Player Expectations.

Courtesy of Critical Distance last Sunday, I was directed to these two articles analyzing Modern Warfare 3.  The first, written by John Walker of Rock Paper Shotgun, is fairly critical of MW3's design and lack of choice. The second is a rebuttal by Brendan Keogh (a writer for Edge and Kill Screen) defending the game a bit more.

When we play games, we tacitly agree to a contract.  We agree to be bound by the rules of the game as long as the game will give us the experience we're looking for.  In soccer, that means that only 11 players can be on the field at a time.  If we didn't follow this contract, some teams would rush the field with 25 vs. 5.  The experience of competition and teamwork that most players play soccer for would be ruined by the unfair odds.  In Hide and Seek, opening your eyes while people hide ruins the exploratory and deductive fun to be had by actually following the rules.  Likewise, by obeying the rules of video games, we gain the entertainment, challenge, competition, etc., that its gameplay has to offer.

For example, no one complains about Zelda's linearity.  I've never read a review that complains that a Zelda game doesn't allow you to join Gannondorf or asks for the ability to kill random townspeople.  No, in Hyrule, we are on our best behavior.  We put the cuccos back in their cages, we go on fetch quest after fetch quest, we save the children, rescue the horse, and, at the end of the day, prevent the end of freedom and goodness at the hands of Ganon.  In so doing, we feel like a hero.  We are challenged.  We participate in a story of courage and sacrifice.  These choices are part of what we expect from the game and we submit to the limitations of "goodness" gladly.

I think this is the central point that Keogh makes in his follow-up article.  Modern Warfare 3 makes no attempt to be a free-flowing, open world game where choice is a central theme (and mechanic).  This in no way makes it less of a game (After all, choices are still being made on a moment-by-moment, objective-by-objective level), it just makes it a different kind of game than Walker wanted to play or expected to play.

The core difference between Keogh and Walker's playthroughs also comes down to their beliefs of what a player should be.  Increasingly, I think this is what will divide games more than anything else in the coming few years.  Must players, necessarily, be the sole decision maker for how the game progresses (e.g. Minecraft)?  Or can players take a slight back-seat position to the designer's decisions (e.g. Final Fantasy)?

I wholeheartedly support Keogh's final conclusion and I think he says it more elegantly than I could.  So here it is:

So this is what I ask of you [Walker], and of all videogame critics and players alike: stop using “freedom” as a metric for a game’s quality or, even worse, for a game’s gameness. Every game is a dance between player and code, but that doesn’t mean the player always gets to lead. A game that leads the player can be just as meaningful, significant, intelligent, stimulating or exhilarating as a game that lets the player do whatever they wish (within the games confines). The player is not the centre of the equation, and neither is the game. It’s the interrelationship between the player and the game that matters most.

Minecraft Chronicles, pt. 2

I’ve been on this island for months, probably.  After those first few nights, struggling to scrape together enough supplies to survive, I’ve made a decent home.  I’ve plumbed the depths of a huge cavern.  I’ve mapped out my surrounding ocean so that I know where to go next.  To that end, I’ve been slowly building out a minecart track to the nearest continent. 

It’s been a few weeks of work on the track.  It’s slow going.  Iron is not exactly the most abundant resource in my caverns.  I’ll lay out 64 tracks, spend a few days finding iron, lay out 64 tracks, etc…  This morning, I finally completed the stone support going off to the continent and a thought struck me.  Why am I building track out here?  Why don’t I just move my base?  Heck, why don’t I go find a village?  That’s why I came here in the first place, right?

I head back to my base and gather a few supplies.  My clock, a compass, enough materials for a new map as I’m exploring, a few pickaxes and swords.  Basic survival stuff.  Maps are huge, right?  It surely won’t take long to find a village.

After about a week of exploring, I’ve exhausted my map.  No village that I could find anywhere in its borders.  Disappointed, I start heading back home, across the forest, through the huge swamp, and over a very nice plain.  I take a look at my map to make sure I’m walking the correct bearing, when all of a sudden, I fall.

Turns out that plain had a few ravines cutting through it.  Big ravines.  My insides are squashed out by gravity and, in my last moments, I see my two maps, clock, a good amount of iron, some gold, and all of my tools scatter across the ground.

Horrified, I respawn all the way back home.  Now mapless, I have no idea how I’ll get back to my body to get all my valuables back.  All I had left in my base was a half-used stone pickaxe.  Trusting in the map I had somewhat memorized in my head, I immediately run in the direction I think my stuff might be.

It’s four days of wandering before things start looking somewhat familiar.  There’s the forest that I crossed through.  And the edge of that desert.  And there’s a bunch of pigs here.  I think that’s near the plain.  Lo and behold, I came across the very same plain that I traipsed across before.  Before long, I found the ravine, all of my belongings still at the bottom. 

Very carefully, I mined my way to the bottom of the ravine, accidentally hurting myself in the last little jump.  But everything was there.  Now, to get back up…

I did it.

Hey.

Guess what?

It's over.

A month ago, I wrote this post, challenging myself to practice thinking and writing over the course of 30 days.  In that time, I have written 30 posts, lots of words, and thought quite a bit.  I've started directing my first short film, reconsidered my career, and gotten rid of my home internet service.  Are you ready for some life lessons from all this?

1. Discipline is great.  It's really worth it to sit down and force yourself to do something.

2. Planning ahead is better.  Knowing that, at the end of the day, I'd have to write something has made me think more intentionally throughout my day.  I actually look for ideas to articles.  I write them down.  I live life more interestingly when I know I have to bring home something of worth to share with my adoring fans (read: whoever clicks on the links to get here).

3. I think I still like writing.  So that's nice.

4. Hm.  I'm sure there'll be more.

Tonight's post sort of snuck up on me, to be honest.  By now, I'm so stuck in the rhythm of blogging every night that it's weird to think that the required part is over (for now).  I still have several ideas written down for stuff to talk about (including the upcoming Minecraft Chronicles) - and that's all just stuff in my head.  Can you even imagine what will happen if I started reading more criticism and responding to that?  Or worse, actually playing video games and thinking critically about them?  Good heavens.  It's staggering.

So thanks for sticking around this last month.  The posts will  by no means cease just because I'm not requiring it of myself.  In fact, I might just keep up the blog-a-day thing for a while longer.  See how far it'll go, ya know?

Thanksgiving.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.  Like many other bloggers (probably, I think...), here's a small list of things I'm thankful for:

1. Food.  It's a simple thing.  I take it for granted.  
2. Clean water.  Whenever I want it.  It even gets heated! 
3. A family that loves each other.  
4. A mom and dad who are best friends.  Their marriage has never, ever faltered.  They've had to put up with a lot through the years, but I have never doubted their love for one another.
5. Sisters.  I guess.  
6. A full time job that I like that's sort of in my field. 
7. A location for the short film I'm working on.

You know what?  It's positively obscene how much I have to be thankful for.  I am a tremendously blessed person and no list, no matter how long, can capture the number or quality of gifts that the Lord has lavished me with.

Happy Thanksgiving.

The Minecraft Chronicles, pt 1.

I've been playing more Minecraft lately.  Maybe you've noticed.

So I'm combining a couple of blog-tested ideas for a few posts.  Since gamers should be artists and I love telling stories and stories have characters, my Minecraft Chronicles shall center on my desire to find a village.  And you're going to hear about it!

