Without a destination the journey isn't as fun
What cheating at Doom taught me about learning to enjoy beating hard games. And how I spend much time chasing that high of overcoming frustrating learning journeys.
One of the first computer games I remember playing was the original Doom. It was revolutionary at the time. But for an 8 year old it was also maybe a bit hard and even boring after a while (searching for the key to the locked door). At some point someone gave me a piece of paper with the cheat codes. Just like phone numbers of my friends houses at the time, I still remember them now, more than 30 years later: IDDQD for god mode, and IDKFA for all the keys and weapons.
It was great fun to have all the weapons and be invulnerable. You could freely explore and get into a lot of trouble without having to start over. And blowing up monsters with the biggest gun of them all was epic. But, of course, it also felt hollow to beat the game in that way. My best gaming memories growing up were those where I didn’t, or couldn’t cheat: The first Need For Speed Underground, Commandos, Red Alert, every GTA. It’s a long list. Those were better experiences because winning was hard earned. Blood, sweat, and tears were spilled over many, many restarts and save game loads.
From here, one could go into a lofty essay about kids these days and their low tolerance for frustration. But my kids are still young, I don’t even know if that’s true. Kids these days surely play video games? So maybe they’ll be alright. No, let me keep it personal instead, because I did probably partly thanks to these early experiences acquire a high frustration tolerance, and find great joy in learning challenging ‘games’.
The more I think about this, the more I come to believe this is actually one of the very key drivers of personal happiness for me. More thinking is needed for me to really put my finger behind this, but I think I already know a few things. Three key components need to be there: having an appreciation for the outcome, challenge in the process, and progression, i.e. the joy of getting better at it. That last one also requires the activity itself to have many interesting directions to progress into.
Losing interest in finance1
At some point, you have to be pragmatic. Investment decisions usually don’t become better with more elaborate Excel models. Things are also always less fun if you have to do them. Nevertheless, I lost interest in Excel to such a degree that even after leaving the profession I could not bring myself to monetize my skills despite having the idea. As early as 2014 I had the idea to build templates for google sheets and excel and sell them. Today, there are several people who make millions per year doing just that. The problem, in retrospect, was the lack of meaningful further progress. There is not much point to getting deep into VBA (macros). I did not find it super interesting to apply the same skills to other subjects.
Making music
Is the perfect hobby for me. I started with keyboards when I was 7 or 8. Spent my teenage years creating my own electronic music. Then I started playing guitar when I was 18. When I was 30 I learned to DJ. I joined a band when I was 37. One day I want to learn how to properly play bass and drums. There are infinite opportunities for challenge within this hobby. Even just within guitar, my fingerpicking is very basic, I could learn some slide guitar, I can’t really sweep pick and I can’t play much jazz. I also can play only the most basic flamenco rhythm and even that very badly. Last, but not least, I haven’t really written much music on guitar yet. I can spend several more lifetimes making music without ever finishing the game. Since I love music, I deeply appreciate the outcome. It is challenging to get better. And there is endless progress.
Writing
I really, really like ideas. I love to read everything about almost anything. An evening of just philosophising about the world with some friends is one of the best things there is. It’s an obvious step from reading other people’s ideas to writing down your own ones, I think. But writing doesn’t really press that button for me where I’m getting lost in the game. I am aware of the fact that my writing can vastly improve. My vocabulary is quite small, and I could spend more time thinking about how I word things. But it doesn’t really capture my interest as a craft. What I like about it is to get an argument out of my head. Nothing sharpens up some vague ideas than trying to write them down. But progress is not easy to measure. I don’t even know if I’m good or bad at writing. Despite doing it more, it doesn’t feel like I’m getting better at it. It does not feel that I learn much about the craft of writing by writing more. If I were to try and find this type of enjoyment in writing I would have to take some drastic steps into the unknown. Last week, I decided to try reading some poetry, and maybe I will try to write some as well2. Another obvious one would be to write something much longer, like a book. But that just feels like way to large a commitment of future time. I don’t aspire to it, in the same way that I have zero ambition to run a marathon.
Coding up apps and websites
This is my latest hobby, and it is another one with infinite runway. There is always more you can build. I could spend many lifetimes and never get close to bringing every idea I have to life. There are different languages, app vs web, consumer, business, entertainment. I could even try to build a game. The intellectual challenge is endless. Shipping something after a challenging build process feels incredibly satisfying.
Personality
What I think is on display here is one of my core personality traits. I cannot imagine the being the stereotypical Japanese sword maker. To choose one craft and become the best possible craftsperson within that sounds miserable. On the other hand, I do have a very strong craftsman mentality. Just not the specialist kind. And what I’m most grateful for, is that I can’t imagine running out of interests or things to do. The only important thing is to be around other people who can share in my enthusiasm and push the bar a bit higher. Like my friend Mehdi who taught me to DJ and then told me: “Prepare 30 minutes of music and come to my place at 7. You’re playing tonight at Union Bar.” So it happened, and I only messed up twice that first time.
If you’re interested in listening to some mixes from back then:
I keep leaning into this idea I’ve had since about 6 months that building excel models was the main reason I got into finance, and that it was really a creative endeavour. I only started thinking about it in that way when I eventually discovered coding in 2024.
Although I really can’t imagine myself publishing it..