Play is taking reality lightly

> Play is taking reality lightly” – Pat Kane (slide 21).

Sounds like the design process as well. Lots of great play videos at the link.

Design lessons from pinball

I went to a very cool underground pinball hall in Zurich tonight for a friend’s going away party. While there I noticed a number of interesting design choices that make for a good pinball experience.

* Give people lots of points: nearly every action in pinball gets you thousands of points. Simply shoot the ball onto the table and you win 400,000 points. They’re all relative, of course, and to the game that isn’t very much. But it makes you feel great as a player.
* Free play is different: my friend paid for the tables to be free all night, which took the pressure off and let people play freely. It also reduced the tension in the game, which is part of the fun for some people. It’s important to decide what’s free and what’s expensive in your experience.
* Keep people in the flow: flow is important in all experiences, but in pinball gradually increasing complexity keeps you engaged with a mechanically static table.
* Frustration is an opportunity for grace: the best example of this is when a ball goes directly in the trap after the launch; most machines will pop it back on the table right away. What would have been a frustrating and disappointing mistake is turned into a pleasant surprise. Look for ways to turn the worst aspects of your experience into surprise gifts.

The “I betta pass my neighbour” generator

Fascinating discovery of the day, over Chinese food with a group in Lagos: the most popular electric generator here is called the “I betta pass my neighbour“, alluding to the fact that having one propels you socially above your neighbour who has none. A uniquely Nigerian take on “[keeping up with the Joneses](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keeping_up_with_the_Joneses)”.

You can also apparently direct your exhaust to spew on their house instead of yours.

Identifying peak moments

I’ve long been a proponent of [designing experiences for peak moments](http://www.ryskamp.org/brain/?p=207)–after all, that’s what you’ll remember about them later.

But personally it makes sense to spend some time identifying what your own peak moments have been, in the hope of discovering how to experience more of them. The articles [Peak Moments](http://chrisguillebeau.com/3×5/peak-moments/) and [Peak Creative Moments](http://the99percent.com/tips/6951/peak-creative-moments) suggest 60-second exercises to do just that.

I found several unexpected and valuable traits of my peak moment experiences:

* They are with lots of other people–despite my tendency to work and play alone
* They result from lots of planning and preparation–despite my aversion to both
* Many were not pleasant in the moment (painful, stressful), but very rewarding afterward
* They all involved substantial risk, to my career or myself

Also reminds me of [Peter Drucker’s advice in Managing Oneself](http://www.sld.cu/galerias/pdf/sitios/revsalud/managing_oneself.pdf) that “the only way to discover your strengths is through feedback analysis.”

Playtime 101

Sometimes adults need help with this:

> This week thirty of us have promised to keep a daily crayon journal, build a fort or play with bubbles, and go out of our way to notice and welcome any children we see.

I love ReIMAGINE.

Paul Graham on addiction

That is, addiction in general and information/Internet addiction in particular.

> The world is more addictive than it was 40 years ago. And unless the forms of technological progress that produced these things are subject to different laws than technological progress in general, the world will get more addictive in the next 40 years than it did in the last 40…

> My latest trick is taking long hikes. I used to think running was a better form of exercise than hiking because it took less time. Now the slowness of hiking seems an advantage, because the longer I spend on the trail, the longer I have to think without interruption…

> We’ll increasingly be defined by what we say no to.

The Acceleration of Addictiveness.

Lincoln’s melancholy

“To remain as I am is impossible; I must die or be better, it appears to me.”

This exploration of Lincoln’s depression shows a man who, instead of trying to destroy or avoid his mental pain, integrated it and drew the strength to do great and difficult things.

> In his mid-forties the dark soil of Lincoln’s melancholy began to yield fruit. When he threw himself into the fight against the extension of slavery, the same qualities that had long brought him so much trouble played a defining role. The suffering he had endured lent him clarity and conviction, creative skills in the face of adversity, and a faithful humility that helped him guide the nation through its greatest peril…

> Lincoln then took a small Bible from a stand near the sofa and began to read. “A quarter of an hour passed,” Keckley remembered, “and on glancing at the sofa the face of the president seemed more cheerful. The dejected look was gone; in fact, the countenance was lighted up with new resolution and hope. Wanting to see what he was reading, Keckley pretended she had dropped something and went behind where Lincoln was sitting so that she could look over his shoulder. It was the Book of Job…”

> Viewing Lincoln through the lens of his melancholy, we see one cogent explanation: he was always inclined to look at the full truth of a situation, assessing both what could be known and what remained in doubt. When faced with uncertainty he had the patience, endurance, and vigor to stay in that place of tension, and the courage to be alone.

Design for the First World

I love [this contest idea](http://designforthefirstworld.com/):

> Dx1W is a competition for designers, artists, scientists, makers and thinkers in developing countries to provide solutions for First World problems.

