What's the deal with excitement? On my timeline I see it come naturally to Nick and Ava and I want some of that for myself. I read Ava's post on specialness twice and this stuck out: "Sometimes I think that’s all there is to life, a learned constant appreciation: writing seven times a week and still enjoying every sentence. Patiently interrogating ugliness, labor, anxiety and paranoia, the bizarre and the delightful." So maybe learning gratitude and patience are the keys to being excited about literally everything? I asked this on twitter and I'll summarize the responses I've received:

• Find a small bit of goodness in a thing and have a feedback loop build that up.
• Reflect on what has excited you in the past and look for connections between them. See how other things connect to what has excited you and expand the excitement along with the awareness.
• Tap into a childlike sense of wonder and sustain it.
• Build an increasingly accurate model of the world.
• Pay attention.
• Come close to death or vividly imagine it. Use that to appreciate everything.
• Reflect on what all was required to create modern conveniences and imagine explaining them to people of past eras.
• Remember moments that excited you and imagine how much else there is to get excited about that you aren't aware of.
• Pay attention with all of your senses.
• Don't do it, instead focus on what's important and where you can have an impact.
• Be grateful in order to more easily access gratitude, keep gratitude lists.
• Future self journaling, practicing gratitude, searching for and creating beauty.
• See everything as the wonder of creation.
• Read ontology.
• Train yourself to be excited by one thing, then expand.

I notice in these summaries a recurring theme of noticing: notice what already gets me excited, notice details and connections, notice things to be grateful for.

I notice an internal resistance to this path forward because paying attention is not my strong suit. I zone out during conversations that don't captivate me. The routine of my life has caused things to fade into the background.

I notice a battleground surfacing in my ongoing war against pessimism.

I notice on reflection a recent excitement about aha! moments, which itself emerged thanks to my lifelong excitement about games.

I notice that games are as solid a foundation as any for an excitement engine, to steal Visa's phrase. With infinite games in mind, conversations are games, posting essays online are conversations are games, careers are games, relationships are games.

I notice that an anagram of "I noticed" is "coined it."

I notice that my Roam graph, where I draft my essays, might be a useful place to build an excitement engine.

I notice that a tweet reminded me that music I like gets me excited too. Adding that to the engine.

I notice that the idea of training myself to be excited by one thing compels me. This is my Year of Increment so a practice like that would fit right in.

I notice that I love to write textual repetitions as seen in this essay. I'm unsure whether this tendency is in line with or in contrast to my clerical writing style overall. I'm not one to include titillating details or eye-catching turns of phrase in my writing. But I could try it and notice whether it excites me.

I notice an interesting connection between two things that get me excited. Seinfeld is Unfunny, arguably boring, and Hello Internet is a boring Two Dudes Talking podcast. But they're both fascinating to me. Adding them and the connection to the engine.

I notice that I'm at a nice round dozen noticings, and I'm excited to continue cracking noticing eggs to cook my excitement omelette.