Gaming and the Game Objective Based Mindset

Parents and educators have been dreading this one for years.

Reality is Broken:
http://www.amazon.com/Reality-Broken-Games-Better-Change/dp/1594202850/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1297280140&sr=8-1

Fascinated by the idea behind this book. Ive always seen merit in what I think of as the "game" mindset, or objective based thinking (you could just as easily see this as a `strategic` or `military` approach to situations as well.) The idea runs like this: most games drop you into a world of clearly defined rules and objectives, and your task is to overcome, meet, destroy, realize them, etc. The mental engagement that this takes can be applied easily to real-life situations, assuming you are creative and resourceful enough to re-articulate them as such.

For example, eight months ago, I decided I was bored with America, but wasn't sure exactly what to do about it. I distinctly remember that I was in the middle of (somewhat obsessively) deconstructing one of the games in the Fallout series, and had an odd revelation during a not-so-odd moment.

I'll spare you the details but basically I was caught up in a particular situation in the game: I wasn't sure where I needed to go. Now, the overall objective of this game is beyond the 10,000 character limit of this writing space, but essentially the main character is a member of a surviving bomb shelter group, and must venture out into the world to find some replacement parts to restore the life-systems of his community vault, Etc. So basically my community was going to all die unless I found these parts. So the clock was ticking and I hit one of those plateaus where I had no idea what to do so I decided to walk around the main town and just--for lack of a better idea--talk to people. Pretty radical stuff. After a few conversations about gecko beer and nuclear waste, I received an odd--seemingly unrelated side quest, during which I accidentally stumbled upon a lead to a new town, and found some clues that renewed my journey...

Ok, there was a point in there somewhere I was trying to make...

Got it. So while I was thinking about the character's quest, I made a strange parallel to my own life. After my year of post-graduate volunteer service was finished, what was I going to do with myself? Inspired by the game design, I started talking to people about my ideas.  Then I made a chart, just like one of the little quests the game might have given you, with bullet points and concrete objectives and all that stuff, outlining some basic ideas and themes that were important to me: make some money, get a respectable, challenging and engaging job, have some crazy adventure, etc.

I turned them into the following list, which I literally kept it in my pocket and checked off over the past year.


1. Escape America.
2. Get certified to teach English as a second language.
3. Use that degree to secure a full time ESL teaching position.
4. Make enough money to travel around, learn the language, see crazy things, pay off student loans, meet crazy people, etc.

All of which I did. Except the part about paying back student loans. Because with the plane tickets I pretty much broke even (maybe) for the whole trip. And all things considered that's so not bad considering everything I saw.

Or shot. Don't see too many riverside shooting galleries in America anymore...

This objective-based, strategic thinking is something I have directly inherited from my love of games when I was younger--it is only in the last four years or so that I have been bold enough to apply it to my daily life. To the pursuit of jobs, the strengthening of relationships, and even combating the ups and downs of our emotional\spiritual existence. Creating a list and pursuing an objective--even if the objective is not the `be all and end all` of your life, is an excellent way to stir things up, and get yourself moving toward something else. That might in turn lead to something else. That might just get you frustrated and send you in yet another direction. Which might get you to Enlightenment. Hell, it happened to the Buddha.

I did the same thing when I returned to America. Albeit, a little less adventurous:

1) Pay off my student loans, which led to...
2) Get a job, which led to...
3) Systematic and Deliberate Search and Connect to secure a job, which led to...
4) Conversations with Shop owners and Resume Distribution, which led to...

The completion of Objective 2, and offered money to help complete Objective 1. As well as establish Objective 5) Go back to school for Emergency Medical Training Certification. It all might sound foolish, but when framed this way, the whole process helped me set up, search, and move toward something I have always wanted. Which is exactly what I need right now as stability in this post-college greyness I find myself in.

It can be as specific or as general as you like. Though obviously the specific is preferable, because it offers a tangible measurement of your progress.

