The Mystical Man

It's incredible that this tape exists. Some moments feel scripted, like something a screenwriter wrote, and an actor performed. But what's captured on this tape is the unfolding of a real tragedy. 11:04: "I look at our babies, and I think they deserve to live." "I agree. But they also deserve peace." "We all came here for peace." "And have we had it?" "No." "I tried to give it to you. I've laid down my life. I've died every day to give you peace. And you still don't have any peace." 14:02: "I cannot separate myself from the pain of my people. And you can't either, Christine. You can't separate yourself. We've walked too long together." "As an individual I have a right-" "You do, and I'm listening." "We all have a right to our own destiny as individuals." "Christine, you're only standing here because he was here in the first place, so I don't know what you're talking about having an individual life. Your life has been extended to the day that you're standing there because of him."

The reasons for why we tell stories are so manifold that I couldn't list them all. There are many functions of storytelling that fulfill the numerous purposes of storytelling. Unlike the other arts, the art of storytelling is deeply interlinked with the human psyche.

The track used in the documentary:

The final twenty minutes of this documentary. My God. I wasn't expecting to cry. What a tragedy.

How meditation works: Keep bringing your attention back until the mind becomes still.

Lots of fascinating stuff on that Twitter account.

Meditation is good for sanity Meditate more you must

Almost always. And that's because storytelling is one of the most underestimated crafts. Everyone thinks they know how to tell a story, but the only game studio that does it well is Naughty Dog. And that's because they study Robert McKee's work. Pixar does that too. Some narrative experiences work better as games. I have no interest in watching the Uncharted movie, for it was designed to be an active cinematic experience. Druckmann and Straley gave a GDC talk on that subject. One of the best GDC talks ever.

I think it's wiser to make the commercial stuff first. Then you'll have the resources to create whatever artsy-fartsy stuff you want. That's how Rowling did it. First, write HP. Then you can write Casual Vacancy. That's how Pixar did it, too. First, make Toy Story. Then you can make WALL-E.

That depends on the type of game that you're making. A game like Fortnite is all artstyle and gameplay. But that's not the kind of game that Scorn is. The nature of Scorn suggests that it would benefit from Naughty Dog's principle: Narrative Drives Gameplay. I'd never suggest that Fortnite needs an Archplot, because it's already successful as the type of game that it is. But what type of game is Scorn? Just an atmospheric type? Actually, atmosphere and mood are two different things. Mood can be achieved with visuals alone: the right colors and light. Atmosphere, however, comes from a well-thought-out setting, which is an aspect of story. For example, you can create an image of a castle, and it can have a certain mood, but the atmosphere of Hogwarts is unique. The way I see it, Scorn achieves a macabre mood, but it fails to establish a unique atmosphere. So Scorn isn't even an atmospheric type, it's a mood type. It's a mood experience, not an emotional experience. "When we want mood experiences, we go to concerts or museums. When we want meaningful emotional experience, we go to the storyteller." - Robert McKee

He's not as cool as Adya

Do you remember Akinator? https://en.akinator.com

That's true, but narrative drives gameplay. In fact, narrative drives every aspect of a video game: art and music, too.

I think Scorn would've benefited from a traditional Archplot. Mystery is fine, but, in this case, it's too much mystery. For example, Spirited Away is praised for its mysterious bathhouse. Miyazaki doesn't explain anything, but Spirited Away is an Archplot. That means there is a protagonist that we can relate to. That's so important. Because I find it sad that the developers of Scorn spent a decade building beautiful environments without understanding and applying showmanship. But I hope they're proud of their achievement and happy with the sales.

"Tremendous power lies in the simple, physical act of stationing our body at the epicenter of our dream." "Work—day-in, day-out exertion and concentration—produces progress and order. That's a law of the universe." "You can be a full-time writer, one hour a day." "When we say, 'put your ass,' we mean put it at the highest possible level."

New book by Steven Pressfield. I haven't read it yet, but I like the title. Get it here.

5:38. He was a good speaker. No wonder people followed him. Makes me appreciate even more a sane presence like Adyashanti.

I feel like I learned English "automatically", too. It's the world language, and it's a very simple language. Therefore, reading and listening comprehension is easily achieved, especially nowadays. But I'm still not a fluent speaker. "My philological studies have satisfied me that a gifted person ought to learn English (barring spelling and pronouncing) in thirty hours, French in thirty days, and German in thirty years." - Mark Twain

https://youtu.be/XXSdHbdV3Uk "Scratch below the surface of Donald Trump and you'll find a scared little me that feels inadequate. 'If I just keep getting my combover correct, it'll all be okay.'" Funny, especially coming from Adya. "You have contact with the energies that anybody has ever had." "These are all ways of representing the human psyche. And as you open to yourself, you will go through the realms of the human psyche. Some heavenly and prone to get you cul-de-saced in a heavenly illusion, and others very dark, maybe even demonic. That's part of going to the seed of consciousness. If you don't go through it, later on you may get some great insight, but often that insight will be fueled by your unresolved darkness that you didn't go through in your own psyche. You're Jim Jones giving people Kool-Aid. People can bypass it, but then it starts to come up. Let yourself feel what you feel, but just don't make any stories about it. It's the stories about it that become harmful." "Nice guys often got some of the most volatile energy of anybody."

One of the many things that I love about Adya is that he can take a single word, go on the stage, and spontaneously contemplate that word for an hour. Sometimes he combines two words: for example, Emptiness and Love. Sometimes he meditates on a whole phrase like Be a Lamp unto Yourself.

https://youtu.be/nVgj68tcCbU "The great religious stories, east and west, are there for the purpose of evoking the sacred in us, the numinous. We turn them into history lessons. They were meant to be stories that could wake up some dimension of being within us." "Because we can give it a word, we can lose the sense of how mysterious something is." "People can be in a given environment, and they can leave a signature of presence in that environment, and sometimes they can leave it there for hundreds of years." "The bigness of a given experience has no indication of how deep it has gone and how lasting and transformative it will be." "One good encounter with the numinous can alter someone's entire life course." "It's a transformation in our vision, not in our being. We don't become something that's numinous. It's a transformation of seeing, not a transformation of being. That's so important to understand." "If it has no intimacy, then you know it's just something that someone's baked up in their mind." "The secret to being still: grant permission to all movement." Adya references this movie:

My favorite Beatles song:

Great scene. No music, no sound effects, no gimmicky camera movements to keep the viewer's attention. Just flawless writing and pure acting. I love it. I appreciate writers, actors, and directors. What would life be without their creativity, brilliance, and genius?