The more I work hard to find that village, the more interesting things will be, right? 

Here's hoping.  For you guys' sake.

Why does Mad Men work?

I just finished watching the first season of Mad Men today after borrowing it from a friend.  In the last few years, I’ve heard a lot of buzz, but was never intrigued by the premise.  I’m just not that interested in watching 1960s ad executives philander, you know?  After a few years of that, though, I admitted that I was interested in seeing what the hype was all about.

It’s a great show.  The characters are incredibly well thought out and brilliantly performed.  The production design is truly remarkable.  I wasn’t alive in the 60s, but, after an hour watching Mad Men, I feel like I would recognize cultural artifacts from the time just as quickly as someone raised then.  The cinematography is absolutely incredible.  Always intentional and interesting, a still from this show could be painted on a canvas and be at home in a museum.

Despite how much I’ve enjoyed this show, I can’t quite figure out what makes it tick, story-wise.  Sure, the main character is great.  Don Draper is a man that all women want and all men want to be – calm, bold, suave, creative, and action-oriented.  Like Indiana Jones before him or James Bond before him, audiences are drawn to characters that are just more interesting than us.  Except Don doesn’t raid temples or save the world.  In each episode, his desire line is significantly more muted.  In fact, in many episodes, he just doesn’t seem to have one. 

The same could be said for many of the characters.  Very rarely is there an episode-long desire guiding the action of a particular character.  This really leads to some muddy stories.  There are episodes that seem to drag on forever because nothing is really moving forward – at least, not at a television pace. 

And yet, it works.  I kept on watching episode after episode. 

I’ve got some thoughts on why I kept coming back for more, but I’m curious to know what you think.  Have any of you seen Mad Men?  Why do you like it?  What kept/keeps you coming back to watch more?

Wither.

I recently played a short game called Wither.  It’s yet another art game that I’ll insist is so profound and yet people will just stare at me as I try to explain it.

Spoilers be below.

As near as I can tell, Wither places you in the shoes of a survivor of a car crash.  You may or may not have been the responsible party.  Either way, your brother (or other loved one) is dead and you promised to bring him twelve flowers.  The game then allows you to explore a small town, accomplishing small deeds in exchange for flowers to bring to his grave. 

I need to play through it again to chew through it again, but one thought really stuck out to me as I played: I was really sad.  Again I see the uniqueness of playable media.  I really lived in the death of my character’s brother.  Not in a creepy way or a way that assumes more emotional investment than a 20 minute game requires, but for that full 20 minutes, I was thinking about death.  Every action that I took reminded me of death.  Every flower was another promise that I had fulfilled.  Every character I talked to was someone else who could help assuage my survivor’s-guilt-ridden conscience. 

Had this been a short film, I would definitely have been affected, but there is a greater degree of separation between me and the characters.  At any given moment, I can choose to disengage my emotions and stop feeling what’s going on in the story.  Not so in Wither.  In order to progress, I necessarily must continue toward the goal of the game.  A goal which, might I remind you, was really, really sad.  Even if I wanted to disengage, every little interaction forced my emotional involvement in some small way. 

Anyway, it was a cool experience.  Yet another example of how games can be used to make us think differently.

Maslow and Minecraft.

Vicodin is still running through my system, so forgive me if this is less interesting than normal. 

Minecraft 1.0 came out this weekend.  I guess that’s a pretty big deal.  I’ve been playing it off and on for a few months now.  I bought it with the big Adventure update a few versions back, anxious to find a town.  There, I would build a castle and I, as the benevolent king, would protect the town from the nasties that would seek to destroy it in the darkness of night. 

My first few in-game days were not so hot.  I couldn’t find coal for about five in-game days, so I was stuck digging in the dark.  When I finally got my feet under me and found a cavern to base my explorations out of, I ended up having to start from scratch when I died by lava a few times.  (I finally figured out to leave a couple of basic necessities in my home base…)  After that, I couldn’t seem to find any iron deposits for the life of me.  It seemed like most of my shafts ended up finding either a) redstone or b) absolutely nothing.  It was mildly frustrating. 

And yet, I’ve been able to eek out a living on this strange world.  In my early explorations, it seemed as though I was on an island in the middle of a vast ocean.  I told myself that couldn’t be.  Maybe I just hadn’t found the right corner that connected me to another big hunk of land.  Surely, there was a town just over that ridge where I could set up a more permanent base.  Eventually, I discovered that you can build maps, and so my explorations began in earnest.  Guess what?  I was on an island in the middle of a vast ocean.  Only the furthest edges of my map bore anything other than blue. 

Since that terrible discovery, I’ve been trying to figure out what to do.  My whole point in playing this game was to find a town.  What now?  I guess I should go find one, right?

It’s more difficult than it sounds, though.  The nearest continent is about a game-day away – and that’s with a shortcut created by some powered minecarts.  It takes an enormous amount of resources for me to get off my island, let alone set up shop at a new location. 

My whole situation has reminded me of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.  Almost the entire game so far, I’ve been stuck on the physiological and safety needs.  I barely have enough food to keep my health up.  If I’m not careful, nighttime is still a very scary time for me.  My little hovel has been nearly blown to smithereens by creepers four of five times now.  How can I expect to be able to explore and create if I’m still trying to survive? 

Hopefully someday I’ll find that rich source of iron that will allow me to experiment with minecart tricks.  Maybe I’ll find a huge trove of diamond or a magical, flying pony or something.  But until then, I’ll just keep working, trying to find that village out there.

A blogging haiku.

Discipline is hard.
When you skip out on one day
You forget to write.

Wisdom Teeth.

I got my wisdom teeth removed today, so I won’t be writing anything terribly interesting tonight.  My wonderful mother (have I mentioned how great my parents are?) and sister are here to take care of me and I’m a little vicodin’d up, so I’m going to stay away from blogging today.

I didn’t really think through this blogging every day for a month thing, did I?  I get rid of my internet, get my wisdom teeth removed, travel a bit…  It was a terrible month to start.  And yet, it’s worked.

Since I’ve started doing this, I’ve racked up somewhere around 1200 views.  As a comparison, my total number of views ever is 2200 or so.  That says something about consistently updating, right?  (Or my extended social network’s masochistic reading habits…)

Speaking of my audience, is there a chance that anyone out there has any requests?  I’ve got more than enough material to keep talking at the internet for a while, but on the off-chance that there’s something you want me to talk about, the comments would be the place to do that.

So… thanks for sticking with me so far this month.  Better update to come tomorrow.

What's at stake?

The past two posts have been important questions of character development.  By establishing a strong desire, the main character can push the story forward.  By putting obstacles in their path, the story is advanced in meaningful ways and the character is forced to confront their inner demons.  But all of that is moot if it never matters if they succeed at their goal. 

The last major question to ask about the character is “What’s at stake?”  What happens if the character doesn’t achieve their desire?  What if they fail?  It is this question that gives the character motivation to overcome their obstacles.  It is what gives the story urgency and importance.  And, honestly, it may be the stakes more than anything else that allow us to identify with a character.  Without clear stakes, we as an audience don’t know what the point is.

