Sometimes you stop journaling because life gets complicated; sometimes you start again because a bunch of fictional wolves remind you why you like telling stories.
It has been a long time.
Way too long, actually.
There was a period when I would journal almost every day. Sometimes I would record a little life log on the fifteen-minute drive back after bringing my daughter to school. If I had another appointment afterward, I might have a little longer. Fifteen minutes became twenty. A thought became a story. A story became something I could put somewhere outside my own head.
And then, somewhere along the way, I stopped.
There are reasons for that.
Some of them are personal enough that I can’t really write about them yet. Our family has been dealing with something deeply unpleasant involving someone attempting to cause us harm, and there is still an ongoing investigation. I don’t want to say more than that.
But it has reminded me, rather forcefully, why I have always been careful about what I put online.
Whatever you share publicly can become a piece of information in somebody else’s puzzle. Even seemingly harmless details about your family, your routines, where you are, or when you’re away can suddenly look very different when viewed by someone with the wrong intentions.
It makes the whole idea of life logging feel strangely delicate.
The irony is that I believe strongly in sharing. I just don’t believe in sharing everything.
A few things happened while I wasn’t writing
Professionally, things have become considerably busier as well.
My portfolio has expanded. Alongside Data & AI, I now also have cybersecurity and professional services in the mix. And in May, we acquired Victa, a company specialised in business intelligence.
That’s tremendous news. It also means there is plenty to do: bringing the company, its people and its capabilities to the next level, and figuring out how data, AI and the existing portfolio can reinforce each other.
Then there is the house.
Oh, the house.
We had a brand-new kitchen that leaked. We fixed it. It leaked again. Fortunately, that seems to be resolved now.
And then there is the slightly more spectacular sewer saga.
Back in December, we had a blockage that flooded the living room. Water and wood are not exactly a dream combination, so a substantial part of the floor had to be replaced. We deliberately planned the work around our holiday so the work could happen while we were away.
That was the plan.
Then, one week before we left, the sewer blocked again.
Thankfully, it happened before the new floor went in. Had it happened a week later, I would probably have used considerably stronger language than “unfortunate.”
An inspection last week revealed the underlying problem: somewhere between the backyard and the main sewer, the pipe has sunk. Instead of having a nice continuous slope, there is now a low point where everything that passes through the pipe can accumulate.
Paper. Waste. And, well… Everything else. So that needs fixing too.
And somehow, after all of that, we actually had a very nice holiday. Which is a story for another time.
I deliberately didn’t share much about the holiday while we were away either. I’ve learned that publicly announcing that your house is going to be empty for eleven days isn’t necessarily the smartest form of social media engagement.
And then there were the wolves
But the actual reason I wanted to start talking again today is much less serious.
I watched the first episode of Wolven on Dutch television.
And I loved what they did with it.
For anyone who likes social deduction games — Werewolf, Mafia, The Resistance, Avalon, Among Us and all their various cousins — the basic premise is familiar.
You have two sides.
The good guys versus the bad guys.
The villagers versus the wolves.
The Resistance versus the spies.
The fun comes from figuring out who is lying.
What makes Wolven interesting isn’t necessarily the game itself. It’s what the production team has done around the game.
They didn’t just put thirteen people in a room, hand them envelopes containing their roles and tell them to start playing.
They built a tiny town.
Thirteen little houses. A whole environment. Speakers and microphones hidden around the place. Two hosts — both comedians — guiding the players through the experience with voice-overs. At night, the houses close up with special shutters so nobody can see what is happening outside.
Even the way the players receive their roles is theatrical.
Boxes are scattered through the woods. Each player chooses one, walks to a special pillar, places the box on it and twists it to reveal their role. Then they return to the group and have to declare their identity.
“I am a civilian.”
Except, of course, some people say it slightly differently.
And suddenly the tiniest details become part of the game.
That’s what I find fascinating.
The thirteen contestants aren’t simply random people either. They have been selected with different abilities and backgrounds: people who can read body language, investigators, a criminal lawyer, a criminal investigator, an actor, a kickboxer, a mentalist, a hypnotist and others.
The production understands that the real entertainment isn’t just who is a wolf.
It’s watching people try to work out who is a wolf.
And then there is the reveal at the end of the first episode.
Spoiler alert: one of the players is revealed to be a wolf, while the identities of the other wolves remain hidden. Two players who have particularly useful investigative abilities are killed by the wolves, setting up the next episode.
It’s a cliffhanger, but more importantly, it demonstrates why the format works.
We keep reinventing the same game
I’ve been thinking about social deduction games quite a bit lately.
I’ve been looking at getting The Resistance: Avalon — possibly the big-box version, if I can find one — and I also like The Resistance and The Resistance: Quest. There are apps and online versions of similar games too.
One thing I particularly like about The Resistance is that nobody really gets eliminated.
You’re still in the game even if everyone suspects you.
You can still influence the outcome. You can still sabotage things.
It’s a subtle difference, but I think it changes the psychology of the game.
And perhaps that’s why I’m enjoying Wolven so much.
The format itself isn’t particularly new. We’ve been playing versions of this game for decades. But every generation finds a new way of packaging the same human problem:
Who do you trust?
The Netherlands has already exported some enormous television formats built around these kinds of ideas. The Traitors is one example. And, of course, Big Brother originated as a Dutch concept before becoming a global phenomenon.
So who knows?
Maybe Wolven will travel too.
I certainly wouldn’t be surprised.
And perhaps that’s the thing I like most about it. It’s not really about wolves.
It’s about people.
People sitting together, trying to read each other. People hiding things. People making alliances. People interpreting a pause, a glance, a strange choice of words.
A very old human game, dressed up with an absurdly elaborate television production.
Which brings me, somewhat unexpectedly, back to journaling.
Because perhaps that’s what life logging has always been for me too: watching the little signals, collecting the seemingly insignificant details, trying to understand the larger story while I’m still living inside it.
I stopped for a while.
There were good reasons.
But here I am again, five minutes before September, talking to myself through a microphone about wolves, leaking kitchens, collapsed sewer pipes, work, privacy, holidays and social deduction games.
Not a bad way to start again.
And if you know me and you’re into these games too: invite me.
I love this stuff.
Good weekend. Take care.
And now, apparently, I have to go.
Ooooooowwwwwww.
What's on your mind?