While my lovely wife works tirelessly to help the rest of the world develop, I’m working in the “first world” to make sure there’s a worthwhile and sustainable lifestyle for them when they arrive. The current example we’re setting in the U.S. (low rankings on [health](http://www.photius.com/rankings/healthranks.html), [happiness](http://www.happyplanetindex.org/explore/global/index.html), and [world respect](http://www.scribd.com/doc/24369375/Reputation-Institute-Country-Rep-2009-Complimentary-Report)) doesn’t seem like a worthy goal for the rest of the world.

Efforts like [Design for the Other 90%](http://other90.cooperhewitt.org/) are valuable and important, but I love that designers from that 90% are trying to help us too.

The image and the human

“The image is one thing and the human being is another. It’s very hard to live up to an image, put it that way. ”
— Elvis Presley

Flavors of the human experience

At [a talk by Wade Davis last night](http://longnow.org/seminars/02010/jan/13/wayfinders-why-ancient-wisdom-matters-modern-world/), I was inspired by the variety of human experiences he showed: people who dedicate their lives to meditation; cultures that evolved to prize generosity above all; nomads and sequestered nuns. There was also a lot of discussion about the value of a spiritual life, and in learning about the mind, versus technological progress.

I just wrote a fair chunk about why it is important for humanity to survive. I’ll probably still publish it, but Davis’ talk made me realize that a lot of my conclusions were based on our ability to evolve technology.

But what if, [as Kevin Kelly writes](http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2009/01/what_technology.php), technology is a force pursuing its own agenda? And what if instead of us using it, it is using us? Davis showed that the western view of the earth as a resource is the minority view. Most other cultures see it as a stewardship; a responsibility. Similarly, the attitude of viewing our role as technology’s evolvers is unique to my culture; others value relationships and mental/spiritual growth much more highly than the ability to shape and change our physical world.

Technology itself is a particular cultural strand, and a relatively small slice of the human experience seen around the world and throughout history. By focusing on it almost exclusively, our culture has ignored vast areas of growth, health, and happiness. (See: [surveys on happiness around the world](http://lifestyle.in.msn.com/gallery.aspx?cp-documentid=3537722), or the [poor health care value we have in the U.S.](http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/abstract/27/6/1718), or the high divorce rate here). Other cultures have grown tremendously in these areas.

One of my favorite quotes is by Lhasang Tsering, a Tibetan writer and philosopher, [who said](http://www.artlic.com/press/kits/tibet_kit.html) “For centuries our best minds, our saints and our philosophers concentrated all their time and energy to understanding the nature of the mind. And who can say which would really matter in the end–the landing on the moon or the understanding of the mind?”

So what would it look like to incorporate other cultures’ learnings into our own? For one, we might start making more decisions based not on their tangible, technical value, but on their social and spiritual value. Davis shared one quip about the obligation to eat whatever you’re served as a guest in a new culture: “You can always treat the giardia, but you can never rekindle the relationship that was hurt by your perceived act of superiority” (refusing food).

We could revere other languages, which Davis called “flashes of the human spirit” and “canaries in the coal mine of a culture”, studying, preserving, supporting, and using them for insights into other ways of thinking and being. (To those who propose a single, universal language to promote communication and commerce, Davis says “Great–let’s make it [Tagalog](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tagalog_language) or [Quechua](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quechua) then”, which usually drives home the point that giving up your own native tongue feels like a tremendous loss). In some Anaconda (Amazonian rain forest) tribes, you can *only* marry someone who speaks a different language than yours. How’s that for tolerance!

And we would practice and honor religions more. One thought I had along with that of technology using us is that the greatest technological advances have come along with the collapse of much religious practice. It made me wonder if technology, to further its own agenda and become central to our lives, had to first displace and eliminate religious reverence from the landscape. Preserving religious practice, both our own and that of others, seems essential to protecting and growing culture.

Fortunately, humans are not so single-minded as technology. We can, if we choose to, incorporate several different strands of culture into our lives. We can enjoy and contribute to technology, and build strong relationships, and revere the divine. Certainly it takes discipline and practice, but it can be done. What is dangerous is becoming too entrenched in any single cultural strand and having that turn into ignorance or intolerance of other ways of being.

Davis described one cultural (and, um, [chemical](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimethyltryptamine)) experience from a rain forest tribe as “being shot out of a rifle barrel lined with baroque paintings and landing on a sea of electricity.” Now who would want to ignore something like that?

“Having obtained the difficult-to-obtain, free and endowed human body, it would be a cause of regret to fritter life away” – one of the [Ten Causes of Regret](http://books.google.com/books?id=GjDEf0Hit2sC&pg=PA67&lpg=PA67&dq=”ten+causes+of+regret”&source=bl&ots=dyxjdli3aX&sig=Tbn9WiigJPiEoug1AF5gXTQdQhI&hl=en&ei=LmxPS-fqIIHUtgPf5rX3BA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CAcQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22ten%20causes%20of%20regret%22&f=false)