Every desire, no matter how banal, has stakes associated with it.  Even the desire for a coffee and the obstacle of driving to Starbucks.  The stakes are comfort.  The achievement of desire.  But that’s not a good story, is it? 

The more dramatic the stakes, the better the story.   Look at the Lord of the Rings films.  The desire of most of the characters is clear: destroy Sauron by destroying the ring.  The obstacles are numerous.  There’s an entire army of orcs and Uruk-hai.  Good guys go rogue.  He’s made allegiances with the other men from the east.  What is at stake?  The entire freedom of Middle Earth.  Elrond makes this pretty clear at the council at Rivendell.  Should the Hobbits fail at destroying the ring – should Sauron be reunited with it – the entire free world would fall to his oppressive, evil regime.  Those are some pretty high stakes.  These high stakes are what get us so involved in the story.

So what is at stake in our lives?  I think it can depend on the desire.  Maybe a marriage is at stake.  Maybe physical or emotional health.  Maybe the achievement of a closely held dream.  For some desires, maybe it’s something much more tangible.  If you don’t get that job, you won’t be able to eat.  Without your passionate drive to end sex trafficking, more women will be oppressed and suffering will continue.  The larger the stakes, the scarier it is to live life as a story.

To me, one of the most motivating stakes in my life-as-story thoughts is waste.  I’m terrified of wasting the life and talents that God has given me.  For many years now, I’ve hated the word potential.  According to my teachers and mentors growing up, I’ve been given a lot.  One of the things at stake in my life is turning around and thinking that I didn’t achieve that potential.  I’m absolutely terrified of arriving at the pearly gates and, like the wicked man in the parable of the talents, having nothing to show for the gifts I’ve been given. 

I don’t think this is an abnormal fear.  We’ve all been given magnificent gifts.  We have minds that can think.  Most of us have bodies that work normally.  We have passions and desires and the ability to achieve those things.  What a waste of all that if we don’t even attempt to pursue those desires. 

What’s at stake for your desires?  What will you be forced to deal with if you don’t achieve it?  What won’t you get if you don’t overcome your obstacles? 

What's in the way?

The second biggest question when developing characters (at least when I learned screenwriting basics) is “What is in the way?”  Desires are not worth a whole lot if we don’t have anything stopping us from getting them, right?  I mean, they wouldn’t even be desires, would they?  They’d just be…  I have this thing.

Anyway.  I think obstacles are the very stuff of story.  Without them, stories wouldn’t exist.  It would just be Once upon a time, a prince went off in search of a princess.  Then he found her and they lived happily ever after.  There’s nothing of interest there.  Nothing moving.  Nothing inspiring.

Take Twilight, for example.  I have never read the books, but I saw the movie last week.  One of the central problems in the first two acts of the film is the lack of obstacles.  There is no clear obstacle keeping the lovers apart.  And that’s what makes a love story interesting!  It’s the Montagues and Capulets fighting.  It’s the clear stubbornness that “I’m fine on my own!”  It’s the curse that keeps her a hawk in the day and him a wolf in the night.  Twilight didn’t interest me until the third act, when all of a sudden, there was a real desire (keep dad safe) and obstacles in the path (evil vampires with a wicked sense of smell).

Oftentimes, in story, we find that there are actually two major obstacles in the way of the hero getting their desire.  The first is easy.  It’s the external obstacle.  In Star Wars, it’s the empire as symbolized by Darth Vader.  In Final Fantasy VII, it’s Sephiroth summoning Meteor.  In the excellent silent film, City Lights, it’s the Tramp’s poverty.  These are clear, physical obstacles preventing the heroes from getting what they want and, no doubt about it, they must be overcome.  But in the best stories, there is also a second obstacle: the internal. 

It’s a common trope that all characters need some kind of flaw, right?  But this flaw is usually so significant, it is this internal obstacle, not the external, that truly prevents the hero from getting what he or she wants.  In film school, one of the great questions we asked was, “How does who the character is get in the way of what the character wants?”  One of my favorite films (known and beloved by all for its artistic merit) is Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.  It satirizes so many things I hold dear, but it makes this distinction very, very clear. 

SPOILER ALERT.  (As if my whole blog doesn’t spoil all kinds of stuff…) (Also, go see this movie.)  (Now.)

At the climax, Scott goes to confront Gideon, the leader of the League of Evil Exes.  On the surface, the obstacle standing in the way of Scott reuniting with Ramona is Gideon.  He’s evil.  He has a cool sword.  And ninjas.  But Scott, ultimately, cannot defeat him.  One trippy dream sequence and one whispered, “I think I learned something” later and Scott has had his big transformation.  As he all but says out loud later, his biggest obstacle is that he has only found his value in girls rather than finding intrinsic value in himself.  Armed with this newfound “Power of Self-Respect”, Scott can defeat Gideon once and for all and reclaim the lady that he loves.  This time, though, he has a real chance of keeping her, since he’s not expecting her to be his sole affirmation of existence.  (If that sounds cheesy, just go see the movie.  It’s totally not.  Or it is.  Either way, it’s on purpose and awesome.)

Other stories do this much more subtly.  In many romantic comedies, it’s the moment that the guy realizes that his real enemy isn’t her parents/her friends/a long distance/whatever else.  Really, he just needs to settle down and commit to this wonderful woman, despite her flaws.  In the Lord of the Rings movies, it’s when Aragorn finally grows a pair and leads his kingdom.  In Casablanca, it’s when Rick calls in a favor with Renault to send Elsa away with her husband.  All of these moments – and simultaneous actions – are caused by these characters overcoming their fatal flaws and interior obstacles.

The interesting thing is that none of these characters would have overcome – or even been aware of – their internal obstacles and flaws if it had not been for the external flaws.  Without Sauron rising to power, Aragorn would have never questioned his decision to run away from the throne.  Without the drama in the romcom, the Guy would not have proposed.  Without the Nazis and Elsa’s husband, Rick never would have called in that favor and grown to be a freedom fighter again.

Ultimately, it is this battle that inspires us more than anything when we interact with stories.  Sure, watching the Empire go down is fun.  But we want to see the hero go from self-serving to self-sacrificing.  At the end of the day, that’s what makes us want to live our lives better.

I feel like I don’t have to do a lot of work to connect these story concepts to real life.  If we really want something as badly as I talked about yesterday, we will encounter resistance.  Obstacles will present themselves.  Maybe it’s funding.  Maybe it’s workplace politics and a stubborn superior.  Maybe it’s straight up evil men.  Either way, we will have external obstacles and I think it’s important to name them.  Naming an obstacle for what it is is the first step toward making a plan to overcome it.

Internal obstacles are a bit trickier.  Most characters spend the story finally discovering their real flaw.  They are usually ignorant at the beginning.  We, however, are often acutely aware of our flaws.  (I know I am.)  I do think – and this is getting a lot more speculative – that if we are aware of our flaws, then they become more like external obstacles.  We know what the issue is and we can make a plan to overcome it. 

Just like story characters, though, we have numerous hidden flaws.  There will always be blind spots in our understanding of ourselves.  I often find that, as I pursue what I want, I discover that the real blind spot – the real inner flaw – is a theological issue.  I don’t trust God.  I don’t trust that he’s good.  I don’t fully believe that he forgives me or empowers me or loves me.  For you, maybe it’s something else.  Maybe a secret arrogance or a hidden jealousy.  No matter what it is, the only way we’ll actually discover it is to pursue something.  We should keep on wanting something enough to risk until we are confronted by a facet about ourselves that we never knew. 

