Habits are Infinite But Not a Game

Continuing on the subject of Forever Goals and Infinite Games, let’s compare them to habits.

As a reminder, an Infinite Game is one you play so that you can play it. It is intrinsically fun. The goal, if there even is one, is to get better so that you can keep playing. A Forever Goal is something you will always want, but can’t really achieve. You approach a Forever Goal. Asymptotically. Over infinite time. I think there’s a connection.

Since you can only approach a Forever Goal with constant work, I think designing an infinite game that incidentally gets you closer is a good strategy. Habits can also work, but for different reasons.

Habits aren’t designed to be fun. An infinite game is more like a bad habit. They’re both addictive. Good habits usually aren’t. BJ Fogg, author of Tiny Habits [ad], says to design habits that are so small that you will still do them even when you aren’t motivated. They need to be easy because they’re not fun.

Infinite games, however, are fun. They are designed to be their own motivation. You would play even if you had no extrinsic goal. The goal of the game is to keep playing the game. Habits aren’t like this. They are a means to an end. If you don’t want the end or the habit doesn’t work, you’ll stop.

The benefit of a game over a habit is that it can be more complex and take more time and energy. Tiny Habits are supposed to lead to bigger actions, but they rely on motivation. If you do a habit and you happen to have a lot of energy for the activity, then you could extend it (e.g.: a tiny habit of flossing one tooth could lead to flossing all of your teeth). But you don’t need motivation to keep playing a fun game. You need motivation to stop. When you put more time and energy into something, even as it gets more complex, you get better faster.

Another difference is that habits get easier over time, but infinite games get harder. It’s even more important that it gets more fun the better you are at it. A game shouldn’t be easy to master. Mastery might take forever. And the rewards should increase with your skill. If not, it gets boring and you will quit. When the game’s difficulty is achievable and the outcome is rewarding, you don’t need motivation to play it.

Applying this to my life, I use a combination of habits and games. My morning routine is mostly built on habits: taking vitamins, flossing, etc. Backed by reminders and environmental cues. But, my fitness is almost completely game-based. I don’t need any motivation because I just want to play, sometimes to my detriment (like a bad habit) as I nurse injuries.

And this all brings me back to learning Spanish, which I still force myself to do, and not very well. Still not a game and not even a consistent habit.

26 for 26 3rd Quarter Update

As of my last update, I was at 11 of 26 of my 2026 mini-quests done.

Here’s what changed:

✅ Make a meal with soy curls: Butler Soy Curls are amazing and everyone should try them (especially vegans)
✅ Find a place locally where I can get Fermented Bean Curd: Also amazing. Available in asian markets (for me it was a Vietnamese market)
👌 Go to a live musical: I have tickets to Oh! Mary in NYC, so this should happen.
⚠️ Go for a weekend away to a new place in Florida: Not Done, but I have booked a vegan retreat near Gainesville in January.
✅ Get App-o-Mat on current Django and back to being a live server (not static pages): Done. Also updated to latest Python, Django and other deps. Used my local AI setup for a lot of updates.
✅ Write 10 Amazon Book reviews for books I love: Done

So 15/26 done. I will definitely come up short, but here are the ones I think I could also knock off:

👌 Hang pictures of my family in my guest room: I am definitely going to do this.
⚠️ Go to at least one arena-sized concert: I could just do this to do it. Maybe.
⚠️ Have a coffee or lunch with someone who lives in my building (see Improving My Social Connection Index): I will definitely do this.
⚠️ Host someone new for dinner at my place: I will do this to do it — it will be easy.
👌 Release something new to open-source: I will do this to do it.

That would get me to 22.

Dev Stack, Part XIII: Local AI

This is the latest post documenting my tech stack built around using coding agents safely. The previous posts were:

Up until this past week, I had been using cloud based AI, but the endgame of this setup was to get onto local AI. In Part II, I mentioned that I moved to Linux on a Framework Desktop. That machine is using an AMD Ryzen AI Max+ with 64GB of unified memory. This is definitely good enough to run some interesting local models, but I do regret not getting a 128GB back in December when I bought it. When prices come down again, I will be upgrading.

For hosting models, I use Ollama. I tried a bunch of models. For each one, I gave it a simple command as a way to “eval” it: “Build and run nebulas tests”. I’ll explain more in the next post when I write about my coding agent (Pi.dev). Of the ones I tried, only qwen3-coder-next could do this without more help.

Here are some random technical notes about the setup:

For a Framework, everything you need to know is documented well this AMD Playbook about Ollama.
The main difference between an AMD setup and others is how you allocate memory to the GPU. A Ryzen uses Unified memory (shared between the CPU and CPU), which is similar to how the Apple M series chips work. In the playbook, it explains how to do that. I decided to set the minimum to 512k via the BIOS and then used amd-ttm to set the shared memory pool to 48GB for now.
With the above setup and the qwen-coder-next model, I get 93% of the model running on the GPU and 7% on the CPU. This is tolerable, but it would be better to be at 100%.
However, I am getting 36 tokens/sec which is more than fast enough.

