Find your weird

If you were lucky enough to play Age of Empires growing up, this scene should look familiar to you:

If you were deprived of this joy, the short explanation is that you’re dropped on this scene, and you have some resources and then you go on to explore the map and find other resources, level up, and destroy other colonies.

What you should notice is that there are two maps: the main rectangular one that is mostly green with some black areas that you can’t see underneath, and a rhombus map in the bottom right where it’s mostly black with a small rectangle in the middle of it (this is the zoomed-out view of the total map).

The rhombus map is there to show you that most of the map is still unknown, and you only know a fraction of what’s going on.

I think Age of Empires gave me a lot of life lessons:

• If I want to level up, I’m going to have to get out of what I know and explore where there are a lot of (currently) unknown (dark) areas.
• As I explore, I’ll run into awesome resources and level up, but mainly I’ll run into other things that are going to destroy me. I should get over that.
• There is a subtle balance between stepping away from home-base to explore and staying true to my roots to strengthen my home: go too far too fast, and I’ll lose my roots. Stay too close to my home, and I’ll never level up (and eventually get destroyed as other things level up and come into my territory).

The Age of Empire that I played was in ’97, so this was mostly a 1-person vs the computer sort of thing. What the game fails to teach is collaborative exploration of the map (which is a lot more like day-to-day life). That I had to learn on my own. Here are some thoughts:

• Surround myself with people who are about as curious as I am: if the balance is too off, I won’t mesh (they want to go too far and I would be uncomfortable, or I would want to go too far and they may be uncomfortable. Some discomfort is good. Too much is problematic.
• Remind myself that as I’m exploring my own map, others are exploring their own. Give each other space, and respect their reality.
• As I explore the map, I should keep in mind that I’ll end up in parts of the map that (although glad I’ve explored) are really fucking weird, and I need to take a few long steps back.
• Although there are parts of the map that are (in theory) really weird, I have no idea what will truly speak to me until I get there (maybe another person, a truth, a trait, a career, a passion, whatever). There is no way for me to know until I have done some exploration.
• More importantly, what speaks true to me does not have to be true for others:

The thing that is truly yours and not for others is your “Weird”.

• Psychological safety: I don’t know what’s underneath those dark clouds. As I look for my “Weird”, I’m going to run into a lot of strange things that don’t feel right. I may feel embarrassed and hurt. That’s the price I have to pay for exploring the map.
• The point is to have the privilege to see what’s there and be able to step back, have the safety net to accumulate the energy I need to go back exploring.
• Finding ones Weird is a lot of trial and error. And if I remember the rhombus map on the bottom right, I’ll remember that there will be a lot of errors.
• (From my friend Noah Gordon: A lot of the time, your first experience with something weird will hurt. When you get hurt, you have a choice: give up, or learn from it and do different next time).
• Everyone’s psychological safety is different.

Finding your Weird is not glamorous work. It’s just fucking weird.

Good luck.