(Side note: this is why having important friendships is incredibly important.  They can tell us, often before we know ourselves, what that flaw is.  Maybe if we listen, we can avert the tragedies…)

So perhaps we should reframe how we look at the obstacles in our path.  It is they, not some inner discipline and force, that helps make the story worth the telling.  Obstacles show characters (and us) who they really are and what the real problem is.  It is the obstacles in life that God uses the most in shaping our character (this time I mean the inner person, not a story-person).  Through adversity, we grow and are shaped. 

What’s in your way?  What prevents you from getting what you want, both externally and internally?  How can you develop a plan to fight the external obstacles while remaining attentive to the internal? 

What do you want?

It’s a simple question, right?  What do you want?  One of the first words many children learn is “want”.  It’s almost an instinct.

The first major question in character development is “What does the character want?”  Good characters are active characters and they can’t be active without a desire.  It is this first imbalance that starts the action of the story.  This can’t just be any desire, either.  It has to be a desire so strong, that the character is willing to risk something to get it. 

In Gladiator (a favorite in my screenwriting classes), Maximus, more than anything else, wants to be with his family.  It is what motivates his wanting to win the battle in the beginning.  It is what stops him from returning to Rome with Caesar.  After their murder, it is what keeps him moving in an almost suicidal direction toward saving Rome.  And when he dies in the end, he not only dies as a hero (a very powerful way to end a story), he also finally gets the single thing that he’s been working toward for an entire movie.  He has risked everything, including the one thing he feared most, leadership of Rome, in order to be with his family again.

Even video game stories follow this rule of character development, often putting the player in the shoes of the character who wants the most.  Take the original Donkey Kong, for example.  There really isn’t much of a story.  We know that Jumpman’s girlfriend, Pauline, has been captured by Donkey Kong.  Obviously, Jumpman wants her back.  He wants her back so badly, that he’s willing to risk his life to climb up this building after Donkey Kong to get her back.  This single action, this single desire, is enough to drive an entire game’s action.

I have found that in the story that is our lives, this question is actually pretty difficult to answer.  Ask any college freshman what they want to major in, and 60% of the time, they’ll have no clue – at least, no strong desire.  (The cruel thing is that I know many students who don’t really figure that out until their senior year…)  I learned to start asking this question many years ago.

I moved from New Mexico when I was a junior in high school.  Obviously, that sort of thing is sort of disruptive to your social life, so, as a graduation gift a year and a half later, my parents sent me to New Mexico for a week to spend some time with my old friends.  I got to catch up with people, see graduation, play video games, and go to several graduation parties.  At one of these parties, I got into a conversation with one of my friends’ dad.  He had had a bit to drink and started giving us advice. 

He said some wise things to some other friends before turning to me, “You know what your problem is, Kemp?  You don’t know what you want.  You keep going out with these girls and breaking their hearts.  But it’s just because you don’t know what you want.  Before you go out with another girl, you better be sure you know what you want.”

He was right.  I spent most of high school going in and out of relationships with girls and hurting them every time.  All because I didn’t know what I want.  I didn’t know the kind of girl I was interested in.  I didn’t know who I was.  I didn’t know what I was doing or what I wanted to do.

What do you want?  What do you want so badly that you’re willing to risk to get it?  It may not be much.  Maybe you want that girl’s number.  Do you want it badly enough to risk the embarrassment of finding out that she’s got a boyfriend?  Maybe you want to get a master’s degree.  Do you want it badly enough to spend a few years after undergrad doing work you don’t like in order to save enough money for that master’s?  Maybe you want to be your own boss, work from home, and start your own business.  Do you want that so badly you’re willing to risk your livelihood, the embarrassment of failure, and a whole lot more?  Maybe you want something even bigger than that.

Actually achieving that desire is sort of irrelevant.  Many stories end with the characters never getting what they want.  Sometimes, they find out that they never really wanted that thing in the first place.  Or maybe it just wasn’t worth wanting.  Or maybe they just weren’t meant to get it.  Either way, their lives have been a story worth telling.  As Christians, we can trust that, for a time, God wanted us going after that thing.  Through that story, through that journey, he has shaped us into who we are.  Hopefully that’s more like him.

What about you?  What do you want?  Really.  Ask yourself that question.  What are you willing to risk to get?  How much does that desire factor into your daily life?  What are you doing today to get it?  If you’re not doing anything, how can you expect to really live a life worth telling?

Character.

I love story. 

I remember my first encounter with the study of story structure.  It was Drama 1 class in 9th grade with Jonathon Dunski.  (By no small coincidence, also the class I was in when the towers went down in 2001…).  We talked about three act structure, exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and the frequently missed denouement.  I was fascinated.  I started filtering everything I watched and played by that structure.

In Acting 1 class a few years later, we learned more about character development.  MOOSASSO, I think was the acronym.  Motivation, Objective, Obstacles, Strategy, Action, something…  something else… and outcome.  All things that every character should have in every scene.  It was the first time that I, as an actor, starting thinking in a more analytic way about character development.

It was unsurprising that when I changed my major to film in college, I focused on storytelling and structure.  I read lots of books (with many more to go).  I analyzed movies, TV shows, raw screenplays, and the video games that I played.  My understanding of story deepened and I grew to appreciate it more and more.  Robert McKee’s Story is a love letter to the screenplay and stories in general.  The Writer’s Journey, though not my favorite tool, is still an inspiring look at the deeper goings-on in the stories that we interact with every day.

Over the last several years, my life has been dominated by stories and storytelling.  The more I learn, the more determined I am to tell a good story with my life.  I don’t think that God has created us to sit idly by, wishing more exciting things were happening to us.  My church often quotes John 10:10, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”  A full life is not one where we never risk anything.  A full life, I think, should leave us full of stories to tell.  Stories about God’s goodness and provision.  Stories of desperate circumstances and terrible choices.  Stories that reflect the magnificent gift of life that God has given us.

The stories that inspire us the most have great characters driving them.  For the next couple of days, I want to address a couple of thoughts that I’ve had in the last few years about being that great character.  What makes a good character in a story?  How can we reverse engineer a storied life from that? 

Twilight.

Tonight, I did the unthinkable.  I watched the Twilight movie.

Hold the lynch mob.  It was a purely academic exercise, I promise.  As a student of culture, I realized that it was terribly ignorant of me to judge the film without even seeing it.  It seems that people either love it or hate it, so I wanted to know just what it was that was so divisive.

Going into it, I knew the sparkle thing was a big deal.  Vampires have never, ever sparkled before.  But they also don’t read minds.  Or behave so… stupidly.  So I just went in understanding that the mythology was not going to be what I traditionally understood as vampires or werewolves or anything else.  I knew that the lead actress, Kirsten Stewart, was criticized for a complete lack of emotion.  Got it.  I also knew that the love story was, at best, juvenile.  So I didn’t go in thinking I was about to witness something pure and beautiful.

And boy was I wrong.  It was the most beautiful film I’ve seen in years.

Not really.  Scared you for a minute, though, didn’t I?

