Effects of Video Games on the Dead #7

DeadElvis, Gaming

Friday, September 4, 1998:

What Makes A Game A Game?

Well, what are some of the characteristics of a game?

There is an apparent and noticeable distinction between player and character.
The game has definable goals within the scope of the game that are applicable to the character. As in: the character within the game can have the goal of carrying a flag from one spot to another.
The player can have goals that extend beyond the game into other higher-order domains. As in: a player can have the goal of playing with a sense of humor about his or her situation — or perhaps a player can have the goal of playing with an attitude of fairplay.

These are but a few of the characteristics of “What Makes A Game A Game?” If you like the game of solving this question Contact US.

 

Effects of Video Games on the Dead #6

DeadElvis, Gaming

Wednesday, September 2, 1998:

Persistence, Patience, Hard Work

These three characteristics permeate every endeavor — whether it be Job, Work, or Gaming.

Consider the example of making flag runs in a game such as Quake CTF. You would be wasting your time if you fought to get the flag from the hole to the spiral and then to the top of the ramps only to give up because you hadn’t capped the flag yet. You have to keep at it. Continue reading →

Effects of Video Games on the Dead #5

DeadElvis, Gaming

Wednesday, August 5, 1998:

Once a signal makes it past the data receptors (eyes, ears, nose, tongue, skin, etc.) into the processing network of the body the processing network can not tell whether the incoming information is from a “virtual” or “real” input source. There is no difference. This is how the subtle brain works. The “beta” brain may know that the virtual input is not “real” and discount it. This does not stop the deep processing functions from accepting the input as real and acting accordingly. Continue reading →

Simple Mindfulness

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Dictionaries commonly define mindfulness as: a mental state achieved by focusing one’s awareness on the present moment, while calmly acknowledging and accepting one’s feeling, thoughts, and bodily sensations, used as a therapeutic technique.

Not a bad definition on the face of it. However, with a little digging you’ll notice that this definition allows no room for one’s spiritual self. It is not uncommon for modern proponents of meditation to completely remove or at least minimize all traces of spirit from consideration.

I think we can agree that some allowance for our experience of our spiritual nature should be reintroduced into the notion of what is mindfulness. Continue reading →

Why It Happened

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In 1976 three men kidnapped a bus full of children (26) along with the bus driver. After driving around for more than 11 hours they kids and the driver were forced into a tracker trailer van and buried underground. Eventually the bus driver and some of the older boys managed climb up through a metal lid lid in the ceiling (held down with hundreds of pounds of batteries. Sixteen hours later the driver and all the children emerged from the van, but they never managed to leave the incident behind them.

If you look in wikipedia for “1976 Chowchilla kidnapping” you can find some of the details of this unfortunate incident. However, you won’t find reference to the study outlined in this blog. Continue reading →

Heed the Calling

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An internet friend sent the following question:

“For some time now, I have been feeling something lacking or missing inside me. My heart wants something to do but don’t know what it is.  I tried busying myself in my job or in seeing movies or in reading spiritual books, etc. But it is not working.  My innermost wants something to discover but also doesn’t know what. I feel the potential inside me is wasting.  I don’t know how to find it or discover it.”

When we incarnate on this planet we have an agenda. This agenda is our agenda. Not the agenda of the body, not the agenda of society, not the agenda of the species. This agenda belongs to our innermost self. Continue reading →

Things We Do

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Being in a machine that is depressed is an undeniable bummer.

It can make it hard to work, hard to play, hard to do anything.

If one has a sunburn we know what to do… and we do it. We don’t get all weird thinking the therapy is too silly to follow through on. No, we apply the lotion, stay out of the sun, drink extra fluids — in general follow all of the tried and true methods for helping the situation — while it somehow fixes it self.

The things we do don’t necessarily “fix” the situation. But they may help while it goes about getting fixed — or in some cases just falling off the radar. Continue reading →

Most Important Exercise

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Recently a friend asked the following: “what do you think is the singular most important exercise/practice of all those you’ve worked with over the years?”

The answer to this not a simple one. Well, maybe it is simple, but definitely not easy to explain. But, I’ll give it a go.

First I will answer in the broad sense.

The single most important practice for me has been “The Way of Service.” So that is the simple part. But what exactly is “The Way of Service” — that is the not so easy to explain part. Continue reading →