Over- and under-leveledness

Last time I wrote about a “sweet spot” between something being too novel/challenging, and something being too familiar/easy. At the time I was talking about what makes a certain piece of art or media compelling, but lately I’ve been thinking about an analogue to this idea, related to Effort and Value.

One way we create value in our lives is by investing something: time, energy, money, etc. Investing time in an activity makes the output feel more special or important – if I spend all week sewing something, I tend to feel more connected to it than if I had thrown it together in ten minutes. It doesn’t necessarily mean that the output is better! But there is some sort of connection or value created there for me. The same goes for something that I had to save up money for, or something I sacrificed for.

This effort-value relationship exists on a continuum too, though. Something I spent no time on, that cost me nothing, that I did not sweat for, feels like it has comparatively little value. But at the other extreme, there is a point past which adding more effort stops making something more valuable, and instead the effort becomes junk volume. In the middle of these extremes is, once again, a “sweet spot.”

Grinding for experience

I recently caved and got a Switch 2 🙂 The first game I started playing was Pokémon: Legends Z-A. One thing about Pokémon and other RPGs is that in order to beat the game you have two options: either Get Really Good, or else just Grind A Lot. Both require a lot of effort but it’s a different kind of effort for a different kind of payoff. I don’t think either is “the right way to play.”

In Pokémon, one way to win is to learn the type chart, choose status and setup moves wisely, use held items, and create a well-rounded team. The other way to win is to over-level a couple Pokémon and use them to sweep. When I was a kid I only used attacking moves and didn’t care about good strategy; if I couldn’t clear a gym, I’d grind for a while and try again later. As an adult my strategy is still pretty rough, but the difference is that when I find myself sweeping, the game gets boring. I think the reason for this is that the main gameplay loop starts to feel skippable – just something to speed through. I’m not putting in any effort and not feeling like I earned any payoff afterwards, so it’s not satisfying.

Most video games are paced so that you don’t breeze through the story too quickly, but also don’t get too bored. Part of this is good story-writing but the other part is a difficulty spike just before the end of each “chapter.” The difficulty spike forces you to slow down when you’re approaching something very important like a boss; then when you finally improve enough to clear the boss, you get a big sense of accomplishment. Afterwards the difficulty plateaus for a bit so that you can focus on other things like plot development and exploration without it feeling like drudgery. You get a little breath of air for a while before needing to lock in again.

Other things in life are like this too. In a semester of school, things start off pretty calmly before ramping up to midterms; then there’s a bit of a breather, and then it ramps up again to final exams. This type of structure gives life a sort of cadence, alternating times of rest and times of effort.

My karate instructor once said that he sees way more improvement when students are preparing for a competition than during any other time of the year. The looming pressure takes a routine weekly class and puts extra emphasis on it; you’re expected to put in your best effort and grind a bit to “level up.” But without that type of hurdle, you never have to improve; you can phone it in every week for years and never be forced to make real progress.

Lived experience

I don’t have a lot of other things in my life right now for which I’m being required to “level up.” I can put in a moderate amount of effort in lots of areas – work, social life, chores, hobbies – and get a moderate amount of satisfaction back. But this also means there’s never any big satisfaction. I never get to “take a big swing” and see whether I hit it out of the park, or absolutely whiff. Maybe that’s also why my life lately doesn’t feel like it has a main plot; I’m always doing side quests but there’s never a difficulty spike or any big challenges. I’ve been in the same area for a long time. I’m over-leveled for what I’m doing and I’m getting bored.

A while back I went abroad to do a Master’s program. My intention at the time was to move away permanently, so I sold a lot of my stuff and unfortunately probably also burned some bridges. At the end of the program, though, I wasn’t able to get a work visa and I had to move back home. I was pretty gutted and my internal narrative was overwhelmingly negative: I had been sent back with my tail between my legs; I had turned out to be under-leveled; I had taken a big swing and whiffed. But now that I look back years later I’m more able to say that there are lots of ways I did improve or “level up” while I was there, if only by nature of being outside of my comfort zone for months on end. The experience I gained was still worth the effort. I didn’t die, and I kept moving forward.

Maybe now’s not the time to move abroad again – I have a mortgage and a job and plants to take care of. But I am once again looking very intently at my life, searching for the opportunity to level up a bit to prepare for another big swing. This past week was the season opener at the Cubs stadium; wouldn’t it be good timing to hit it out of the park?