If you’re only interested in my final verdict, I’ll save you reading the rest of this and say this: it’s no worse than many other mediocre movies.  It has many, significant problems, but we gloss over these all the time in adventure, sci-fi, and action movies all the time.  So I guess I’m not going to be a straight hater of this film, but I will never say that it’s a good movie. 

Now the details.

Let’s start with what was decent.  For one, it was a pretty film.  The cinematography, while not jaw-dropping, was not bad.  Several shots had great lighting and composure.  They used their environment well.   Second, I didn’t mind Robert Pattinson’s acting.  Though his accent faltered on a number of occasions, I at least believed him most of the time.  Looking through the IMDB trivia, I respect the investment he put into the role, as well (he didn’t talk to anyone for 5 weeks before filming trying to get into the isolation of Edward’s character).  For what it’s worth, I thought the last act of the movie was pretty good.  At least, it was good enough that I stopped taking notes and actually started caring about how the characters would survive.  Unfortunately, it wasn’t until then that I cared at all.

The first two thirds of this movie were pretty awful.  The narration was monotone and useless.  The music was cheesy.  The more I think about it, the less I respect the character of Bella.  She doesn’t really do anything, does she?  I mean, I guess she goes to school and stuff, but everything happens to her, not because of her.  The one time she influences the story is where she insists that they find a way to ensure her father’s safety.  So for over an hour, I’d say, we are just waiting for something interesting to happen.  Nothing does.

The biggest thing that bothered me was a lack of believability.  I mean, I know we’re dealing with fantasy here, but still.  There are rules. 

Take Edward Cullen.  He’s really bad at being a vampire.  You’d think that, for a guy that had graduated high school somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 times, he sure sucked at being secretive.  Bella asks him about why his eye color changes, “Uh…  Um…  Ya see…  It’s, uh, the fluorescent lights.  Yeah.  The lights.  That’s what it is.”  She tells him that she saw him stop the car with his hand and, instead of making something sensible up (“You’ve been through a lot, you might not remember what happened….  I was walking toward you and…”), he says, “No one will believe you.”  That’s not indicting, there, fella.  No one’s going to see that you’re hiding something weird.  You don’t have to worry about keeping your identity a secret for any reason.

Speaking of secrets, don’t you think Bella jumped a little too quickly to the vampire idea?  All it took was an incident whose remembrance could be heavily affected by the trauma, the fact that he was cold, and some other small detail that I can’t remember right now.  All of a sudden, this film that has thus far been fairly reasonable takes a dive into crazy town.

(But then again, Bella lives in crazy town.  Ladies, If a guy tells you “I don’t have the strength to stay away from you anymore,” your answer should not be, “Then don’t.”  That’s a sign you need lots of counseling.)

So why did the last act work so well?  Stakes.  Not wooden ones.  But something at risk.  Nothing was at stake through the whole first two thirds of the movie.  Edward doesn’t lose anything by telling his secret to Bella.  Bella doesn’t lose anything by being (or not being) with Edward.  No one’s in danger.  Not even her happiness seems to be at risk. 

One last note and I’ll let this rant come to a close.  I think Kristen Stewart is a better actor than we’ve been led to believe by this film.  There are several scenes (most of which are with her schoolmates) that she actually bursts to life.  She’s a believable 17 year old girl with interest in what’s going on around her.  I think the director purposely pulled her performance back when she’s with Edward.  When she’s with him, she reverts to this lifeless, monotone girl with no smile.  But whenever Jacob walks into the scene, she smiles and comes to life, pulling more attention as an actor with a vastly more interesting performance.

Honestly, the seeming purposefulness of this shocked me.  If I didn’t know that Team Edward wins, I’d say that this was the setup for the second (or third?) film’s love triangle and that Bella should end up with Team Jacob.  But that’s not what happens.  As I’ve been informed, Bella ends up marrying Edward.  To me, it seems like the director is being surprisingly subversive by controlling Kristen Stewart’s performance like that.  Isn’t the point of the books and movies that she ends up with Edward?  That he’s the right choice that makes her happy?  And yet, at least in this film, she bears more resemblance to a vampire when she’s with him than a happy, in love human.  In fact, her love for him seems more akin to a traditional vampire’s ability to charm someone than anything else.

Just an interesting note on the director and her lead actress. 

The spirit of the law.

As I continued to reflect on the letter of the law/spirit of the law distinction that I talked about the other day, my thoughts slowly became a little more personal.

As an oldest sibling and follower of Jesus, I fall definitively into the spirit of the law camp.  When I play poker, I avoid looking at other peoples' hands, even if they're open in plain sight.  When I played Super Smash Bros: Melee in high school, I would purposely avoid using fighting tactics deemed "cheap" by my friends in favor of having a good fight. I do this because I apply the behavior I choose in life (follow the law of God) to my behavior in games.  I feel like, in some way, my integrity takes a hit if I behave in a way that is clearly against the intent of the rules. 

This seems to be some confusion on my part, though.  Maybe I'm just really bad at moving into the magic circle.  The contract that we adhere to as players of a game is completely different than my contract with God (though I still believe there should be clear boundaries regarding behavior for the Christian, even within the magic circle).  Perhaps a little bit of rebellion is exactly what I need.  Rebellion is too strong of a word.  Perhaps, in the world of the game, our job is to find new expressions of the game's goals within the constraints of the rules.

In that way, maybe games are a lot more similar to life.  There are rules, but our job as humans is to find creative ways of bending them toward a certain purpose.  In life, there are some immutable truths.  Gravity, for example.  We can't just fly anytime we want.  Within that constraint, though, we made airplanes!  If the designer's intent in creating the law of gravity was to prevent humans from flying, we have broken the spirit of the law but maintained the letter of the law.  So, too, in games, perhaps the designer of Mafia (if there was one...) wanted us to experiment with different behaviors.  There are few behaviors explicitly outlawed by the rules because we are meant to play.  Find out what works and doesn't work.

So maybe I need to be more of a letter of the law gamer.  Maybe I need to push the envelope of what's acceptable within a game system rather than just passively accepting my role as hero of the world or solver of puzzles.  I think it's ideas like this that caused Jane McGonigal to suggest that playing video games will make the world a better place.  She's hooked on the idea that, by entering a safe place to push boundaries, we will learn to push boundaries in real life. 

Maybe she's right.

Gamers as Artists.

Read this.  Right now:

http://kotaku.com/5857873/games-are-art-only-when-youre-playing-them

A couple of brief observations tonight:

1. A quote from the article: "...is a symphony meant to be played or listened to?"  
2. I notice that the author of this article seems to be a believer.  Well, he's working on a Masters in Systematic Theology, so that's something.  This is one of the more original posts I've seen on Kotaku in a while and a believer wrote it.
3. His last thought is wondering how gamers would respond to a call to artistry.  How can gamers be artists?  And guess what?  All the comments have nothing to do with the article.  They're all about trolling.  That's telling.

 As you play games, how can you consider yourself a co-creator in the art of the game?  Does it require research?  Playing along with the story instead of seeking to break the game and stretch the rules (a la last night's post)?  What do you think?

The letter of the law.

Jesus once accused a group of 1st century Jewish religious leaders of obeying the letter of the law, but not the spirit of the law.  According to their own law, they were fairly sinless.  They took special care not to walk over an 1/8th of a mile on the Sabbath, they cleaned out their house of yeast before Passover, they gave a tenth of their income to the temple. 

