Hi, Chris Can’t Come To The Blog Right Now

They’re busy spending some, most, or all of today playing the new Splatoon 3 so they can make a splash with their friends. Right now, they could be busy playing through the story, looking up plot summaries on fan wikis, watching cutscenes on YouTube, or just embracing the confusion as the story-mode plot references details and events they know nothing about. They could also be busy with player-versus-player content, competing for clout or whatever other currencies exist in the game so they can purchase cool gear, better weapons, and whatever else there is to purchase in this game they deliberately didn’t research ahead of time. Embracing confusion and keeping expectations low at the outset of a new gaming experience can be beneficial to having a good time, after all.

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Connectivity, Instant Messaging, and Taking My Time

As a modern citizen of the world, I’m used to being constantly connected to something. Be it various social media platforms, a media streaming site, or just a collection of friends via whatever chat app is currently the cool place to hang out, I always have some kind of mental space devoted to providing access to myself at short notice. As I’ve gone from a student to an employee, a teenager to an adult, my relationship with allowing other people access to me has changed, but it hasn’t disappeared. If anything, it has grown stronger, especially in these pandemic years of mostly digital connections to the people I care about. While I’m a bit undecided about whether that level of access is good or bad (which, to be honest, probably just depends on the context), the way I think and feel about it has changed pretty significantly in my work and personal lives.

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