Defining Awesome

There are three kinds of people. The people that have ambitious earth-shattering goals. People that want to live an easy effortless life.
And people that are in conflict.

A person of the first kind establishes what he wants and pursues it. To attain the goal he will sacrifice his lifestyle, health, relationships, time for fun. He will literally do whatever it takes.

The second person wants to live simply and easily and knows that money won’t actually accomplish that. So he gets a cheap piece of land and lives there in a hut or buys a bar on the beach on the Caribbean or simply becomes homeless or a wanderer. Again, sacrifices are made.

The third person is the plague of our modern world. This person wants to eat the cake and have the cake at the same time. He wants to attain goals, preferably financial with 7 digits but at the same time wants to live simply, peacefully, and easily. So he starts new projects all the time,  that will bring him to this goal. He constantly is thinking and talking about how he will do it. It looks as if he is actually doing something and pursuing what he dreamt of. But as soon as problems arrive a conflict appears. Because achieving the goal does not fit with living easily. Moving through obstacles is hard! So he stops his pursuit and moves onto another project. Thinking, this time it will be easier. But it never will be. And so he starts to work on his goal on and on. Beginning and ending, the cycle perpetuates through the years until death comes. And it comes easily and effortlessly and this is when he finally can rest in peace.

One of the topics on this blog has been art. Here is what Gurdjieff says about art. This resonates with me because it is exactly how I want my games to work. The experience must be objective! It must be universally awesome. Everyone that encounters a game like this should stand in awe, know and feel that this IS a work of art.

“I do not call art all that you call art, which is simply mechanical reproduction,
imitation of nature or other people, or simply fantasy, or an attempt to be original.
Real art is something quite different. Among works of art, especially works of ancient
art, you meet with many things you cannot explain and which contain a certain
something you do not feel in modern works of art. But as you do not realize what this
difference is you very soon forget it and continue to take everything as one kind of
art. And yet there is an enormous difference between your art and the art of which I
speak. read more »

One of the most profound paragraphs I’ve read.
A quote by G.I. Gurdjieff:

‘[..]man’s chief delusion is his
conviction that he can do. All people think that they can do, all people want to do, and
the first question all people ask is what they are to do. But actually nobody does
anything and nobody can do anything. This is the first thing that must be understood.

Everything happens

 All that befalls a man, all that is done by him, all that comes from
him —

all this happens.

And it happens in exactly the same way as rain falls as a result
of a change in the temperature in the higher regions of the atmosphere or the
surrounding clouds, as snow melts under the rays of the sun, as dust rises with the
wind. read more »

This post is a result of my constant thinking about getting things done. If you have problems like procrastination, not following and working on your passion, not approaching that hottie next door, not making your dreams, not working on that lobby server (Ryan;). Then this is for you. Think about what problem you are facing right now and with that in mind, read on.

It is just a state of mind

I’ve been thinking a lot about productivity and its relation to mind states. There is a certain mind state that could be best described as ‘flow’. It is a state in which everything you do is done effortlessly. There is no struggle, everything is quick, efficient, you move from one task to another, in a matter of hours (which seam like minutes) you get everything and even more done. Also what you get done is the result of your stretched capabilities, meaning all your talents act in synergy with each other. This state of mind is the core of many Eastern teaching such as Zen, Tao, martial arts. All of these teach you not how to get to that state, but rather what not to do, so that this state naturally emerges. Because as I’ve come to believe it is the natural state of being of a human (although it is so rare). This mind state is often described as “no-thought” or “no-mind” and it is the best way I can describe it also.

The second state of mind or rather set of many states is entirely different. read more »

As I’m sitting here, contemplating on the dish of ravioli I just made I inevitably start thinking about true art and the meaning behind the sense of excellence. So let’s resume our little talk about art because it is soo important. Art tells us a lot about not only us as human beings but also about our experience and what should we do with our lives in general.

This post is probably about the source of art and to talk about art I must talk about our minds internal representations. It is a speculation on my path of searching for the true meaning of art and how to create it.

There are certain questions you encounter on this path. For example what comes first: emotion or thought?

Let’s define thoughts as everything that is happening in your awareness such as your inner voice, abstracting, analyzing, rationalizing, imagining, visualizing, hearing, seeing stuff inside your mind.

Emotion is whatever you feel in your body or in general, like the state of mind you are in.

Now do thoughts change emotional states?

Or do emotions change thoughts?

For example I can be sitting in my room thinking happy thoughts about bunny rabbits and how cute they are. Now this will make me joyful. But is it like that? Can’t it be the other way around?

What if I was already feeling joyful and that produced the thoughts of hopping bunny rabbits.