But Jesus absolutely blasts them on one point: according to their law, it was permissible for them to find a loophole in the system whereby they could avoid their filial responsibilities to take care of their parents.  Sure, it was legal.  But it completely denied the elderly of financial support.  And there was no social security to fall back on.  So, though they were righteous according to the letter of the law, they were guilty of violating the spirit in which it was written.

I was thinking about this concept as it relates to games the other day. 

When we play games, we essentially enter into a behavioral contract.  We agree that we will limit our behavior to a certain accepted norm.  By doing so, we hope to win the game (thereby achieving other goals – having fun, proving we’re better, alleviating boredom, etc…).  The whole process should be relatively simple, right?  Observe a group of children playing at recess and it’s incredibly apparent that it’s not.

I think the concept of “letter of the law” and “spirit of the law” has a place in a game environment and players’ behavior tends to fall toward one or the other. 

One group of players believes that the rules give us the bounds of acceptable game behavior.  They spell out for us, in Mafia/Werewolf/Witch Hunt, for example, that, when the narrator tells the townspeople to go to sleep, everyone closes their eyes.  In freeze tag, if we’re tagged, we stay still.  But these players believe that the rules only spell out the explicitly acceptable (or unacceptable) game behavior.  Anything else, as long as it is not outlawed by a particular rule, is fair game.  So, in Mafia, even though your eyes are closed, there’s nothing in the rules that says anything about moving around.  Or talking.  Or giving back rubs to other players in the middle of the night cycle.  In poker, if another player is being sloppy and somehow reveals their hand, they’ll do their best to leverage that information.  None of these actions is explicitly forbidden according to the game rules, so they are absolutely acceptable in-game actions.

The other group of players believes that rules are there to give them a starting point to extrapolate proper in-game behavior.  When they played freeze tag, they would scream for help.  Surely, the point of freezing was to remove them as an active helper of the team, right?  Moving their mouth doesn’t do anything to unfreeze anyone else, so it seems like appropriate behavior.  In Mafia, during the night cycle, these players actually close their eyes and sit still.  In poker, they purposely don’t look at other peoples’ hands, believing that most of the fun of the game comes from the speculation, playing of odds, and understanding bets and bluffing, not from taking advantage of another players’ stupidity.

Each of these, taken to their extremes, can ruin the fun of a game.  Spirit of the law gamers essentially end up adding tons of extra rules.  They might try to enforce the laws of physics into a D&D game, for example.  Letter of the law gamers tend towards exploiting a system.  I think the true extreme of this type is online griefers.  Repeatedly crouching over a corpse is not outlawed by the rules of Halo.  Neither are ten minute long, four letter word filled diatribes against teammates.  But both of these clearly violate the social rules of the game and the spirit of the law of multiplayer gaming. 

So what do you think?  Do gamers fall into these categories at all?  What are the circumstances under which you might be more of a letter gamer or spirit gamer?  Which is the more acceptable behavior? 

Pokemon: White.

One of my best friends got married back in June and I was honored to be his best man.  I'd never done that before.  It was neat.  Anyway, I guess it's traditional to buy your party gifts.  So my friend decided to buy me Pokemon: White. 

Kind of an unusual choice for a 24 year old man, huh? 

You know what makes it worse?  It was my idea.

It's been a very long time since I've played a Pokemon game.  I think I bought Gold, but by that time, I was sort of over the whole system.  Let's be honest: the mechanics of a Pokemon game have never really changed.  After playing the heck out of the Blue version, I guess I just didn't see the point of playing the same game, but with unfamiliar creatures.

That's completely opposite from why I wanted the latest installment in the series.  In fact, I actually wanted to play this because it was the same, but different.  (I hate being such a typical consumer...)  I wanted to re-experience what I felt as an 11 year old first introducing Pokemon to my friends. 

The more I think about it - because the more I play it, the more I think about it - I realize that it really is just the nostalgia.  I mean, don't get me wrong, the central mechanic of the Pokemon games is fun.  It's like distilling RPGs down to an abundance of options when building out a party.

But that's it.  They're terribly grind-heavy.  The story is awful.  (Especially in White.  It's truly, terribly awful.)  The music is repetitive and, outside of maybe the classic battle theme and gym theme, is utterly uninspiring.  The characters are... non existent.  So what brings me back?

Ultimately, at my core, I'm an explorer.  In the original games, the thing that kept me playing was, "I wonder what pokemon are in the next area?  I wonder when my party will evolve?  I wonder what the next gym leader will be like?"  It's the desire to figure out what's next that kept me playing.  As a matter of fact, when I beat the Elite Four (or whatever they were called), I pretty much stopped playing.  I had discovered everything I was going to discover and had no desire to "catch em all," despite the log line.

And now, as I'm playing a new Pokemon game, I find that the same thing pulls me forward.  A childlike desire to see what's next.  To be a part of discovering how things work.  I've anxiously trained up my Roggenrola into a Boldore (suspiciously like my Blue-version rocky friends, Geodude and Graveller...) just to see what comes next.  It was a delight when, all of a sudden, my Tepig evolved into a Pignite.  I have no idea what the next city on my journey is called, but I'm sure it will be filled with cheesy character lessons and, most importantly, new pokemon to discover and figure out.

Pokemon: White really is the same, just different.  Same formula.  Same battles (mostly).  Same gameplay.  And that's what I love about it. 

Future Nostalgia.

I moved around a lot growing up.  My dad wasn’t in the army or anything, but, from birth to eighteen, I think I lived in eight different communities.  Every time we moved, I genuinely thought about just not investing in our new home.  I wouldn’t make friends.  I wouldn’t get involved in the community.  In short, I wouldn’t care.

It never worked.  It turns out that’s just not in my nature.  So I made friends.  Good friends.  Great friends, even.  And then we’d move again.

Over time, the wounds of losing friends to distance have closed up.  Every time I move, I find new friends and a new community to invest in.  But every once in a while, a song will pop up on my iTunes or I’ll catch a whiff of some unique scent.  Maybe I’ll just randomly get in the right mood.  Either way, I start missing the life and friends I’d had before.  I remember all the good times and think about the memories we never got the chance to make. 

Future nostalgia is kind of like that, except I know I haven’t felt it yet.  Many of my friends know exactly what I mean when I say that, but let me explain a bit.

It’s the feeling I get when I walk through Heritage Hill in the fall.  I see myself there, in the future, raking leaves with my children as my wife heads inside to warm up some cider.  I love her.  I love my kids.  We have a good life that we’ve worked hard to make and we thank God that he’s provided it for us.

It happens in late spring and early summer.  My wife and I and some friends stay up late, telling stories and laughing on the back patio.  Icicle lights, or maybe Japanese lanterns, provide just enough light for us to see each other as we listen to the commotion of our teenagers fighting for the remote inside.  Our friend’s ten year old boy comes out.  He’s tired and doesn’t fit in with the rest, so he sits next to his mom and listens to us adults tell stories and discuss issues until he falls asleep in the warm air.

