Goals for 2015: Recreational

posted on 2015-02-21 15:18:00

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

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

Gaming

Retro/Kickstarted: Hyper Light Drifter
New Adventure: One of Rime or Legend of Zelda Wii U
Nostalgia: One of Ocarina of Time, Fez, or Pokemon Red/Blue
Sci-fi: One of SW: KoToR or Mass Effect
Fantasy: Final Fantasy III or Chrono Trigger or Final Fantasy IX or Earthlock
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