Goals for 2015: Recreational

Recreation and Balance

For years, I've been focused on production. Even my "relaxing" activities aside from throwing dinner parties or going to concerts with friends have been productive in nature.

• Open Source
• Trying to Make Music
• Pseudo-Competitive Smash Brothers Melee

You get the idea. For the past 5 years or so, I've been terrible at doing things purely for recreation and fun. I struggle not to think of it as "wasting time". I'm always anxious about my technical abilities, my ability to find employment, my preparedness for the future. Rationally, I know that's all pretty ridiculous but I struggle to unwind all the same.

Work life balance has for a while seemed a relic of a bygone era. But I want to turn that around this year. Ironically, I've worked more 50 and 60+ hour weeks this year than any previous one. It turns out becoming responsible for the education of 15 people in a 12-week programming bootcamp is pretty demanding. That's why I'm listing these purely recreational goals to try and commit myself to doing some things just for fun.

Recreational Goals

Reading

1. The Causal Angel by Hannu Rajaniemi
2. Saga by Brian K. Vaughan
3. One of Idoru or Pattern Recognition by William Gibson
4. One of Redemption Ark by Alistair Reynolds or The Player of Games by Iain Banks
5. Prince of Persia journals
6. One of Transmetropolitan / Y: The Last Man

Gaming

1. Retro/Kickstarted: Hyper Light Drifter
2. New Adventure: One of Rime or Legend of Zelda Wii U
3. Nostalgia: One of Ocarina of Time, Fez, or Pokemon Red/Blue
4. Sci-fi: One of SW: KoToR or Mass Effect
5. Fantasy: Final Fantasy III or Chrono Trigger or Final Fantasy IX or Earthlock
6. Magic: Play more Magic the Gathering with James, spend money on cards. Be a kid.

Visual

• Watch at least 2 documentaries about creative passions: Cooking, Indie Games, etc
• Citizenfour
• Outerlands?
• Game Loading?
• Mind of a Chef?
• No Map for these Territories?
• One of Modulations / Hi-Tech Soul

Vacation

• Take at least one trip to the beach for no less than 5 days.
• Take at least one trip to see: James, Burke, or Justin.