It’s the feeling I get around Christmas when I spend time with friends and family.  Inevitably, with all the moving I’ve done in my life, not everyone I want to be there is there.  But I look toward the future.  Toward a day, probably not even in this life, when all my friends are gathered around together.  A record of classic Christmas songs plays in another room while most of us are squeezed onto couches and spare chairs around a fire.  Maybe we’re playing some kind of board game.  Maybe future-Kemp is so boring that we’re playing charades or something.  Either way, there is a palpable feeling of comfort, of community, of love and peace and rest.

Though I know it will be a long time before I have these “dolly out” moments, I experience this feeling of future nostalgia with some regularity.  I suspect you do, too.  It’s part of our nature to long for healing, completion, and comfort.  I think that this feeling is even a gift from God.  It gives us something to shoot for.  An instinctive goal or state of being that we want to achieve some day.

The good thing about following the God I serve is that I believe that, someday, these moments will happen.  After sin has been destroyed and a new earth is created where we will live as we were meant to live, we’ll be able to purely enjoy these moments without fear of interruption.  There will be no goodbyes or I’ll-probably-never-see-you-agains.  When I get there, the first thing I’m going to do is gather my friends – all of them – and introduce them to each other.

The last death-knell of childhood.

Kind of a dramatic title, eh?

I saw Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 tonight.  (In the cheap seats, on film, and not in 3D, I might add.)  Toward the magnificently climactic ending, it struck me just how much of my adolescence was spent with that series.

I remember the first time I saw a Harry Potter book.  I had just turned twelve.  We had just moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan from Hackettstown, New Jersey.  We were in the Borders downtown (the one that just closed...) and I saw "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone."

Now, I'm a big nerd.  It was worse when I was a kid.  Anything with wizards or sorcerers or spells or anything had to be awesome, so I asked for it for Christmas.  From the opening page, I was hooked.  I identified with the feeling of being an outsider.  I, like Harry, longed to be special, to be different.  Like so many young nerds, I was just waiting for the day that my X-gene became active or some blue aliens from a distant planet made me an intergalactic cop.  A half-giant riding a motorcycle telling me I was a wizard sounded just as good. 

I quickly read all three of the books of the time, struggling with how to pronounce Hermione, hating Draco Malfoy, and getting inspired by the themes of courage, self-sacrifice, and dependence on a close circle of friends.  As I grew up, so too, did Harry Potter.  The decidedly darker turn of Order of the Phoenix resonated with my deeper adolescent desire to struggle against something oppressive and evil.  The higher stakes only increased the emotional engagement that I had with the characters.

I'm not ashamed to admit that I spent most of the last third of Deathly Hallows with a lump in my throat.  I had spent almost ten years with these characters.  And now, as the last Harry Potter movie has been released, it's been twelve years.  So, in many ways, watching those last credits roll to the top of the screen was like watching the last bit of my adolescence and childhood go away.  Sure, there will always be a new Zelda release to bring me back.  I'll stay involved in youth ministry and always have ridiculous fun with middle school boys.  But Harry Potter will remain a mainstay of my memories of growing up.

Digital Citizenship.

I watched V for Vendetta again this evening (a belated 5th of November viewing with friends) and it got me thinking about a few different things.  Most prominently, what is the role of the citizen in the modern society?  Surely voting, paying taxes, and staying informed of politics belong on that list, but these could also be in the same list as the role of the citizen in the modern government.  (I would argue, possibly, that those are different things.)

Now, I’m not going to go off ranting about something I know nothing about – namely, political philosophy – but regardless of who you talk to, being a good citizen requires activity.  It requires action and engagement and choice.  To some degree, it requires risk.  It requires intellectual fortitude and the willingness to create your own opinion, independently from what others say.  In many cases, it requires overcoming great obstacles.

Sort of sounds like what we require of a player.

I am consistently impressed by the players of video games.  The endurance, the mental acuity, the curiosity and insatiable desire to create.  People have spent hours upon hours crafting Minecraft worlds as complicated as a scale model of the Enterprise.  Players have cracked every code, found every secret, discovered every bug imaginable in any game ever released.  We have been amazing citizens of the virtual world.  But what about our own? 

Essentially, what I’m getting at is this: does our playing video games enhance our ability to engage or does it give us a false sense that we have, in fact, contributed to something.  I suppose it’s an age-old question.  This fantasy that we experiment with, does it inspire us or delude us? 

I once watched a documentary called Monster Camp about live action role playing.  Some of these people were legitimately inspired by their time spent as Gregor Elfkin, Slayer of Demonath.  Their ability to act brave or self-sacrificing or clever as Gregor empowered them to be more brave, self-sacrificing, and clever as themselves.  Others, though, were clearly living in a fantasy, spending more time developing and being another human being rather than developing themselves.

So which is it?  What is an increasingly player-made culture doing to us?  Are we practicing the skills of engagement we need to handle this world?  Did World of Warcraft help inspire the Arab Spring?  Is Angry Birds, in some small way, an antecedent to Occupy Wall Street? 

Or are we having our inner need to be a citizen satisfied by something that does not, in fact, contribute to anything?

Parents.

Today is the first day of my 30 day blogging challenge that I really don't want to write anything.

One of the reasons I challenged myself to do this thing was sort of an accountability thing.  I figured that, if I had to write something interesting every day, I would have to do and think interesting things every day.  Every day, as I made progress toward my goals (numerous though they have become), I would talk about the challenges or thoughts I had along the way. 

So far, it's worked okay.

But today?  Today was kind of boring.  Yesterday was kind of boring, too.  I've put my life on hold for a few days to take care of something a lot more important. 

As I've alluded to in the past few posts, my sister has been in the hospital.  She's just finished the last surgery in a series of three to deal with a condition that sort of popped up a few years ago.  It's been a long year.

I am immeasurably impressed by her attitude through all of this.  Her condition has not been glamorous, but she has maintained an light attitude and a perseverant spirit.  She's an amazing girl, to go through three majors surgeries, take a year off school, and move to a strange town as a 20 year old.  

I'm also increasingly aware of my parents' example of sacrifice and love.  I feel like I'm putting my life on hold for three or four days because my blog posts won't be as interesting?  Psh.  My parents have been walking with my sister every step of the way.  It was when my mom went down to South Carolina to take care of my sister that her doctor first suggested to move to Ann Arbor for University of Michigan hospital care.  My dad and mom essentially lived at the hospital for an entire month as options were being weighed.  They would go to work, go to the hospital, eat at the hospital, go home to walk the dogs, go back to entertain my sister for a few hours, then, one of them would stay with my sister and one would go back to take care of the dogs some more.  They did this for an entire month.  A month!

In the months since, they have taken work off to be with my sister for treatments and surgeries countless times.  Right now, while I'm taking care of the dogs at home, my mom is sleeping in an uncomfortable hospital chair so that my sister doesn't have to be alone.

There is an awful, selfish part of me that says, "I want to go home so I can keep trying to live an interesting life.  I want to skip out on taking care of my sister.  I want to forget that all of this is going on and go back to Grand Rapids as soon as I can."  But as I continue to look toward my parents' love as an example for my life, my marriage, and my eventual child-rearing, a more selfless part of me is stirred. 

Hopefully that part wins the day.  I want to someday contribute to the legacy my parents are creating.

Creativity.

Another short post today, since I've spent most of the day in a hospital hanging out with my sister (who is doing well, by the way). 

While she distracted or unconscious or something, I pulled out a book I haven't picked up in a while. 

