Travis Briggs - YABIWU

I feel like I could get addicted to writing the way that some people get addicted to video games. Like, “You just wrote for over an hour, why do you still feel the desire to keep writing?”. Of course at this point I'm kind of like a character in an RPG who is max level and doesn't feel like doing the side quests. Not that I've really earned anything close to max level in writing/blogging, besides having done it especially sporadically since 2003. Maybe it's like EVE Online where you earn experience constantly, even when offline, just by checking in on it every once in a while.

Is there a word for that in video games, the side quest thing, when you really want to play a game but can't think of anything fun to do in it? I think that's the essential reason why a game like Rocket League doesn't get stale. Because it's always the same thing, so you don't really expect anything more from it. Whereas, a game like Grand Theft Auto, you get various interesting missions throughout the course of the game, but in the endgame its kind of just the sandbox that it was the whole time.

You know, I tried my hand at professional scissors, but I just couldn't make the cut. (Sorry, it popped into my head and I couldn't help myself.) I actually saw a Karate Studio and was trying to think of a karate pun. I'm sure you would have gotten a kick out of that! (sorry)

I just had an Elon Musk level idea, as I saw a man with a “please help” sign. Like, could you find a way to A/B test signs so that you can find the text with the most earning potential? Oh god, what is wrong with me. I am truly the tech bro elite, paving the forests of our imaginations with Machine Learning and Big Data.

I like this anecdote I heard about Paul McCartney and the song “Hello, Goodbye”. I read it on Quora, but I'll just recall it from memory rather than dig up the link. Someone asked Sir Paul how he writes so many songs, and McCartney answered that anyone could write a song about anything. He then asked if the person who inquired would like to try it with him right now. That person answered that he or she had to go, so didn't have the time at the moment. “You say goodbye, and I say hello!” was McCartney's reply.

Really inspiring stuff. Paul McCartney, there's someone who's at max level.

I generally don't give too much credence to song lyrics. Sometimes they can be spot on, sometimes they are inspiring, sometimes they are evocative and very creative. But I don't think you have to be Dylan to make music with lyrics. Generally any sufficiently interesting phrase can be coerced into a lyric. I saw a YouTube video that talked about this and used the JFK “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country” as an example. Like, think about the relative cadence and pacing of that phrase. It has a musicality all of its own, does it not? I agree with Paul McCartney: any phrase can be similarly massaged into musicality.

One question that always bothered me though is like, Paul McCartney is still here right? So why hasn't he had a hit song in 35 years?

Say Say Say Paul McCartney And Michael Jackson Peaked at #1 on 12.10.1983

Have his song writing skills atrophied? He doesn't have the right people around him? The world of musical fashion/style has passed him by? He can't sing anymore?

There are myriad possible answers, and it's something I wonder about all the time.