ARCHIVE (originally posted on Revue Jul 20 2022). High-grade loot area. Edge food for thought. Biased takes on what we refer to as “real life”.

Issue #4: To Rank or Not To Rank? 🤔

This one’s baked late during the weekend, so I must apologize in advance to those who were waiting for the newsletter midweek 😪 Usually my weekends are all about videogames, ranking up in Dota2, or Apex Legends, getting my hands on that top-notch fancy gear or skin drop, and just meme out with my international internet gaming gang.

Sometimes tho, you gotta play try-hard in IRL ranked, even during the weekends, for months, years straight without a single day off or vacation. I guess in this newsletter, I’ll go through IRL scenarios that tend to stress the f*ck out of me, and elaborate on how I deal with these situations like the Raid Boss I am. 😊

Shoutout to my Russian suka blijat teammates for turning each and every boring game of Dota2 into a TikTok compilation special. 😂

Ranked In A Nutshell

Practically a ranked game in high-level competitive e-sports refers to a determining match, similar to the Champions League or NBA, where every single game, move, draft, score a point or a kill, affects your status as a player, as a team, and as an employee in real-time.

Ranked games tend to be way more stressful and most players take them very seriously, eg. will only play ranked when they feel physically and mentally comfortable and in a good mood - or play only in tournaments and international events, avoiding ranked games with the common public.

Some professional teams, play only ranked games with fixed teams, and strategies, and they solely focus on winning the game, no matter the cost. It might make them look stupid, lame, lazy, or cheating. They don’t care. Ranked is a life-or-death situation for these guys.

Now, we’re gonna use videogames as the core reference here, but I’d like to build on top of that and think of a ranked situation as something that can occur in real life, where you know, you’re just washing the dishes and a wild pokemon trainer appears and wants to beat the shit out of you and everything you have achieved so far. That can be your unhappy landlord, your bank account manager, your accountant, or literally just your ex. The point is: you will have to be confronted with unpleasant, yet necessary if not mandatory simulations, where you have to do your best to f*cking win!

I know that might sound like Andrew Tate crap or something, but I mean, these are the rare tests of life, the opportunities to showcase who you really are, what you truly stand for, and why this man’s goal - who is trying to stop you from evolving - is merely a paid mission compared to your bigger picture plan, that would not stop at any point, for anybody, under any circumstances.

And no, you don’t have to prove this to your landlord or girlfriend, but to yourself. Cause if you don’t do it in moments like these, then you’ll never get rid of your life role as a support to some random dude’s ranked vision.

That would make sense if you do have a goal, and you’re not working on making someone else’s goal a reality. Cuz if you do the latter, then you’re one of these players who play ranked stoned or drunk, or sleepy just to relax, and kill some time. Those who eliminate the fun and seriousness for the rest of the players who wanted to try hard and prove they were better than the mass. Those who generally expect to win only when luck is involved, or the enemy is a complete douchbag that lost without you even touching him. You get the point. 😣 Don’t be that guy!

Ranked Scenarios IRL

So, ranking IRL usually reflects on your social income, position or status, or if you’re not a capitalist dog, on your physical skills, eg. extraordinary craftsmanship, or karate ninjutsu shit, or holding your breath underwater for 10 minutes etc.

How do people really rank up? No. It’s not always hard work and education. In most cases, it’s determination, commitment, and strong virtues and morals that will help you level up the ranks given time and patience as the core virtue.

As a matter of fact, most of the hard-working and educated friends I have, still work in the same job they worked 10 years, 15 years ago, for practically the same salary (if not less with inflation), without any plans or signs of leveling up in their vicinity field. They are convinced that if they keep working hard, or get another diploma on some fancy-ass something, someone would notice them, and tell them, “Hey man, how about I cut my profit and give you twice of what you agreed for?”. I mean bruh, you must be extremely naive to adopt that mentality at your own will. 🤷‍♂️

Ranked mentality:

First of all, people who tend to rank, rank fast, or as fast as possible, as they don’t have the time or energy to engage in personal satisfaction, but they focus on a bigger picture goal they’re working on, knowing that even if god almighty comes down and tries to stop them from achieving that goal, they would have to find the balls, and strength to bitch slap him. These are the common attributes of a try-hard rank-only player:

• Try-hard ranked-only

• Take more risks than what you’re comfortable with

• Know yourself, your purpose/goal, and be absolutely sure that it’s worth it! No one should be able to put you on second thoughts.

• Care for the outcome, and not personal satisfaction.

• Always know when to help, when to sacrifice, when to attack or defend, and when to be patient.

• If it didn’t work out, do not try again next time, next month, or next week. Instead, try again in the next hour.

• Would never play again with anyone who has no goal, or whose goal is on the other side of the map compared to where my goal is.

• Don’t think how your life should be based on your salary, but think what your salary should be based on the life you envision, deserve, looking for.

• Achieving goals feels good for everyone involved and not just for yourself.

• Never uses excuses, is always on time, straightforward, and to the point.

Ranked VS Non-Ranked IRL Choices

At some point in my early 20s, I used to work for a coffee shop, where a familiar person hooked me up with a job. After 6 months at work, I became an expert in everything that involves the workflow, from hard labor tasks to production, to management, ordering, keeping books, etc. I quickly realized that this guy (the owner) was making over $100k a month, and was paying me and my friend $900 each, who were literally doing everything. I mean the guy barely walked in for an hour in the evenings to ensure we hear how good we are, he collected the dough, and then he left.