1. Spend time with Baby Sis vs. Climb Mt. Washington with Baby Sis.
2. Go back to school vs. Go back to school for EMT Certification.

There are no limits, kid.

CPP

`Without Chicken Pot Pie, life cannot have any meaning.`

We need some more media...

K going from working 50+ teaching hours a week to some part-time wine shelving has left me reaching for my library card to fill in the spare hours. So as a result Ive been reading a few things lately...

1. That Levitt\Dubner collaboration `Freakonomics`--I know I'm years behind on this one (there's your common theme) but have to say that I dig the hype: love the subversive kick, love the application of economic principles to everyday concerns, love that I'm forced to look at the world through the lens of `incentives` for a while. So what DO Lady Gaga and Turkish ESL students have in common?

2. Gladwells `The Tippping Point` and `Blink`--Again, WAY behind. But again, fresh perspectives on what would seem to be everyday issues. `Thin-slicing` has literally changed the way I clean myself up in the morning. Ive been consciously walking out of the room, walking back in, and quickly turning to face myself in the mirror to see if my first impression of myself is `sharp.` That probably makes no sense. Or maybe everyone already does this. Either way. No one ever taught me.

3. Larsson's `The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo`--Bi-sexual, tattooed, bad-ass detective chick seeks vengeance on assholes around her and unwraps wrongdoing in the process? I can't believe none of my friends recommended this to me sooner...

Frankenstein, Morbid Introspection, and the Riddle of the Cosmos.

Step 1: Elevate to the mythical: Like Dr. Frankenstein, murmuring to himself moments before flipping the electrical switch and infusing dead, decaying matter with the new spirit of life, the life of this journal shall begin with the chanting of an incantation...

This one learned in a far away land...

Var!
Yok!
Var!
Yok!

A Turkish murmur: It exists! It does not exist! It exists! It does not exist! And THUS from a contradiction ten thousand binary watts of vibrant mathematical HTML madness EXPLODE. And then, as we watch intently, a string of Letters, the first signs of life, slowly begin to emerge within the whiteness. And then a single page, summoned from the labyrinth twists of the Internet, finally unveils something: a new forum--an open notebook--that may offer some perspective on something we still cannot fully articulate: where we have come from, where we are now, and--hopefully--where we will be going...

It may be a highly personal journey...

And thus a new beginning...and enough of this mythical language origin story bullshit....

!!!

Step 2: Origins: Alright, to start, I haven't been writing much in the past few years; what was once an identity defining passion has slipped to nothing more than something I do to pass a few spare moments. My notebooks have degraded from visionary plot ideas, character sketches, and theories about the human mind to a collection of idle, disjointed scribbles. Some conversational material. Maybe a couple script ideas. And so I'm taking these ideas to the new forum. The advantages of the online notebook: a single location, some editing potential, and a public display of the writing, which means I will have to--at least, to some extent--edit some of the incomprehensible madness out, which will in the long term help me so to say separate the sheep from the goats while sorting my thoughts. And if it makes more sense to you, the reader, I figure, it will certainly make more sense to me.

But on an even more fundamental level this new writing is about gaining Perspective. Writing is about charting, separating, and assigning some meaning and order to the ups and downs of our existence. That's how I see it, at least. How the hell I get here? Where the hell am I going to? And in the meantime what is attractive and fascinating and exhilarating and beautiful to me?

I used to write out of a sense of isolation--a sense that the whole world was mad and spiraling in a direction I did not comprehend or understand; that the pursuits of my parents and many of my peers were idle, fleeting and superficial--pursuits not of life and passion, but of passivity and distraction. I used to write with the hope of elevating myself to the level of the genius I admired through the eyes of the greatest minds that ever lived, pages of literary\philosophical history. I used to read and write to, as Alan Bennett noted in his play, The History Boys, feel that peculiar consolation that "a hand is reaching out and grabbing yours."  That's mostly sounding like bullshit to me, now. But something of that still rings true to me: sometimes books are better companions than actual people. Sometimes a segment, a piece--even a single reflection--can be pleasing in a way that almost nothing else can. To not be alien and estranged, but to be understood. To not be alone and isolated, but to be part of something greater than yourself. By someone. By something else. Even if its from the hand of an author whose bones have long since gone the way of the buffalo...


