2020 Positives

[mobius]

At least to everyone in our generation 2020 will likely go down as the worst year in our personal history. But for a moment, instead of focusing on all the awful things that happened in this year; let's focus on the good stuff. Share anything positive that happened in 2020.

-Back in March, before Covid hit my area; I performed live, on stage, in front of an audience for the first time ever and I did great! I mean, I wasn't Grammy award winning or anything, far from it obviously, but for what I was expecting; I did amazing. I far surpassed my own expectations. Part of me fully expected to piss my pants on stage and run off crying like a pathetic baby. Not only did it go well; with few mistakes, but I actually enjoyed it. I had a lot of fun and wanted to do it again. One of my biggest let downs of 2020 and the virus was not being able to perform again soon!

-In October I finally got the courage to contact a real estate agent and start looking to move to a new house. I haven't found anything yet, but it's a major step.

-All thhe downtime during quarantine allowed me to focus on some things I had been neglecting for some time, like teaching myself some useful skills.

-Met some new fun people in the gaming community And had lots of hilarity.

-roundthewheel came back to youtube!

[WillLem]

Throughout most of 2019 I was broken, battling depression caused by work redundancy and several failed relationships. 2020's lockdown has given me the opportunity to take life at a more comfortable pace for a while, and become more focused in the present rather than lamenting the past or worrying about the future. It's also allowed me to begin to recover and become more creatively active again, which has been crucial for my mental health.

Lemminas and its music is almost certainly the main creative highlight of the year for me, I am chuffed that the ideas came together so beautifully

I saved 100% on Cascade, on Amiga, without pressing pause! Another 'Lemmings career' highlight I'll no doubt bore the grandkids with

Most of all, having an online community of like-minded friends to play games with and discuss stuff with has also been wonderful. I can't thank you lot enough just for being there. You're amazing

[kaywhyn]

Great topic, mobius! Great way to share some of our personal happenings if we like. For me, the biggest highlight of 2020 was my vacation to my parents' former homeland of Vietnam (for pictures, see the OP in my topic kaywhyn's blog in General Discussion). For years, there has been talk of going to Vietnam as a family, but it has never happened until last year. My parents have gone back to Vietnam a few times since moving to the USA back in the 1980s, but my siblings and I have never gone until we were all well graduated from college. My sister went for the first time back in 2016 with my mom, while my brother and I went for the very first time last year, when we were both already in our 30s. We went about a week before we joined up with my parents and sister the following week. My sister was definitely fortunate that she got to go when she was not even in her mid-20s back in 2016. So yes, I finally got to visit Vietnam last year after almost 31 years of life. This was in February 2020, also a month just before the lockdown back in the USA. Unfortunately for us, a lot of places that we wanted to visit were shut down due to Covid, but I still feel we made the most out of it possible with what we were able to visit and see. Hopefully the next time I come back for a visit I will be able to visit Hanoi, which is northern Vietnam, as I didn't get this to time because of the pandemic. I stayed in Saigon the entire time I was in Vietnam. We were also very fortunate that we all made it back home to the states before we got stuck and wouldn't be able to return for who knows how long due to travel bans. My dad especially cut it close, since he returned home 2 days before the USA lockdown, and he would had been stuck in Vietnam for a long time.

Other than that, there wasn't really anything else other than I've been out of a job since last March, but I'm fortunate that I qualified for unemployment benefits, and I'm still collecting them, so that's quite fortunate. I'm hoping that I'll be back in the labor force soon, though, as I'm not one to simply sit around at home unemployed. I rather be at work working a job. I also want to be constantly doing something.

On the Lemmings front, I finally made myself known to the community with my introduction post around this time last year. I've been a registered member since 2017, but I visited the site daily and read posts silently in the background. My introduction post is possibly the longest post ever on this site It's all due to how I'm very detailed and I was able to recall all those memories with the game growing up. I'm so happy to be a part of this wonderful community and glad to have met you lot and be able to interact with you all about a very iconic game

For sure the most significant achievement in the Lemmings scene of 2020 for me was when I became the second person to solve all of Lemmings United It took me an entire year to solve all 238 levels at least once, and this wouldn't had happened had it not been for a couple of things: out of a job, vacationing in Vietnam, among others. Had I still been working since I returned home, I wouldn't had been anywhere near finished solving the pack come September. Granted, there were a few levels that I needed some vague hints from Icho on to get them solved, but I like the way none of the solutions were completely spoiled for me. I never went out of my way to watch any replays to get help. I only watch to compare solutions after I have solved the level myself.