In the next post, I’ll explain how I sandbox Pi in the Docker and connect it to Ollama.

Dev Stack, Part XII: Sandboxing Update (Docker)

Late last year, I completely changed my dev stack to Python on Linux with some other things. I wrote a series about it at the time:

In Part XI, I described using KVM (a full virtualized VM) and specifically not Docker. At the time, I wrote:

Docker: I am not that comfortable with it, and it seems like running GUIs (like VSCode) is not trivial. It would be more efficient with sharing installed software, but wasting disk space is just not an issue.

After using a VM for several months, I have decided to bite the bullet and learn Docker more and get comfortable with it. I’m not trying to run VSCode in it, just terminal based coding agents (which I will describe in a future post).

My setup is simple. I started with a Dockerfile based on node because I wanted to use Pi.dev and that is installed via npm. I gave it the minimal tools needed to build my project (a game built with C and Raylib), which is just gcc, X11, OpenGL, and a few other things.

To harden the security, I created a docker private network and put the Docker into that network. From there it has no internet or network access at all. I opened up one port so that the Docker could talk to Ollama on my host machine.

In the next post of this series, I’ll elaborate on the entire local AI and Pi.dev setup.

An Infinite Game is Like a Bad Habit

If an activity is an infinite game, then you don’t need motivation to do it. It’s more likely you need motivation to not do it too much. Like smoking.

If you play infinite games that are good for you, then that’s fine. I did my first 5k in 2005 and first marathon in 2009. I was addicted to running and got a lot of health benefits. Better than that, I ate as much as I wanted. I loved running, and I thought I would do it forever.

But all of that running did have downsides, and I had to give it up. It was hard. Last year, I was sidelined for six months because I injured a knee trying to re-incorporate running into my routine. That was enough to make me quit (I hope). I still think about doing it, though.

Bad habits are hard to break because you get an immediate benefit. The bad part usually comes in the long-term. When designing an infinite game, we need to keep the immediate benefit part. It’s best if that benefit is obvious when you are playing the game. Or at worst, you see improvement the next time you play.

This is easy at the beginning, which helps you get hooked. Couch to 5K is a good example. But as you improve, it gets harder for a small gain to seem significant. This happens for bad habits too, which is how you can eventually end up with a two-pack a day smoking habit.

Right now, I am trying to figure out an infinite game to learn Spanish. I really think that there’s no downside to do this, but I am really struggling to find a fun game with immediate benefits. My improvements are imperceptible to me. Maybe I just need to play longer each day for now to get more of a fix.

Identities Under Failure

Associating goals with a personal identity works for me. It becomes a North Star. Something I can always strive for and a source of motivation. Thinking of myself as a programmer causes me to program even when there is no reason to. I believe an identity is what you do. So, a runner runs, a writer writes, and I did the things I had to do to become those things.

If an identity is leverage on the way to success, then, like other forms of leverage, it can compound failure as well. Warren Buffet clarified Charlie Munger’s quote on leverage this way:

“My partner Charlie says there is only three ways a smart person can go broke: liquor, ladies and leverage,” Buffett said during a 2018 CNBC interview. Then came the twist: “Now the truth is — the first two he just added because they started with L — it’s leverage.”

Leverage is just a way of multiplying a force, so this makes sense. Identities can compound failure in multiple ways.

You want an identity that others decide. This one is common, and even though I know this is bad, I am not immune. I know that I would like to have achievements that come with recognition, and I know that I might not reach that. At some point, when I accept that, it might make me quit.
You want an identity that harms you to achieve. For me that’s being a runner. My knees and ankles can’t handle it any more and last year I was sidelined for months because I was too stubborn to give it up. I have since picked something more sensible to strive for: being “Strong”. I think I can ride that out for a couple of decades.
You want an identity, but not only if it’s easy. I worry that this is what is holding me back from working at understanding Spanish. I hope that my demotivation is that my plan is bad and I need to work on finding a better one.
You want an identity for money. I can’t say money is not in the mix for me, but I see people fail or give up doing things that they only wanted because of the money. I can’t deny that it does also seem to work for some. I don’t think it’s a bad way to get started, but most high paying activities only pay off to the skilled and that often requires work that isn’t always paid (or worse for this problem, costs money).
You want an identity that you don’t really want. For me that was “home owner”, which I thankfully don’t care about any more. This happens a lot to kids who internalize their parents’ wishes for them.

The main way these work against you is they turn setbacks into quitting. For me, the main way I check this for myself is by really asking myself if I want the identity for external reasons (like recognition or money) or if I want it because of the change it will make in me and for the fun of working at it. For self-esteem. Something I experience mostly in my own mind. Can I reframe what I call it in that way?

In some cases, quitting might be good. Better to fail fast at something you don’t want than to toil away at it for years. Even if you get it.