I don't take no stock in dead people...


As I said, in recent years Ive been less convinced about this: I don't think that literature and art will bring any lasting happiness IN AND OF ITSELF. But I do think that the challenges of literature as applied to your life and especially shared with others can be utterly life transforming. One of the most interesting films in recent years follows two siblings who take literally every possible chance to reenact scenes from their favorite films: for them, the boundary between art and life is blurred--its an ideal that Ive struggled to realize in my own life.

I think there is nothing so beautiful as sharing in a work of art (or anything of passion, really) with someone else who can appreciate it, and understand. Especially when you do that by bringing it to the present activity of your life.


Enough theory. Back on track...


Step 3: A History Lesson. Meditation\Cognative Therepy\Self Determination\Prozac have cured a lot of my morbid introspection in the past few years, but something of that dissatisfaction, that loneliness, lives on. Even in a crowd of my closest friends, I often feel that I am never more than the misfit pretending to be something I am not. That I never quite belong. That I am something like a scientist in social situations, often discerning patterns and the truth of the social matrix, but rarely able to...well...enjoy it...at least not in the way that some people are able to. Some people seem to vibe endlessly, drawing off of each others energy, apparently enjoying social interaction for its inherent value, something Ive only been able to touch under the influence of a few potent substances like cocaine and amphetamines. So either Im a psychopath or an introvert--but maybe its more complicated than that. I have high expectations about the world around me--a plague which was most likely instilled in me by the adventurous things I read about in books when I was younger.

Of course, as I noted, maybe thats just the introvert in me--often drawing energy and meaning from reading, music, projects, etc. 

But something about it disturbs me. Kierkegaard once noted,


I have just now come from a party where I was its life and soul; witticisms streamed from my lips, everyone laughed and admired me, but I went away — yes, the dash should be as long as the radius of the earth's orbit ——————————— and wanted to shoot myself.

He hits on something big. I often don't feel like an outcast--at least not superficially. I feel quite capable of having decent conversations and connections, and even--as I learned from traveling alone abroad--that I can make and maintain friendships almost anywhere I go. But that gnawing sense of dislocation--of rarely finding someone who understands, persists. And its something Ive never quite escaped from--no matter my perspective, my current frame, or my (altered) state of mind. Of course, then there's the obvious reversal: that social interaction becomes FIRE when the object of it is clear: living up to a challenge, or a bet, or--to state the obvious-- impressing a woman. But watching others--I would give ANYTHING to be able to enjoy social interaction for its own sake--the way they do, and not have it merely be a performance, a recitation of clever things read and heard from others, a few quips, and the plot lines from my own adventures.

Getting overly morbid...

Fair enough. But I do honestly believe that most of that morbid introspection has been replaced by a new sense of life and its endless possibilities, and much of my writing these days has been centered on improving my life, collecting the wisdom of past experiences and shaping them into something which informs my decisions about the future. Careers. Relationships. Crazy pick-up-and-go adventures. You name it. And that's about as close to a philosophy of living as I get these days. Ive recently admired Nietzsche's approach to philosophy: that what cannot practically and definitely alter your decisions and change your life should be quickly discarded. None of that academic shit.


So let's see: Frankenstein, Morbid Introspection, and the Riddle of the Cosmos. So much for a coherent theme...but maybe the current schizophrenic nature of this blog will run its course and I'll settle on a few topics. Only time will tell. Or maybe the schizoid itself will be the unifying theme. Thats some consolation for the moment, at least. It certainly reflects the things bouncing around my head right now...

And thus the monster--who cannot possibly understand what it is saying-- continues the doctor's chant: It exists. It does not exist. It exists. It does not exist... 

Mood: Reflective, if a tad isolated.
Music: Kanye/Joy Division.