Quotep179-180

Why does my attack on death fill people with such hatred?

Have they been hired to defend it? Do they know so very much about their own murderous nature that they feel themselves attacked when I attack death?

first, i skimmed this book. i loosely read the foreword, the afterward. then i returned again to the beginning, with an understanding of the whole, to understand the whole in its many parts.

the last quote from the foreword reads:

QuoteI have approached a hundred gods,
and I looked each straight in the eye,
full of hatred for the death of human beings.

what this quote instills in me, i cannot entirely say. i like the passion in it, the intensity, the absurdity of such a position. but not only absurdity -- the feeling of its absolute incontrovertible rightness. why should something so right feel also so absurd? it is, in a way, the way i feel about kill gameplay. it is so blindingly right, and so utterly absurd to say aloud. it is freeing to see a statement in which these two go hand in hand.

obvious correctness, and obvious absurdity.

it is freeing to see another take up such a position. it is more freeing still to allow oneself to take it up.

[AB]

i would like to live in the world.

the books ends painting a picture of "scientists" and "poets" perspectives coming together. these two paths, taken together. i do not feel at all satisfied!

Philip Zimbardo

Lantz describes games' "style problem", a result of been an art form mainly occupied by people who are very rational, who tend to think in these rigid terms, and it's an interesting bit. I'm in full skim mode at last, so I won't pick it apart, I will just say... i agree, but i don't think it's the right way to be? I'm steadily gliding away from that side of things and i no longer relate to the analytical approach to the world. At all! and i want others too to be set free.

But yes I do feel unaccountably tired and sick, now that we're at the next columns. I would rather be rising and gliding out, looking up in perfect silence.

I love this funny joke on p77? where Lantz referentially and apologetically describes his action as ranging in columns. Good poem, too.

I have begun to skim. I don't think the book is for me - a thing arguing for the beauty of games, no surprise that I would be resisting it, but it's nice to feel so certain. I just don't see the value.

In the second chapter Lantz discusses poker and its connection to money. Money is of course just a game too, a big vessel of gameplay that we cannot opt out of. So the connection is not surprising at all.

kill gameplay

important and valuable pleasures - comfort, experiencing altered brain chemical states, having ego satisfied (feeling competent), having companionship, not being bored

i would like to feel genuinely competent. sometimes a game will do this for me!

sometimes i am bored. various things will do, to satisfy my boredom.

usually i don't much pursue altered brain chemical states, they happen when they happen and i enjoy such acceptance of real moments in my life.

boredom... i actually would enjoy more silence of boredom in my life. but having the tools available to express things out of such silence is key.

companionship, comfort... i have these things and they do not hinge on playing games, i don't relate at all... i would not, however, deny others such a source

Quote. . . one result of this exercise of honest self-reflection might be to admit that these primal pleasures are important and valuable to us.

As I said, this is a very nice an open list. When I attack the items in this list I am attacking myself, not Frank, not gamers, not anyone else.

I have played games to pass by "an empty stretch of my life". This speaks to their ability to consume time, it's a completely vapid value except perhaps convenience? But we can do better. Knit on the subway! Read a fucking book! Draw tarot cards. Do a meaningful activity. Are games meaningful or just convenient and captivating?

I have gone to play games as "elaborate excuses" to be social, and -- I won't go off on a huge tangent here. But basically I don't like it, except when the game is explicitly a social game designed to play with our desire to be social. But I hate being at odds with the real reason I'm attending something!

I won't talk more about ego, except to say that ego ought to be killed rather than satisfied.

Lantz self-reflects on the feelings games give him that he likes, which is a beautiful bit of openness. I will rip these apart, but before I do, understand that I am mainly ripping myself apart. Of course I relate. How could I not? I'm human too. I'm a lover of games too.

QuoteComfort . . . a trickle of novelty regulated by repetition . . . a tame parade of known unknowns

QuoteChemicals . . . to experience these mental states but to enjoy the power of being able to turn them on and off at will

QuoteEgo . . . theatrical rituals of will in which my capacity to solve problems and pursue goals is put on a pedestal, a self-portrait of the choices and actions that define me as a human in this world.

This is bad! On top of overly prizing problem-solving capacity, and not only that but capacity in a false context, we have the boiled-away nature of game systems that we just touched on! I'm not even editing things out of context. You are not, cannot, be defined by these choices and actions in a context with everything "warm and wonderful" boiled away.  Sudoku does not make you smarter, it just makes you better at Sudoku.

QuoteCompanionship . . . elaborate excuses to spend time with other people. . . to speak and be heard. . .

Maybe I'm just an introvert. I used to like this, but I'd rather go and see a play with my friends, or go to a little house party and pay attention to each other without the need for an intermediary.

If you are having trouble making time to spend with other people, or to speak and be heard, or various other things said here not quoted, there are good ways to resolve this problem. The game does not solve the problem! It takes the attention in the room. Do something because you want to do the thing damn it!

QuoteBoredom . . . Sometimes a game is a device that accelerates time, transporting me to the far side of an empty stretch of my life.

noooooooooooooooo