An Identity is What You Do

I think of Identities as Forever Goals that I might never fully achieve or could always “be more of”. So, while I am definitely a “Programmer” and am proud of that ability and my accomplishments, I can see that there is a lot I could still learn and achieve. My other aspirational identities like “Writer” or “Spanish speaker” might never be realized. I’m ok with that as long as keeping trying.

To me, my identity is what I do, not what I am. If I keep writing, even on this blog, even if no one reads it, then I am doing what a writer does. That’s enough.

I have to keep reminding myself because I am struggling with Spanish, and it’s mostly because I don’t do the work. It won’t matter how much I want it or think about it or hope I get better. The truth is that I haven’t fully embraced the work I need to do. Yet.

The Inner Game of Spanish

In my post reviewing The Inner Game of Tennis, I wrote that I thought the book applied to any physical activity. I also think it could apply to language acquisition, because we speak and listen with our automatic mind. You don’t want a judging mind to be evaluating how well you are pronouncing words and understanding. But if it’s not judging, then what?

The trick described in The Inner Game is to give your judging mind something to do. In tennis, Gallwey recommends having your thinking, judging self track the ball’s spin or think “bounce”, “hit” when appropriate. You could have it just track the position of your arm right before you hit. The key is that it is something objective.

I want to use this technique to get better at Spanish comprehension. One way I do that is to watch Dreaming Spanish videos to get comprehensible input (native language without translation, just above my level). It’s hard. I can feel my mind wander as it judges that I am not doing well enough.

Here are some things I am going to try out to give my thinking mind something to do:

Observe the mouth of the speaker: I am hoping I’ll see some connections to the sounds they are making. This is easier with a video than in real life, of course.
Sketchnote the content of the video: I am specifically trying to avoid translation. I want the Spanish words to evoke pictures in my mind.
Transcribe: Not every word, but phrases here and there. I will probably combine this with sketchnoting.

The goal is to get my mind to stop doing meta-thinking about how well I am understanding, and if that’s good enough. I want it to provide neutral, objective information to my automatic brain. I’ll share more after I’ve been trying it a while.

Review: The Inner Game of Tennis

I just finished The Inner Game of Tennis [ad] by Timothy Gallwey, which has been on my reading list for over a decade. I happened to see a copy featured in a bookstore and bought it as a plane read. It’s short and sweet at under 200 pages, which I love.

I should say to start that it’s not about tennis. Well, it is, but everything in this book is applicable to every sport and possibly every physical activity. I’m not sure if it applies to mental activities yet, but it might. I definitely think it applies to language learning. The thesis is that your inner self judges you while you try to do something and causes you to do it poorly. The “Inner Game” is a set of techniques to quiet this voice (he calls it Self 1) so that the body (Self 2) can play and get into a flow state.

I think it works for language learning because you should just be engaged in the conversation or content, not judging your accent or fretting over whether you got every word. It’s possibly a more physical than mental activity. Gallwey’s methods, which are based on observing experts and yourself is similar to the comprehensible input method of language acquisition (which is how we all learned our native language, so we know it works).

This book reminded me of Thinking, Fast and Slow [ad] by Daniel Kahneman, which also separates the self into System 1 and System 2 thinking, but with the line drawn in a slightly different place. To start with, he reverses the numbers, making System 1 the automatic system and System 2 the more conscious, logical, methodical system. Even so, they are not exactly the same, but close enough.

Gallwey’s book is about the things that the automatic system does well (sports) because it’s fast. Kahneman’s book is more about suppressing the automatic, heuristic-using System 1 when you should be doing the work to understand and analyze using System 2. His worry is that the fast system will give you a plausible (but incorrect) answer, and then you won’t do the work to find the right one. Gallwey thinks your judging self will slow down the automatic response you need at the speed of sports. Or, in my case, language acquisition.

I am sure that this book is the most important one I read this year (maybe in multiple years). I suspect that it will have the same kind of lasting impact on my thoughts and behavior as 4DX [ad] and Thinking in Systems [ad] have.

A Game’s Fun Comes from Its Rules

Baseball’s infield fly rule seems strange at first. It says that when there are runners on first and second with less than two out, and the ball is popped up to the infield, then it’s an automatic out, even if the fielder drops it. Without the infield fly rule, the fielder might let the ball drop on purpose. Then they could turn an easy double-play at second and third base. A pop-up would turn into two outs in a way that isn’t fun for the players or fans because it takes no skill. The rule is there to make the game more fun.

Professional sports are filled with rules like this. Basketball has goal tending, soccer and hockey have offsides, and in football, you can’t catch a pass if you run out of bounds. Rules like this often come after their absence was exploited. For example, goaltending was introduced in 1944 to stop a 6’ 10” center from making the game less fun for everyone (else).

So, when designing an infinite game, you might need seemingly arbitrary rules. Probably it’s better to notice when the game is too easy and figure out a way to make it harder. Based on the examples above, you should also look for times when you play the game in an odd way that gets you rewards with no skill or work. It might seem fun at first, but easy games get boring, and then you’ll quit.