I've solved several level packs in 2020, though another significant achievement I say would be solving all of Lemmings World Tour for Old Formats, which is currently the largest level pack at 320 levels to date. It's nowhere near as hard, but I still consider it an achievement nevertheless

More highlights of 2020 include that I was asked by Icho to pre-test his contest #21 levels, which I of course accepted the offer, and I also volunteered to be a pre-tester for Strato's Lemmings Open Air pack. Along with the former, I also participated in my very first LDC as a solver, where I got to finally play levels by authors other than Icho, Strato, and namida. Some were quite difficult, but I was fortunately able to solve all of them on my own, save for Niesch's Step Up Your Game, which I finally solved a few weeks ago. LDC #21 was not my first foray into level designing. I originally was going to enter some contest levels of mine in LDC #21, but I got busy with resolving United and other things that by the time I wanted to try my hand at level making I considered it too late for myself, as I didn't want my first levels to be total crap. Ironic that I ended up doing just that for LDC #22, but despite them being done a few days before the submission phase ended I still think they turned out ok.

Finally, I became an LPer of Lemmings level packs near the end of 2020. Started with Lemmings Migration, and I've been enjoying myself doing it so much that I'm still LPing packs to this day. Also, I've gotten so much positive feedback from you guys that my LPs have been quite a joy to watch. I'm glad, so therefore I keep doing them, because, let's admit it. Why stop doing something you enjoy doing, especially if others like and enjoy your content? Got to give my Youtube viewers/subscribers what they want and sign up to see I have been thinking of possibly trying streaming, but honestly I don't think I'm going to make it permanent. I might end up doing it one time only, but it's more that I rather solve the levels in peace rather than rummage through chat messages while I'm solving. The only rule I require is that no one in chat spoils the solution to any levels I happen to be working on.

Well, this went on longer than I thought it would. No one's fault here. It's just the way I am, with how I'm very detailed. Anyway, hope this is an enjoyable read for anyone who stumbles upon my post and the others in this thread.

[LemFan]

Yes it is the Panlemmic

[Strato Incendus]

At least to everyone in our generation 2020 will likely go down as the worst year in our personal history.

Can't confirm. This may sound pretty cynical to anyone who has lost somebody to the pandemic. But luckily for me and my family at least, we haven't.

The main "sacrifice" for me last year was just my favourite annual event being cancelled for the first time ever (that being Eurovision). But in exchange for that, among many other benefits, I didn't have to attend some international conference that I really wasn't looking forward to - instead, I could attend it from the comfort of my own home, rather than flying across the Atlantic for a mere five days. If meetings are already one of the statistically most inefficient uses of time during the work day (especially regularly scheduled ones, which have to take place, but you spend more time discussing an issue than it would take to actually just solve it), then conferences seem to be even less efficient: A lot of logistical effort and high travel expenses for very minimal exchange of information, even less of which will be retained long-term.

On a similar note, what many probably saw as an infringement on their freedom of mobility, I saw as the freedom to work from home, rather than having to go to the office every morning. That also saves you several hours a week, by not having to waste time on the way both to and back from work in the car, on the bus or train, etc. And that additional time then frees you up to do other things. Freedom is a matter of perspective.

One man's nightmare is another man's dream.

For extroverts, who need regular social input from others in order not to "starve" emotionally, lockdowns must be a living hell.
For introverts, who find interactions with others draining and need their time alone to recover, it was the first time there was an external "rational" justification for that.
All of a sudden, it was the extrovert who needed an "excuse" to secretly meet others - not the introvert who had to come up with an excuse not to meet others.

For extroverts, social-distancing rules feel like tyranny.
For introverts, the "normal" state of the world is the tyranny of the many.

Since extroverts tend to be better organised - guess what, people who like to be in groups have an easier time forming a collective voice - they are the ones making a lot of the social "rules":
They will be the ones to plan social events, whether within the family or at work, and "force" everyone to participate, either by legal or social pressure.
In one regard, the powers are reversed though: The extrovert needs social input, the introvert does not. So the extrovert is dependent on the introvert, but not vice versa.
Unfortunately for the introverts, this will often result in the extroverts forcing them to participate in their social events - because for extroverts, there can never be enough people at the party.
Whereas many introverts will frequently question the purpose of the social gathering to begin with.

The pandemic has seen a sudden surge in libertarian voices, people who are suddenly all concerned with the infringement on the freedom to meet others - even among YouTubers. Those actually tend to be introverts, though - not that surprising, given that we're talking about people who spend their day talking to a camera by themselves, from within their own homes. YouTubers and other people with online businesses were already doing home office before it was "cool". So I found it somewhat ironic to see all these YouTube voices suddenly supposedly "caring" about "their" freedoms being infringed upon when they barely ever used them before.