It is important to know what comes first because then you’ll know where does brilliancy come from. Does it come because you think about it and then produce it, or does it come from some place else, rather undefinable. A place which can’t be described much in words, cause you can never catch it like that. A place which is always there with you, every second of your existence. You know about it and you feel its power. Like a tingling sensation inside of you, of existence itself.
read more »

Try thinking of a pencil without thinking of it as a pencil.

That is do not think about the word ‘pencil’.

Do not think about any symbol associated with a pencil.

Do not think about the pencils structure,
dimensions,
texture,
size,
weight,
color,
material,
sharpness.

Don’t think about what constitutes a pencil.

Don’t think about the stick of graphite.
Don’t think about the wood or the metal.

Don’t think about the eraser.

Furthermore, don’t think about what constitutes the material.
Don’t think about the atoms building the wood.

Try zooming in as close as you possibly can into the pencil and its atoms. Where’s the end of it? Where do the objects forming the object end?

read more »

People are essentially and fundamentally playful.

Maybe I like this idea because I make games for a living, but maybe not.
Maybe this is what the whole universe is about?

The universe exists entirely out of itself. There is no cause of it happening. It just is. It exists to exist.
The world is playful in its essence, because it is like a play, no concrete reason for it. This is the Zen standpoint on the meaning of our universe. We people, spawn out of the universe, we are part of it. So our purpose is the purpose of the universe.

There was a Dutch theorist Johan Huizinga who wrote a book called Homo Ludens, which means “Man the Player”.

It discusses the importance of the play element of culture and society. Huizinga makes it clear in the foreword of his book that he means the play element OF culture, and not the play element IN culture. Much can be said about play ‘in’ culture, like it’s a method of socializing, learning and bullshit like that. But wonder about the playfulness OF culture! Why does it exist? Why do people exist at all!?
read more »

Hmmm…. now how do you go about writing something like this. It should be like the biggest and most complicated thing ever. But I would not write about it if that would be the case, here I am and that is because it is the simplest thing ever. Let me try to explain you my “theory of everything”, in a bit of a patterned form, I won’t go into details but the answer can be found in this article, cause I really would like you to think about this in your own terms.

There is this old song that has been completely forgotten, probably because it is too cheesy for today’s standards (no, it’s not a Manowar song). The lyrics of this song go something like this:

There’s nothing you can do that can’t be done.
Nothing you can sing that can’t be sung.
Nothing you can say but you can learn how to play the game
It’s easy.
There’s nothing you can make that can’t be made.
No one you can save that can’t be saved.
Nothing you can do but you can learn how to be in time
It’s easy.

Now what did the author have in mind? Or better to say, what state of mind was he in to write such a thing? Everything is easy? Yes it is. read more »

In my article Why your next 3D MMORPG will fail I wrote that everyone is average. Although I meant the same thing, ‘average’ has a negative connotation so it might be wrongly interpreted. Let me restate that:

Everyone is awesome!

In my previous post On arrogance (this is the second part) I wrote about how every human being places himself in a social hierarchy (or pecking order). Which results in him feeling better or worse than other people.

I am not arrogant because of the simple reason that I do not feel better than anyone. I just feel great about myself, without the need to compare that to anything. Why do I feel great about myself?

Why would you need a REASON to feel good or bad about yourself? If you’re thinking like this, it is exactly the pecking order in work. If you’re seeking reasons for validating yourself, you’re actually comparing yourself to some person or an ideal and feeling accordingly. You’re placing yourself on a social hierarchy (that you have made up by yourself, as I explained).

I am standing apart from that. There is no need to justify my well-being and thinking of myself as awesome. I just am. And so are you. If you realize it or not.

read more »

I need to write about this cause it’s beginning to make me sick. So many people live their entire lives with the fear of what others will think about them. This is so deeply wrong and perverse that even Berserker is a child’s game confronted with this idea.

The only way to get rid of it is to realize that it is bullshit. You are thinking bullshit yourself and you are thinking that other people think something else than bullshit.

This is the same as the fear of being percieved as arrogant. People won’t step out of their comfort zones and go after the thing they want because of the belief that you shouldn’t be overly confident or arrogant. “People that say and do what they want are dicks and assholes. I don’t want to be like that, I want to be good and accepted. I will forget about my dreams and desires only to be accepted and loved by EVERYONE. If a random douche on the internet calls me a ‘bastard’ I will cry myself to bed for a week. I don’t want that pain, I will never reach out, say what I feel and do what I want. Being an asshole is bad and I will never become one. I’d rather die having a miserable life than be called an ‘asshole’ by ‘random douche on internet #37′.”

Lately the common theme for some people is to call me and Sigvatr arrogant or assholes. I know where it comes from. I write that my games are best and I will conquer everybody that doesn’t agree. Of course this is what I write and it is arrogant, but I myself am not actually arrogant! I am nowhere near it. So what am I? I’m writing this blog so it holds as a reference point, for anyone that wants to discuss assholeness with me.

read more »