More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Got up relatively early (9) and worked on Deathbounce for a few hours. Then it got so hot and I got so sleepy that I just didn’t feel like working anymore. So I read Catch-22. Great book.
I’m getting a little of that old life-is-empty-everything-is-meaningless feeling. Being stuck at home is really not the greatest environment.
“Should I ask who it is before I open it? Oh well, if it’s a burglar, what’s he gonna do, force his way in?” So I just threw it open. It was a burglar.
Feelings: Lethargy. Aversion to work. Feeling of missed opportunities, of chances passing me by. Nostalgia, melancholy. Yep, all the signs are there. SLOTH is back.
I haven’t been outside in two days.
He said that being old is like driving down a dead-end street: you know it’s going to end any minute, but you don’t know when.
I must go for computing. Not only is it right at my fingertips, there for the taking, but it’s a booming field. Out of the explosion there must certainly come branches that will interest me. If I become a filmmaker, it would be too painful to watch neat-o things happening with computer graphics and video entertainment and realize I’d missed my chance to be part of it. Whereas if I go with computers, I can still admire and enjoy movies and get psyched about them as I do now. Perhaps I could even “go in the side door” with computer games/video games/“interactive movies” and get from that what
...more
Marty is too humble, doesn’t have the chutzpah to ask for enough, although he’s the most brilliant guy you’d ever meet. I mentioned that I have Marty’s problem to some extent. He said it would be worth getting rid of, because it’s a handicap – no, worse than a handicap; that I’ll never get anywhere in life unless I have the attitude that I can do it. Dad recommended that any time I experience anxiety about attempting something, I should immediately attempt it.
So true
Got up agonizingly early. Getting up early is good. It’s painful, but once I’ve recovered from the shock, the day is longer and I feel better.
Impressed Jon’s friend Bob with Karateka, Alphabet and Deathbounce. “I am in awe,” he said, gratifyingly. I really do thrive on praise. I act modest not because I don’t think I’m great, but because I don’t want people to think I’m conceited. I’d rather they think I’m great AND modest. But isn’t that really the highest form of conceitedness?
Really, what’s as important as anything in game design is taste: choosing between alternatives.
It really feels icky being under pressure. When I think about movies, the film society, Yale, friends, girls, I immediately realize that to enjoy them, I’ll have to give up Karateka, even if only temporarily. “Working mode” really does have a destructive effect when it’s prolonged for more than a week or two. It dulls the world; it makes anything but the thing I’m working on lose its power to reinforce.
I’m beginning to realize that the main reason I don’t want anybody to read this journal is that the writing is so bad. I write so quickly and messily, with so little time for consideration and formulation, I’m afraid someone will come across a glib, sloppily written paragraph that doesn’t reflect my true thoughts, and think “What an asshole.” IMPROVED-QUALITY JOURNAL STARTS HERE. Oh, the hell with it. Who cares.
Maybe what makes great artists — composers, painters, writers, filmmakers — different from competent ones isn’t so much raw ability or talent (although they help) as the willpower to continue refining a design until it’s really perfect.
Dad suggested I incorporate myself. Yikes. Having money is a lot of work. Dad countered that not having money is even more work.
The funny thing was, because it was so emotionally intense, it became in a weird sort of way an experience to be treasured. When I got to Broderbund (around noon), it felt unreal. For three hours I’d been a stranger with no money, no friends, no escape hatch. My personality, my sense of myself, was stripped away. I was Man, waiting for Bus. It was primal.
