Music 256a Reading Response 6, Fall 2021
Ray Gifford
Chapter 6: Game Design

I will be responding to principle 6.1: "Play is what we do when we are free; play is what we do to be free" in chapter 6 of Artful Design. I enjoyed reading this part of the chapter that makes a distinction between work and play. Play, as it is described in this chapter, includes obsessive hobbies, and anything we do out of sheer interest. By that definition, my dream job is to play. I think this might be something that I struggle with balancing... work and play. Again, by the definition in the chapter, pretty much everything that I do, would be considered play... and at the point in which something begins to change from "play" to "work", I begin to get bored. I think that I have a very difficult time seeing a "future benefit" to most work, that could help me to reconcile the fact that I'm not interested in doing it. Lol. As a result, I have a tendency to move from one obsessive hobby to another... which is exactly what keeps me from finding a career path that suits me. There are only a few exceptions, one being music, where I have never lost interest in the hobby. It almost seems, that unless I can find a way to make a living from these hobbies, I'm not cut out for the work force. It feels like I won't have the luxury to choose, and maybe I shouldn't, but I can't see myself doing much else other than hobbies for a living. That, or maybe research, to the extent that the research questions being answered remain interesting.

Another problem that I struggle with, is not having much interest in sharing things that I've been working on... because it's not "play". For me, the process of learning and making was intrinsically rewarding, and I never want to begin to replace those feelings with extrinsic rewards (if I were to be so fortunate as to receive any fiscal, social, or other reward) of any kind. Once intrinsic motivators are replaced by extrinsic motivators, it begins to shift from "play" to "work" for me. And again, I might start to loose interest. Soooo I'm pretty much fucked, when it comes to making a living... unless I start some company that somehow capitalizes on my interests. It sounds crazy to myself, as I'm writing this, to basically say "I don't want to work", but I love working hard to achieve goals that I'm interested in, that I see a future in, that I allows me to keep learning, and a few other things.