Games & Travel
Ease & Effort thoughts applied to video games and travel.
Hi there,
Some notes around “Ease & Effort” as applied to video games and travel. And a mini-rant on Crypto Accountants.
Enjoy.
Ease & Effort Notes
Ease & Effort as applied to video games:
I can ease into Starcraft 2
It is effort for me to play Baldurs Gate 3
This juxtaposition means I can start my gaming session and get into the “gaming mojo” with Starcraft 2 relatively easy in a few seconds notice and have a few rounds go by. I can’t immediately start playing Baldurs Gate 3 and I require some level of gaming mojo to do it. Once the momentum gets going, I can play Baldurs Gate 3 for a while.
Ease & Effort as applied to travel:
Traveling in my early years was a considerable amount of effort as the travel itself felt more like a work-plan and to-dos. Didn’t feel like a “vacation” where you restored yourself.
Traveling now is usually ease, apart from physical logistics of travel days between places.
What changed? Pacing and expectations.
A significantly slower pacing (One week = One City / City-State) with no hard agendas, with the expectation for cultural immersion through understanding and observing history & society, makes for easier travel. The actual travel days are still an immense amount of effort, and so are day trips - so the travel itself needs to be sub-divided into days of ease and days of effort.
I am currently fixated on the idea of wellness retreats which are essentially vacations focused on rejuvenation.
What Does Ease & Effort Mean?
Here’s this week attempt at defining Ease & Effort.
In the case of video games, Ease & Effort can refer to the natural mental shift of “getting into the zone” through the use of easy warm-ups. In my case, Starcraft is my warmup which allows me to push my gaming mindset to more nuanced and complex games like Baldurs Gate.
In the case of travel, Ease & Effort is referring to a physical (and mental) energy balance that is underpinned by what we set as the goal of travel. Is the goal of a travel for us to be uncomfortable, grow, and learn through a set of things we’ve never done? If that’s the goal, then it would be hard presses to say that the travel will be rejuvenating in the beginning - or dare I say - something you can ease into. In which case, it just only becomes “Effort”, so wheres the ease? Something to think about.
Work Notes
Crypto financial professionals (accountants…) spend too much time focusing on the details and the U.S. GAAP of it all, and no time explaining the impact to the business, and the so-what.
I’ve seen a crypto-accountant get hung up on gas fees, validator fees, and the FIAT conversion accuracy and try to take that to a CEO. In that valiant effort to uphold US GAAP, the crypto accountant forgot the most important thing to the business: How is is this relevant, and what’s the impact.
To put it differently, how material is this problem and should we care based on that materiality? If it’s not quantifiable, then it’s not a problem.