle in a game. In real life, most of us grind away, and do not move on very quickly at all.

Grinding in a game means to do the same thing over and over again to gain XP or various other items. If you need a specific thing, and only one enemy has it, then it becomes a grind. For some reason many games are designed like this, and even more interesting, we enjoy it.

In a game like Final Fantasy, Earthbound, or really any game where the goal is to slow acquire items, the gameplay is designed for you to grind. It’s part of the game to slowly expand from where you are now, to slowly becoming a giant monster slaying super man. You feel this progress in the game, and it becomes your goal to become better.

Hint: Exploration!

Within exploration type games, the grind becomes to find every item in the game, and to completely reveal the map. As you progress, you gain items, and skills that make previously difficult (or even impossible) spots become attainable. A game like Metroid does this to expand your playing style. You start off with a small arm cannon, and nothing else. There are doorways that will not open unless you find an upgrade to the gun. They are sitting everywhere, and you can do nothing about it until you find that upgrade. Once you find that upgrade, you see other things that can be explored, but you can’t reach them. The only way to find them is to have a longer jump. These small ledges, unopened doors, and all sorts of other things make you look for more answers, and then it makes you want to try out the new items on those things. You continue to explore the map throughout the game.

The ultimate search game.

Within a levelling up type game, you battle enemies for their sweet sweet experience points. The more you kill, the better your attacks become. You start off being unable to battle even the smallest enemies without needing to be healed. Slowly you take on bigger, and bigger monsters. As you do this, you open up the world. You couldn’t land on an island because it had monsters that were way too powerful. However, if you grind away, you can build up your skills, and then take on that island.

It killed me instantly the first time.

It is quite the feeling to kill a formerly difficult enemy with one kill. The problem is that once you kill that enemy easily, it become boring to take it on. You want to find more difficult enemies to take on, so that it remains interesting. By the time you are nearly done, former bosses from earlier in the game charge at you, and die quickly.

The goal of exploration, or levelling up is to become more powerful. In fact, no game has just exploration, or just levelling up within it. It is a combination of exploration, and levelling up that helps you progress. You find items that are more powerful or give you a longer life in exploration games. RPG’s have vehicles, and let you equip new items to upgrade your skills. The empowerment felt from becoming this super human being is the persuasion to continue playing the game.

In fact, when you watch the progress of the story, it is entirely about how powerful you have become. You go from living on a small island, with fairly easy monsters, to destroying the evil men bent on destroying the world. At no point do you wonder if you are slowly becoming one of the monsters, because the game says you are the hero. The Social proof says you need to become more powerful, so you do.

The funny thing is, that search for superman like progression is not what really happens in life. The desire to be powerful is the reason why so many spend time trying to attain things, and the reality is that few of them get there. The reason why is the reality that things are more scarce than you even think. It becomes even more scarce as more people try for those same things.

My job is specifically boring. This is why I am paid to do it. I scan information about patients for an optical. It actually gets annoying to have patients walk in, or loud conversations, because the work itself sort of requires a special level of zen. I try to make the work as mindless as I can, so the internet can help me out between scanning, and filling out forms.

My slavemaster has no mind of its own.

Anyone reading this has likely admitted that their job has a certain amount of dullness to it. If you think movie makers, or game makers are more interesting, you need to actually experience the job. Most shots take weeks to get fully done, and then there is waiting for some other part of the film to finish up so you can do your job. It gets mundane quickly.

Most people do not get the amazing job that is super interesting. Instead, they get the job that lets them be comfortable. I have to admit, I may not enjoy my job, but it leaves me time to do other things that I am currently not being paid for. This blog for example is one of those things I do just because the subject interests me. I also draw, and have scheduled every day for a different hobby of mine just so I can sanely deal with it all. Today is learning the Kinect day.

That grind also means that I can acquire things I enjoy. The wonderful gaming set up I have is entirely from saving up, and buying what I want. The N64 needs a new power supply, and RCA cable. That will likely be bought for my next paycheck. To be honest, the real reason why I am having a hard time finding some other job, is that I can’t seem to find a job that will keep me at this comfort level. I tried being incredibly poor, and having to live off of the kindness of friends, and frankly it sucked.

The people I have met who have grinded to levelling up spent years getting there. A friend tells the story that he was making a quick doodle for one of his books. It took him a minute, and the person he was doing it for was pretty amazed. She looked at her son and remarked how quickly he could do this drawing.

“Actually,” said my friend, “it took 30 years.”

In other words, yeah, I would love to have a nicer life. I wish I could afford a car, or have my own place. But I am comfortable, and the grinding I am doing pays for all of that.

The reason why we have hobbies is to deal with the grind itself. I draw because I want to feel like I am progressing at something, not sitting at an office every day. My skills are slowly getting better, and I am learning all sorts of new skills. Will I ever get paid to draw? Who knows.

The problem is that there are tons of people who want to draw. Many of these people are way better than I am. In fact, I know they exist because of websites like Deviantart. I follow so many people, the art is starting to overwhelm me.

Even more daunting is the moral choices on what art I really want to view. The girl on the right does not always post provocative pieces.

Each piece is on its own amazing, and deserving of praise. When it is over 3,000 amazing art choices, it becomes a grind just to review it all. I end up erasing most of it quickly, and work through what I enjoy, and what will be forgotten. The desire to see good art, has taken something I enjoyed because of its scarcity to something I consider a chore to do.

To improve means to make more art, and every person I watch wants to improve. In fact, some grind away at a piece just to keep their skills up. Art is an amazing thing, and you can lose tricks and knowledge quickly enough. You can’t just reach into your satchel and find that skill you placed years before and then forgot. Because of the amount of artists out there, the idea of being paid becomes unrealistic. You could grind away to make art, and besides a few comments online nothing comes of it.

So, grinding in real life for many of us is not about becoming that rare amazing super man, its to maintain the present comfort levels. If there is progression, it happens slowly, and only seems impressive after years and years of work. This doesn’t even mean you can get paid for it.

Grinding in videogames means doing the same task, over and over again, and progressing because of it. You can spend hours trying to get that one item, or earning enough for the new armor. Even exploration has its own grinding as you search for a new item, and then use it. In real life though, we grind to maintain comfort levels. Hobbies are kept to keep us sane, but can become their own grind at times. Turning a hobby into a real life job takes years, and may never be accomplished.

Yesterday, I talked about scarcity as a concept. We play games about war, because war itself is scarce. When we apply the idea of scarcity to gaming, we have rare gems, and levels to build up. Today, I discussed the search for the scarce items. In gaming we call this Grinding, but really its part of life.

Before I go, I want to point out that its true, with so much art smashed together it makes it hard in life level up to a paying job. On the other hand, websites like Etsy, and deviant art also provide a great way to promote yourself, and even get paid for things. Many of the artists I admire the most have put out videos on how to draw, or making a painting. Some of it does cost money, but compared to college, its pretty small. This is one of the reasons why I am so busy with my hobbies, there is so much I am learning on my own time right now.

So yes, it all seems hard, but we do have new ways to level up. My job is mind numbing, but at least I can work on articles for this blog while waiting for scans.