(why) competitions of skill are fun

April 27, 2024


In life, there are many opportunities vying for your attention at any given time. Of them, you usually will choose a subset of short term, long term, and maybe life goals (I'm being a bit reductive, but this is the thrust of it). The long term goals you may set for yourself are actionable but not guaranteed to be a "win" if/when you do achieve them.

That is why local contests of skill are so elegant. Defining a clear set of rules and an objective just feels so nice.

Being able to simply give something your all in a relatively short time scale (hackathons, sports, etc.) allows, in spite of all the complexity of life, a modicum of what it feels like to indisputably just fricking win.

Even if you don't win, just having the opportunity to give everything you currently have and evaluate your ability is epic.