Announcing my retirement to a life of entirely failing to desperately seek renewed meaning

This April 1st, I’m pleased to report that everything is fine.

We did it! We saved the world. Congratulations, humanity. There are no more looming apocalypses, no desperate screaming crises, no unendorsedly miserable people on Earth, no creeping degeneration of death and aging existing as a perpetual affront against my values of life and flourishing. Everyone is going to be okay forever, except in the ways they think it’d be interesting and worthwhile to be un-okay. Against all odds, the AI alignment problem has been solved, and more specialized minds than I are managing the tradeoffs involved in steering us towards a vibrant and thriving future.

And so in dutiful keeping with the lessons of utopian literature, I shall now descend into the inevitable spiral of ennui and meaninglessness, forever longing for the days when my decisions actually mattered.

…actually no, why would I do that, that sounds terrible. I’m gonna go do other stuff instead.

There is so much fun I was not having while I was frantically trying to fix everything. Sure, I made enough personal time to get in some good collaborative storytelling, but boy howdy I was not doing nearly enough of it. I cannot wait to see the look on my players’ faces when I tell them about the absurdly ambitious new campaign I’ve cooked up, and it’s only getting better from there now that people will actually have time for things.

People ask me, but Joe, won’t you get bored of writing books and running RPGs? And the exciting thing is, I don’t know! Maybe I will! And then there will be so many new cool things to fascinate me. Having kids! Teaching people stuff! Learning seven different martial arts styles and fusing them into an elegant rainbow of practiced violence! Visiting beautiful places with people I love! Debugging my own thought-patterns to fix problems that have annoyed me for years! Maybe as a personal project I’ll climb every mountain on Earth that begins with the letter G. Then I’ll have more stuff to write about! It’ll be great!

I’m tempted to keep gushing about my plans for the future, but for now I have to plot my players’ untimely demise so they have an incentive to creatively derail the plot again. I can’t wait to find out what nonsense they pull this time. Kia ora, everyone, and enjoy the future!