Fishing Lessons
We have become accustomed, the general public, to receiving a fish for a subscription fee, and so few are learning how to fish, how to teach others to fish
This piece is about fishing: that time-honored activity wherein you stand or sit around for a while, and think, and talk, and listen. The mini-game that almost every single RPG I've ever played has included as if required by the gods, and with good reason. Almost every game dev seems to have felt they needed fishing as much as they needed characters and dungeons.
(The first RPG I encountered without fishing is the one I'm playing now, Cross Code, and that game breaks the 4th wall to lampshade the lack of fishing to the player as an odd omission for an RPG, but for reasons that make sense to the plot later).
Maybe the reason fishing is so unanimous in RPGs is that it serves the game the same way it serves people in real life: an excuse to stop, think, talk, and listen.
The first memory I have of going fishing is sitting on a lakeside somewhere high in the Sierras, with a (literal) Mickey Mouse pole and some kind of roe on the hook. It wasn't worms, and it wasn't a metal lure. I couldn't tell you what we were supposed to be catching; maybe this was just the simplest and most innocuous of bait meant to stand-in for a purpose other than catching fish. It was just there to have something on the hook, as is the custom when one tries to cast lines, to give shape and form to the endeavor. The traditions need be observed.
The sun was bright overhead; I had a hat on, a white hat I think. Air in the high Sierra is crisp and cold, and tastes like forests. I remember catching my hook a few times on overhead branches and getting frustrated. Laughing about it. Drying tears as my dad somehow undid the knotting I'd managed to cast more like a spell on the poor pine trees. He handed me back the pole with a calm steadiness; it was carefully rewound and restrung in a way that I think about now, sometimes, when putting new strings on my guitars, so many years later. The water was not blue, but this rusty rainbow of marbled granite that was endlessly fascinating to me, with a deep green out beyond where I could stand up. No one else was around, because this was a time before scenic places were overrun with selfie-sticks, just the occasional fishing pole.
I don't remember what we talked about. What I do remember is listening to the breeze in the pines and the way it sounded like the sea, the noises of bird arguments and squirrels' treasure-hunting. Once in a while, the sploosh of lake water as a fish nabbed a too-daring insect from the air near the surface. The sound of my dad's voice and the openness of whatever it was that he confided in me. The quiet between all these things.
No smartphones, no advertisements, no subscriptions, and no LLMs. Just a memorable day trying to con some scaly swimmers into becoming dinner. We didn't catch any, but that wasn't the point.
There's a saying, maybe a parable, I don't know, haven't been into religion in decades, that goes: "If you give a man a fish, he'll eat well for a day. But if you teach a man to fish..." And that's where I'm going with this post. So many jobs, so many contexts, so many creative endeavors but also technical careers--all falling victim to a marketing ploy to give you a fish a day for subscription. To become dependent on that dole out, having never learned to fish for oneself, the price of the subscription increases whenever the greedy choose, whenever "Line" needs to "Go Up".
Senior software developers are sounding the alarm about a lack of junior developers who must someday take their place. Vibe coders don't know what they're doing, and can't assume that responsibility. The same pattern repeats in myriad industries and arts. We have become accustomed, the general public, to receiving a fish for a subscription fee, and so few are learning how to fish, how to teach others to fish, to pass along the vital knowledge and the creative torch.
Instead of being complacent, we must take a stand against the prevailing wind and say: enough. This future is not inevitable, this outcome is not irreversible, we are not cogs in the wheel. We need to go outside, together, and learn patience, think, talk, and listen. To each other, as humans. To pass on generational knowledge.
When you're missing some cards to complete your play, instead of asking a chatbot, go fish.
