Metalife

I was on campus again today. Even had my laptop-filled backpack and the same clothes I wore nearly every day for class (jeans + green t-shirt). But the feeling was...different. I didn't feel the drive of going class-to-class that I normally felt. Since this is an extended weekend for me, I just felt like I was on vacation. There was an atmosphere on campus back when I went to Cal Poly; my time was more precious. Intentional, maybe. I mean, there's the fact that I've gotta' go back on Sunday. But that's different. 

I got to thinking: there's definitely something missing. That's a part of life I'm not going to get back. That feeling will never be w/ me again. Akin to that feeling of elation you get when you first realize "that girl" likes you back (romantically); how you feel when you first move into an apartment w/ your friends; your first day at work at an important job. It was very nostalgic, thinking about things that I've lost. 

It got me to reflecting about other things that've come and gone - all in their own time, so I'm not bitter. With all this thinking, I dwelt a bit on - y'know, life 'n stuff.

As a basic rule, meta-X means "information/data about X". So, metadata is data about...data. For programmers out there, it's like a pointer to a pointer. For you Inception fans out there, it's like having a dream about having a dream (metadreaming, if you will). A more concrete example would be publication/summary/author information for a book. That info isn't part of the book itself, but is data which describes what's inside the book.

If this feels like a boring, philosophical lecture, I'm sorry. To help out, I include the following, entertaining anecdote.

Back in the summer of 2011, I and my friends took to playing DnD (that's Dungeons And Dragons for you more socially-adept people out there). We enjoyed imagining the dungeons and forests we explored; pretending to act like our character would act proved difficult and extremely humorous (esp. when our friend Orlando decided he didn't mind running over dozens of halflings as his very-large minotaur self). One of the great challenges we faced when playing was "metagaming", which translated to humanspeak means "playing the game as if it's a game". Since the point of DnD is to pretend you're in a real scenario surrounded by hordes of the undead (or other appropriate baddies), remembering that it's all not real can tarnish the fun of it.

For instance: the DM (Dungeon Master or narrator) spends 3 minutes describing your surroundings and 80% of that time is spent detailing the "lichen-covered wall to the south". As a player, you might say to yourself "Self, he sure did spend a lot of time talking about that wall. We should probably look there, as that's probably where the important thing is". As a strategy, that's probably a good one (similar to the SAT guessing strategy of always choosing the longest answer, as the longest one typically encompasses all that needed to be explained). But for DnD, it ruins the fun of figuring things out. Your character wouldn't think to himself "I spent 80% of the last 3 minutes thinking about that wall". That doesn't make sense. So you don't do it. But it's very hard to do as someone playing the game. It's a game. It's what you're supposed to do. 

Of course, you've got to have some of it. My party once "metagamed" for a good 10 minutes about how to defeat this Lamia named Elsedri. (Our previous meeting w/ her had my minotaur lying on the ground bleeding to death for the better part of a 2-hour encounter). How many "squares" could we push her? What initiative did I need to beat hers? What if we all just roll dice at the problem and hope somebody gets a good one? As a real person in a dungeon, you wouldn't think in those terms. But b/c of the limitations (or blessings) of DnD, you've gotta' allow for it sometimes. (Those of you who wish to see this event unfold, check out this comic our DM drew. I'm the minotaur, ftr). 

There. Now it was worth it to read this post. B/c ^^that part^^ was entertaining, right? At least, I hope it was. 

Now, I can get into "metalife". By metalife (ML), I mean reflecting on life and choices I make as they affect some life strategy I have for myself; approaching life as life, rather than the concerns of the immediate present. I look at an event and step back and ask "Will this be a good thing for me, as a person? Will I be better off having experienced this?". I answer myself with things like "This seems like a worthwhile investment in my life. I'm sure it'll turn out well. This will be good for me." If it's not apparent, this amount to a bit of a dry life. There's a lot less spontaneity in it b/c I'm always thinking about how things effect me. I'm not saying planning's bad. I'm just robbing myself of the some of the fun of living.

I don't feel bad or downtrodden b/c of this. It just feels...weird. Who thinks about their daily life that way? It's like utilitarianism applied. (No, I'm not a utilitarian : P). This has become more apparent since I and Veronica realized that I don't have much of a social circle up here. At least, not one that's at-or-near my age. Last weekend, I had the choice of going paintballing w/ co-workers and their friends. When it came down to it, we had the conversation of "This would be a good way for you to develop your social connections w/ people your age". I mean, that's a very removed way of approaching life. It felt like I was maintaining some kind of project. Now, I had a great time at paintball (though my feet were ready to explode by the end of the day); I sincerely enjoyed hanging out w/ those people; the pain of getting shot was definitely worth it for all the fun we had. But some of that felt...tainted by the fact that I hadn't just chosen to go b/c it would be fun. Part of my decision was "I need to get out more. This is getting out more." 

Maybe it's just the curse of being in an engineering-related field of expertise. I have to analyze everything to evaluate its worth as a design decision. But I don't have the perspective of non-engineers to query: I'm surrounded by like-minded people v.v.

Like DnD, some of this is inevitable and good. Putting babies and spikes is a great example: that's not a good thing to do in your life, so going down the baby-spike road wouldn't be a good decision. The inner conversation "Self, should we put babies on spikes?" would be a good one; after reflecting on that conversation, you'd get a "No!". Applying ML in this situation is great, b/c it'll save you all sorts of litigation fees when the families of post-spiked babies come after you w/ fancy lawyers and the law on their side. It's also a responsible thing to do. 

I guess I just feel like I'm further past the line of "it's ok to abstractly think about this part of your life".