I have recently levelled up, and it’s an absolutely fantastic feeling. Up until now, I’ve always been a bit lacking in self-confidence, feeling as though I might not be able to accomplish tasks that could come my way. And, to be fair to myself, this was somewhat warranted. Most of my career has been in research-adjacent environments, and many research questions that one might consider in an academic setting are simply not answerable; it’s perfectly reasonable that one might not be able to find a solution to a very difficult question. My problem was that I was too strongly internalising this failure, transmuting my failure to complete difficult tasks into a general opinion of myself.
But recently I’ve found that my perspective has been shifting. My focus is less on finding the answers to questions at hand, and more on my ability to tackle challenges that come my way. I’ve realised that the lack of an ability to solve difficult problems does not imply a general lack of ability to accomplish tasks in general. I cannot understate the value of this revelation. It has shielded my psyche in a liberating aura of confidence.
So what levelled me up? I can’t quite pick out one thing in particular, but I’ve moved to London from the United States, travelled to a non-English-speaking foreign country for the first time by myself (and enjoyed it immensely), and gotten my phone stolen and successfully dealt with the resulting hassle. But I’ve also developed a general ability to contextualise my efforts at solving a task, realising that if certain efforts aren’t as successful as I had hoped, then there are always alternatives. And whilst some of these alternatives are more attractive than others, none are downright bad; I’ll survive (and perhaps even enjoy!) all of them.
So how should I move forward? What will now bring be fulfilment? Ideally, I’d like to engage in activities where the absence of near-perfection does not detract from the merits of the activity, enjoyable activities whose degree of accomplishment is proportional to the effort applied to the activity. I’m not going to be trying to bench-press 150 kg, or write a novel, for example — given my age, motivation, and current ability, these are simply not going to happen. Likewise, I’m probably not going to make any significant advances in science or technology. There are simply too many smart people who have devoted their lives to working on these full-time.
But I can still set goals, work at chosen pursuits, and, if nothing goes awry too badly, level up again.
Skills and knowledge
Whilst considering the possible direction for my next levelling up, I found myself categorising pursuits into two broad categories — skills and knowledge. Internally, I’ve been using the term “knowledge” to refer to things that one can study and learn, things like organic chemistry, Ancient Greek, or the history of shamanism. Conversely, I’ve been using the term “skill” to refer to the ability to alter the world in some manner (e.g., woodworking, writing, running). In short, knowledge is internal where skills are external. And whilst most pursuits require both skill and knowledge, I find that I’ve been able to separate most hobbies and professions into one or the other.
My most recent levelling up has come with an increased desire to focus on skills rather than knowledge. Or rather, I plan to acquire knowledge largely to advance a targeted skill. This is likely because my life has hitherto been focused more on knowledge than skill (first studying at university, and then working in very research-oriented environments). This not to say that skills exist at a “higher level” than knowledge. I can envision others levelling up by deciding to focus more on knowledge than skill — those who have decided to go back to school to study a new field or to build upon existing knowledge, for example. But I do envision that my path will be found with skill.
I definitely don’t want to abandon knowledge completely (ever since penning the first paragraph in this section, I’ve been increasingly interested in the history of shamanism). The acquisition of assorted bits of knowledge encourages one to consider the world from a different perspective; it keeps life interesting. So I’d like to continue the acquisition of assorted tidbits of knowledge, like a magpie searching for new shiny trinkets. But to reiterate, my focus will be more on nest-building than trinket-stealing. Metaphorically, of course.
Getting things done: skill, motivation, and vision
At a previous job, one of my managers once gave me (and the rest of our department) the book Getting Things Done by David Allen. At the time, I was rather insulted (probably wrongly so) by this gift. I took it as a passive aggressive insinuation that I wasn’t able to get anything done.
The book itself could more accurately be titled How to Multitask, as it offered all sorts of advice on how to prioritise and organise the multitude of tasks required of “us” in “modern life”. But ignoring the matter of its title, I generally wasn’t a fan of Getting Things Done. It takes time to read Allen’s book and to actually implement his many systems. I am all too aware that an overly ambitious focus on how to optimally “get things done” can itself easily turn into a full-time pursuit.
As acknowledged by Allen himself, in order to get stuff done (and in my opinion really the only way to get stuff done) is to actually do stuff. So I will now offer my own wisdom to rival Allen’s.
To get things done, one needs three things: skill, motivation, and vision. Probably the most important of these is vision. Vision is the combination of a deep understanding of one’s current position, the chosen end-state position, and a path from the current position to this end-state position. Motivation is the desire to walk this path, and skill is the ability to walk this path.
I do wish to state that it is not necessary to be able to envision the entire path to get things done. Vision does require one to have a path from one’s current position to the end-state position, but it might not be completely known at the outset. This path could be nebulous at first. One might need to acquire additional skills or motivation in order to overcome some unforeseen roadblock in this path.
I suppose Allen could be addressing an orthogonal problem of wanting to walk too many paths at once, or perhaps the problem of being overly distracted while walking a chosen path. And to be fair, I’ve run into those dilemmas myself a few times, so I must admit that his advice is useful. But I still feel that it’s a bit of false advertisement to extol the virtues of a productivity system without acknowledging and prioritising skill, motivation, and vision.
A New Level
In 16-bit video-games, getting to the next level is often accompanied by a different setting, complete with new music, environments, and characters. In real life, levelling up is a more anti-climactic occurrence. It’s up to us to reexamine our surroundings with any additional insight we might have, perhaps viewing situations with a new perspective. The level system is also quite a bit less linear in real life than in the Super Nintendo classics. It’s not clear what one needs to get done to level up again. But there’s a vague, nebulous path before me, and I have the motivation to walk it.
You're the best levelling up guy <3