Month: October 2015

On happiness and beauty

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We all deserve a little happiness, so let what makes you happy consume you once in awhile.

What makes me happy is the transitory nature of beauty and the ephemeral quality of performed art. Sounds pretentious, I know. What I mean is that beauty shifts and changes as we the perceiver change This change, allows us to change as we see ourselves through this outside lens and in seeing are changed by the experience.

As to the ephemeral quality of performed art. Well, no two performance is the same, each one is a unique experience, each a microcosm of itself and a connection to each other person that experiences this with you. These feelings of connection can allow us the space to embrace our humanity. To see, for a moment, in the shared experience, community.
Further, those that share the experience are forever linked. Even that little bit of connection weaves us into the tapestry of the world.

Take some time to do what makes you happy, and remember to share your passion, your joy. Maybe you are someone’s transitory beauty. Maybe it’s your ideas or your smile. We make this world with ourselves, out of our lives and that is beauty.

To PAX keynote speakers

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This is to all the keynote and storytime speakers at PAX Prime and I imagine the other PAX as well, but I have no direct experience.

Please, stop talking about your new game or game design, or the particulars of the industry. I know you are given free reign to talk about whatever, but think of the experience you are giving those around you. PAX isn’t a tech conference or a board meeting, it isn’t PAX dev. The majority of Pax goers are enthusiasts not industry insiders. You are setting the tone for the experience.

If I may offer some advice, talk about who you are and why you are. Talk about the culture of the industry, the stories of the inside. Talk about your past, your dreams, your future and where you see games going as culture. Talk about community.

This is why we come to PAX. It is not only to see the new hotness. It is for that sense of community, of being part of something larger. Of knowing we’re not alone. I talk about PAX to many people and for all of the perceived size of it from inside, most people I talk to have no idea what it is.

Most often people say “oh, it’s like comicon”. And I reply “kinda”. But most Comicon, SDCC and others, are about the thing. The new hotness, the new comic, the new new. PAX is about the community that grew up around the thing. It is about the shared experience. The games provide a template, a experience. But it’s the community and friendships that rise from these experiences that matter. That last.

So, they want you to speak as keynote. That is great. We like you already. Share the experience with us, don’t sell us something.

Worries

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The last time I felt as full of nothing was in the dark times after I lost Sara. I don’t know where or why I feel this way. I don’t understand it.

I worry that I’m losing myself again. That this sojourn into open, honest emotion is somehow coming to a close.
I worry that I will find who I’m looking for. That I’ll be disappointed when I do.

I worry that I’ll fight for someone and do us both a disservice.

I worry that I’m sacrificing pieces of myself to write. That I take more validation from people liking my work than I do in the work itself.

I worry that if I do find someone to share my life with, I’ll fuck it up.

I worry that my obvious deficiencies are why, despite looking and trying, I’m still alone.

I worry that Sara was my one chance and by not going with her that night, I failed her. I failed us. And my not finding any lasting relationship is my just punishment for my inaction.

I worry about how I’m perceived and am hurt when people see me as other than I intend.

I worry that my need for control is becoming destructive.

I worry that my desire for chaos is a sign of a lack of empathy.

I worry about my lack of guilt.

I worry that I’m drifting away from a real friend.

I worry about all of this and more.
I’m not constant in my worry, I let my subconscious handle most of it. But it’s all there, swirling in the background, even if I don’t act like it. It sits, leaden in my brain.

It’s why I occasionally wake, heart racing from a panic attack. Deep unconscious being one of the few times I’m out of control. Some of this, I just don’t have the strength to carry. And I’m approaching a time when something will either break or some of it will fall away. And I worry what I’ll lose this time.