Image shamelessly stolen from Amazon.  Clearly.

Yes.  That's right.  Orbiting the Giant Hairball.  Great title.  Its subtitle, "A Corporate Fool's Guide to Surviving with Grace," really does describe a large part of the content of the book.  It's about how to be creative in an environment that isn't always creative.  It's about not releasing yourself in wild abandon to pursue creative things outside of any system, but using the good things of those systems while transcending them.  It's a really good book.

After reading just the first two chapters, I may have to add another point to my list of ways I'm creative.  Read at least two books about creativity a year.  Maybe more.  I dunno.  We can play with the number later.

The moral of the story is that I need to be inspired.  I need to be reminded that I am, in fact, a creative person.  I need to be challenged in a more broad sense. 

Sometimes, when I get into the mundanity of creative output, I forget about the creative part.  When I write, I think about my story structure analysis.  I think about my characters and their goals.  I think about the point of the whole story and why I'm writing it in the first place.  I start relying (rightfully so) on systems and rules that have helped me make a better product in the past. 

But in all of those details, I forget what it is I'm doing.  I am creating something (hopefully) fresh and new and interesting and unlike anything the world has seen before.  I am using my brain and imagination to echo the creative God who gave me both.  It's a huge privilege and tremendously fun while carrying a gravitas that I almost never realize.

The creative act is, I think, a bigger deal than we typically make it out to be.  It is books like Orbiting the Giant Hairball that help me remember that. 


I leave you with chapter 19 of Orbiting the Giant Hairball, in its entirety: "Orville Wright did not have a pilot's license."  Go ponder that for a while.

Marriage is broken. How do we fix it?

We had a very interesting small group meeting tonight.  I'm very tired and have to get up in five hours, so I'll sum it up by this: Marriage is broken.  What does it take to fix it?

Clearly, marriage in America has taken a hit in the past four or five decades.  With divorce rates near 50%, many people in my generation have begun to wonder if it's worth it.  For some reason, marriages have just been failing.

Why is that?  We can blame all kinds of things.  A rebellious culture before us that made the formerly taboo divorce okay.  Media that inundates us with messages that certainly don't strengthen marriage.  An entitlement attitude among the 20 and 30 somethings that demands a me-focused reality.  It could be lots of things.

But how do we fix it?  How can I be part of the solution to marriage?

So, really, I would love to hear some responses to this short post.  If you're married, how can other people help you have a good, strong, close, fulfilling marriage?  Seriously.  Ideas.  Go.

Simulated Effort.

I drank waay too much caffeine last night.  I ended up in bed around 1:00am, but unable to sleep until probably 2:30.  During that time, I teetered on the edge of sleep, leading to some interesting thoughts that, I’m sure, will be shared on here in the coming days.

One of the things that struck me (for whatever reason) is simulated effort as portrayed in platformer games.  By simulated effort, I mean the simple idea that the longer you hold the jump button, the higher your character jumps.  It was a simple choice in the early Mario games, I’m sure, but as I thought about it, it was quite significant.

This might seem obvious to most of the world, but that kind of means that the harder I work, the harder Mario works.  And none of us, especially in the early days, merely pushed down the button and leisurely held it longer.  No, we mashed that thing into the controller.  On several occasions, I’m pretty sure I had to unstick the B button out from underneath my Super Nintendo controller.  As I reflect, though, my increased effort was met with what seemed to be a commensurate amount of effort from my little avatar, Mario. 

This really increases the identification I have with my character, too.  We really are on the same team, both trying hard to save the princess. 

I mean, think about it.  How much more sense did Mario make in Super Mario World than Donkey Kong?  In Donkey Kong (correct me if I’m wrong), your jumps barely clear the barrels.  Every time.  Mario’s effort was the same when you accidentally hit jump as when you, in a last minute realization, jammed it with all of your might.  But in Super Mario World, Mario can hop.  And when you want and need him to, he jumps with all his might.  How right did that feel the first time someone experienced that? 

Obviously, this idea has evolved over time.  My favorite instance of simulated effort was in the cult classic, Shadow of the Colossus.  I have never been more stressed in a video game than when I realized that, by holding a button and watching a bar disappear, I was making this poor kid hold on for his life.  As that circle of effort shrank to nothing, I pressed harder, hoping that, against all logic, it might help my hero.  He seemed to renew his effort, but his exhausted animation matched the dwindling “effort bar” until he fell back to the ground.

What brilliant innovations for their time, these simulations of effort!  Now, in our era of motion gaming, we have new opportunities of increasing the bond between player and character.  And yet, in the motion games I’ve played, this has woefully not been the case.  Is this because of lack of engaging games (most motion games are sports sims, so far, it seems)?  Or is there an “uncanny valley” when it comes to motion control without force feedback?  What are your thoughts?

Why I killed the internet.

I got rid of the internet on Sunday.  A couple weeks ago, I called up AT&T and said, “Can I cancel my home internet?”  My former roommate and I had secured a yearlong “introductory price” of $20 a month which I suspected was about to expire.  That would double the price to $40 a month.  You know what?  I just don’t think home internet access is worth that to me.

So I call AT&T and tell them this and the lady says, “Sir, did you know that, here in the retention department, we can apply other discounts to your service if price is the only factor.”  I didn’t know that.  I ask her when the discount is set to expire.  “December.”  When I get a new roommate anyway, so there’s no difference in price to me. 

Well, dang.  Just like that, this nice lady at AT&T took away my only economic reasons for canceling my internet service.  But I still told her to cancel it.

I don’t think that’s a terribly common decision for a modern 20something to make, so I thought I’d briefly explain my counter cultural actions.

A while back, I wrote a post about ways to be creative.  Inspired by another blogger, I made my own list of ways that Kemp is creative; tangible things I can do to make myself more creative.  Briefly, here is the list:

Read.
Cultivate and pay attention to fun.
Listen to music intentionally.
Write 250 words a day.
Be impulsive.
Be bored.


Having the internet kills every single item on that list.  Especially number six.

Facebook, marvelous though it has been in connecting us to people, has destroyed our free time with worthless gossip and “catching up.”  YouTube, while revolutionary to the distribution of media in the 1st world, means that we never have to be bored again.  Though Google Reader allows me to follow way more blogs than I ever could before, how many of those posts do I actually think about anymore and how many do I just read so I can check them off my list?  On the internet, there is always something to do, but you never actually get anything done.

So I killed it.  If I thrive on boredom, I need to make sure I’m more bored.  And guess what?  Already I’ve written more, thought more, and engaged more with what I do.  I no longer peruse Hulu for new shows just because I have nothing better to do.  (But seriously, check out Spy.  It’s a Hulu exclusive and it’s hilarious.)

I mean, sure it’s inconvenient.  I can’t follow my shows.  Writing emails on my phone is tedious at best.  Maintaining my blog-a-day challenge has been… irritating.  (I didn’t really think that one out, did I?) But if I had easy internet access, would I still be writing this post?  Or would I have checked the new item in my feed, added someone as a friend, and clicked links until 1am? 

This has been a worthy endeavor so far (I write on day two…).  I’m sure there will be further updates about life without internet, but for now, how could you survive with less internet access?  Could you survive?  Do you think you could be more productive/creative/relational/etc…?  Think about giving it up for a day or two and see how you change.