5.8.2024

Why should you care about creating anything?

A couple of different reasons sing to me:

First, it’s fun.

Second, it’s one of the only ways to fight back at the existential void that threatens most anyone who is thinking about why we are here and what it all means and all those other 3am kinds of questions.

Third, it can make the world better. (I just read this month’s Gates’ Notes this morning and am reminded of how much good we can do when trying to indulge the desire to create and coupling it with a desire to make the world better in measurable ways.)

Fourth, it can allow you a way of connecting with other humans in a pleasurable way.

Fifth, it can materially improve your life and the lives of people you love.

At Kabam, number 3 and 5 were two of the philosophies that I tried to speak to the staff about regularly. There’s a lot of value in reminding – aligning – people on why it is that they care about what they do professionally. Indeed, I’m not really sure there is much more important as a leader. “Teach them to yearn for the sea,” and all of that.

So then let’s get personal, since I’m the only one reading this:

I want to create more things.

And over the last few years I do not feel like I’ve been able to do much of that. (Game Development 2042, which I finished in 2021, was the last successful creation that I can think of, though there are a few other fun things in the works.) So I’ve spent a lot of the last week of (relative) down time thinking about what I want to be true going forward, professionally and personally:

 

• I want to spend at least some of my time each day creating something new.
• I want to work each day alongside people I like, respect, admire.
• I want to create things that delight, entertain, or make the world better.
• I want to do things that add create significant value and enrich the lives of everyone involved.

Over the coming month I will spend more time thinking about what specific opportunities I have to indulge these desires.

 

And I’ll let Word return to books for a bit.