But of course, there's the saying "you don't know what you've got until you lose it" (coincidentally, I also happen to know this one from Bryan Adams again). Speaking of music, indeed I remember a meme going around on a music production channel (Spectre Sound Studios), a meme that had been made by some self-professed nerd, reading something along the lines of "I already spend all day alone at home in front of my computer screen anyway - except when the government tells me to. Now I won't!"


In some sense, lockdowns and social distancing allowed the introverts to get their "revenge" on the extroverts , in terms of "now you know what it feels like if society thinks your 'social desires' don't matter" - whether that social desire is "more social input" or "less social input". But that's only an image I'm using here - I have no interest in anyone actually getting their "comeuppance" for any of this, because personality traits are neither inherently wrong nor anyone's fault.

Whereas many extroverts seem to have a hard time understanding the introvert perspective at a fundamental level - they just tend to confuse us for shy or socially anxious people, i.e. a weakness that's supposed to be overcome, rather than just a different preference of a lifestyle - I am fully aware that extroverts genuinely have this need for social input, that personality traits are very stable across the human lifespan, and that they therefore can't simply suppress that need, even if there are environmental factors like a pandemic that might make it wise to do so for a while.

After all, I obviously also still know what enjoyable social interactions feel like - they're just not as inherently rewarding to me, and therefore not as addictive to me either, as they will probably be for an extrovert. Thus, I still know what they're "missing", and then just need to infer they must miss it much more than I will ever do.

And so, whenever it comes to "overreach" in terms of lockdowns, measures that seem hardly commensurate  - for example, I've just heard New Zealand went back into lockdown over a single COVID case? - then I can understand how also introverted YouTubers tend to rally on the "back to more freedoms" side. Even if not for their own sake - but simply because we don't want other people who we know have this greater need for social input to be "starved" of that. I'm pretty sure a lot of introverts enjoy the "peace and quiet" that came with the pandemic - but that doesn't mean we want our lifestyle enforced at extroverts' expense.


Sadly, I'm not sure the extroverts will return the favour once things go entirely "back to normal" - again, not because of malice, but probably because of a genuine lack of understanding for the introvert state of mind. In an ideal world, freedom / liberty would mean that the extroverts can live their preferred lifestyle in parallel to introverts living theirs. But as I said, for one there's the asymmetry of the extrovert needing the introvert more than the other way round; and second, there is the quick transition from "everybody can" to "everybody must":

A few decades ago, for example, flights were still much more expensive, and thus much more of a rarity. The downside of that is: It's a privilege for the few.
Then that thing becomes available to the masses, so everybody has access to it. But once everybody is using something, there is pressure to use it.
This is how we get from "everybody can" to "everybody must": Now flights, including intercontinental ones, are so cheap that you will be expected to make use of them, and even if it's just for work purposes. Same with cars.
Or, on a purely social rather than technological level: From the 1970s, when at least here in Germany, women still needed their husband's approval in order to be allowed to work, we quickly moved from "all women can work" to "all women must work": Now most couples have no choice but to both contribute to the household income, because a single income rarely ever suffices anymore to provide for an entire family.
If something becomes "self-evident" like that to most people in a society, that is a double-edged sword - because they will no longer have an understanding for any deviations from the "new normal".

So when things go back to normal and "everyone can" meet again, I expect that to quickly relapse into "everyone must meet again":
The extroverts will be running the show again, we will not just go back to having the necessary types of face-to-face conversations and personal exchanges that couldn't take place during the pandemic, but also go back to all the additional fancy but "pointless" social events that highly extroverted people like to force onto their friends and co-workers on top of that.

But usually, when a behavioural change has been around for several weeks or months, at least some of it manages to stick around. It's like adopting a new routine, like a diet or workout:
Home office has become more widely accepted, some employers are already thinking of "exploiting" this from a purely material perspective and save on office rent (I don't mind, sounds like a win-win situation to me ), everyone is familiar enough with the technical use of Zoom, MS Teams etc. to quickly discuss something in a spontaneous online meeting, rather than feeling the need to always gather everyone in physical presence just to get everyone updated, etc.

For some particularly libertarian voices, this idea of "some of the COVID measures sticking around after the pandemic" seems to be a threat. They like to compare this to the increases in airport security after 9/11 that never really went away again. For me, meanwhile, if some of the things that were set up during the pandemic (home office, online meetings etc.) stick around at least in part, that just sounds like a compromise between the introverts' and the extroverts' preferred lifestyle - rather than one type of personality getting to enforce their lifestyle on the others.

[mobius]

idk about everyone else but so far 2021 has been waaaaaaay worse than 2020 for me. The sadness, the disappointments, the shocking revelations....

and everyone I know who died from Covid, btw, died in 2021 not 2020. 2020 was nothin' and I mean nothin!