When I realized that, I asked my friend: “bro, what’s the plan here? are you like negotiating with this guy for a higher position? are you taking over the place and getting a 20% of the margin or how does it work?”. He asked me what do I mean by that. I slept through the morning the next day, never showed up at work again, never apologized, and felt relieved. My mate was mad and angry at me because he vouched for me to get this job. He still works at a similar job almost 15 years later. I kept swapping positions and industries like high-quality shirts that you only wear once at a fancy event.

My mind would not let me work for $900, knowing that this effort produces $900k. I mean it’s harder to notice when you work for Amazon and there are like 94376549867438 employees but in an environment with a handful of people it’s very easy to spot the issue.

Of course, it’s not all about the money. I didn’t quit every time someone offered me more, nor did I seek more all the time. My strategy was that I was able to be whoever I needed to be at that point in order to reach closer to my goal. If I had to wash cars in a gas station, do the DJ, work in a tomato greenhouse, become a pilot or a barber or get deep into web3, I was ready to do it, if my mind had successfully convinced me “that the math is there, doing this will get me closer to my goal”.

There were situations, like my time in Rotterdam, NL, where I was at a point where I had no job, no money, and I was late a couple of days to pay the rent. Now, NL is no Greece bro. If you don’t pay the rent on the agreed date and only if you’re lucky and a cute guy, the agents will kick you out to the street after a couple of days due. Usually, the protocol is auto-executed. So, at that moment, another friend of mine was staying in Den Haag and was kinda in a similar situation. He told me: “maaaaan…you know things are tough, I think I’m gonna borrow some lettuce from my mom and fly back to Greece”. I thought to myself, “shit, that ng is right bro. What are we doing here?” And then my gut, my mind, my DNA, my God, I don’t know what would you call it, made me chill. Do not stress over bullshit. Evaluate the situation and see if it’s really that bad. I mean, it wasn’t world war 3 or anything right? So, instead of following my friend, I thought to myself that if life, or God, or the Machine wants us to be living on the streets, I guess we would have to experience that as well, no?

I swear to god, and I am not a religious person, that moment my phone rang, a guy who owned Panini at Beurs (now my friend Yaron), called my by accident asking if I was the guy who was looking for the job. He hanged up on me realizing I was not the guy, but I instantly called him back and told him I really need this job, no matter what I have to do, I will become a pro at it. He asked to meet the same evening, we agreed on the terms, and I got a job out of nowhere, almost magically if you ask me, just because I felt that there was no harm in what is yet to come, even tho stress and mind games can suggest otherwise.

To sum it up, the importance here is that I went through these and myriad situations like these to realize that it’s not about money, status, a job, a diploma, or a fancy car, house, etc. Unless of course, a fancy car or a house is your life goal bro. Some people do really dream of a fancy house as the craziest unfulfilling thing they could conceive. What’s important is your goal, and if you have put the right quality of faith in it, you will strive towards achieving it, whether you have money or you are broke, you are slow or fast, you sleeping in 5-star hotels or in the streets, you drive a Ferrari or you walk, etc.

If you don’t have a goal, then maybe this is the first thing you should think of. Why are you doing what you’re doing? What’s next? What would you like to be doing or experiencing under ideal circumstances? If you have a clear idea of what you want, you can also easily spot all the steps that lead to the achievement of it.

Here are two randomly picked friends anonymously, one of which has a ranked mentality / the other lacking it:

My 33y old Non-Ranked Mentality Friend:

• Started with a lot of financial, psychological, and physical help from his parents and family.

• Studied for like 10 years+

• Never invested in anything besides partying, clubbing, short-term womanizing, and jordans.

• Wanted to work for something that would value his toilet paper for a diploma. Works in a random 9-5 job for the minimum wage.

• Rents a room with other tenants.

• Doesn’t work on anything personal, like a side project or whatever.

• No back-ups in terms of plans, finances, or ideas for his future.

• Rejected a raise they offered him only to work less.

• Doesn’t think life is treating him badly.

• Avoids talking to friends and family.

My 31y old Ranked Mentality Friend:

• Started as a hooligan with 0 relationships with his parents.

• Studied for the basic years.

• Invested in a bunch of shit. Some of them failed, and some of them worked better than he expected.

• Wanted to have his own Tattoo studio. He now owns 3.

• Owns a forest house, an apartment, a car, and has just become a father.

• Works on 999 side-projects, including crypto investments, mining, NFTs, supply chain industry, and more.

• Has back-ups of $, ideas and plans, friends, and human capital that would help him achieve more at any moment ++

• An investor offered him X to get 30% of his studio. He managed to get Xx2 and give away only 10%.

• Thinks life can get better - as in more intriguing, interesting.

• Always finds a way to stay in touch with friends and family.

Ranked is not about sacrificing everything about money, or leveling up forever in one specific ladder without knowing where it leads. For me, a ranked way of life stands for taking your goals, your philosophy, and your values seriously, and actually manifesting a way of living that resonates with these ideals.

It’s hard to pinpoint a solid and specific goal, cause it’s not like a Ginnie situation lol. You actually have to care and think about the world from a spherical perspective. Analogize and consider aspects like politics, technology, financial markets, war industry, propagation practices, etc. But depending on your goal, I feel certain that if you choose the right mission, things will unravel to you like main quests in the most childish MMORPG for gen-z degens who can’t find where to pee without IRL of VR GPS. It will become your duty to live that role, and you will get rewarded accordingly along the way. Pick wisely, it’s like a character creation screen where you can’t really re-roll it afterward, but only create new characters, and swap in-between them.

🐍🧬♾

Be aware, that I was highly influenced by Dutch strain genetically modified cannabis when compiling this datasheet. There might be weird stuff here and there but I am confident you’ll make sense of it netizen <3

Till next time.

Ross Peili Ultra Plus 5G Premium Power Ranger Fire Power Dragon GO!!!