Afterword

This paper doesn’t need an afterword, mostly because I said everything I meant to within the paper. I really enjoyed the feedback from the Empathy paper, so I decided to fuel this paper entirely on my emotions as well.

However, I will add on to something I touched on. One definition of a game is “the voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles,” written by philosopher Bernard Suits in his book The Grasshopper: Games, Life and Utopia. Just as I teach my students this concept, I must also recognize its utility in my own life. It’s fun to be challenged. That’s why the experiments mentioned in this paper are now so alluring to me. Can I restrict myself to X and still create Y? The creation might turn out different because of that constraint, but that’s all in the name of enjoyment of the process.

Readers of my PS1 Low Poly Art History paper may feel like those words are familiar, and it is because that genre of work, low poly, is similarly constrained, though around a theme.

I hope if anyone is feeling burnout or disillusion from AI or anything that brings them down, maybe it's time to encorporate an unnecessary obstacle and see how it changes your journey. Have fun with it!