> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://jjones.dubricians.org/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Animal Crossing Hoops - URL: https://jjones.dubricians.org/animal-crossing-hoops/ - Published: 2026-05-11T00:29:45.000Z - Updated: 2026-05-11T00:29:45.000Z - Description: or, When Do We Quantify "Who" Versus "What"? - Author: Jay Jones, OSDW - Tags: Profoundly Mundane, #jjonesaethem, Animal Crossing, Newsletter, #Migrated-1789060937657, #Import 2026-09-10 12:22 I was busy concentrating on dinner when I heard it, an exclamation from a player of the game Animal Crossing. The complaint was simple. It was familiar. In fact, I had held and expressed a similar contention earlier in the day. If one is not familiar with this game, the premise is simple. The players of the game are human characters, and the tenants one can invite to their island, as I understand it, are anthropomorphic characters. They come in, begin by living in a tent, get their proverbial grift on, and proceed to improve their station until they have houses and other nice things. In this game, one receives visits to their island from other anthropomorphic characters, and other players as well. This also explains another reason for the game’s common success that I’ve noticed. Certainly there is much more to this game, but I’m the wrong person to ask about that. “I don’t get it,” she said, “They come in and talk about how grateful they are for this that and the other, and then they \[the visitors\] want to give them \[her tenant characters\] gifts and do nice things for them. But *I own the island*! I’m the one running this! Where’s my thanks?” There will be times when other people are the mirror that one needs to ascertain the azimuth of where they are themselves located at any particular time, and this was my mirror for sure. In it, I was given the immediate thought: What is more *important* in the end, the ***agent***, or the ***action***? Which one lives longer? Which one holds the true impact? There have been times for sure, and we have all likely felt this notion, when we’ve put effort into something that was deemed our responsibility, whether that attribution was impressed by ourselves, or others, only to see our work and efforts washed away and given to another. It is confusing. Sometimes it hurts. Other times, the experience on its own is cheapened by it. At least in our own determination. But is it really? The agent of the action is by all means critically important. The action does not complete in the way intended without it. However, the action completing in the first place is the entire point. The situation is meaningless without it. The agent, without the action, is off skipping through the tulips or some other nonsense. No one knows, no one cares. Let’s say that we are playing a game of pickup basketball at the park with a fellow named Sam. We are playing for money, say ten dollars a head, (no matter how one might feel about the morality of gambling) against two other like-minded individuals. Someone is going home with double their pocket cash. Two “someones,” to be exact. I have the ball, and I want to pass it to Sam, but he is engaged in keeping the other two players off of me, so I take the shot myself, and make it. Two points. But Sam is congratulated for the basket. What is the emotion there? Confusion? Betrayal? We are odd creatures, but we do come with a particular flow of logic. It would be highly natural for us to then be offended. Will it matter if we win the game? If that was the determining shot, then Sam gets the glory, and we go ignored. But, we won the game, so all is forgiven. If we lose the game, we would be more inclined to replay that scene in our heads and stew over the fact that the only good and redeeming quality of that match is now in the popular hands of Sam? Quite likely. But… What is more important to the point, the actual transfer of the victor’s spoils, the gaining of assets, which was the entire reason for the game, the final score, or who made the shot? Perhaps another factor in this equation is if the agent themselves is asking the question, or an outside source? Outside sources may not even be asking the question in the first place. They are either counting their fresh twenty bucks, or mourning the same loss. They don’t care about who shot what. In fact, they may want to figuratively lynch Sam if they lost. That could be your silver lining. We can agree that the overall point, the precipice of value is winning the game \[the action\], much more than who made it happen \[the agent\]. There is no argument that although we know intrinsically that’s the focus, it’s just not the way human behavior works. I don’t have the answer on how to get around this. All I know to do is to work on my determination for the final outcome. Perhaps all’s well that ends well? Or not.