I have a new LOG post up that is pretty good I'd like to share. I don't think you have to know about the project to appreciate it.
I played. Then I became interested in my own play. How and why do I play like this? What is it called? I'll call it 002303200. Why? Because that is a name I can write down but that is hard to say. Why make it hard to say? Try to say it. Then you've put on a hat you otherwise might never have. Not to mention that palindromes are interesting and I've said it means "ModuloMe": whatever it is, I am the fundamental unit of growth. But that doesn't fly when you walk into someone's silver office (metaphorically or otherwise) to try to explain what you're doing. Why didn't you write this paper? I was busy playing in my sandbox. And I hang my head and go home with my tail between my legs.
Tim Brown says that we play in an environment we trust. My teacher and friend showed me that environment and I began to play. But I'm so brave (or stupid) that I'm playing with the very bricks that make up the only house I'll ever have. And after a while pulling bricks, I have this weird looking structure that looks like it might fall over on one side, while my house that was at least meeting conservative standards is now just crew socks, and at that point I'm afraid, because I'm not a fan of ankle socks.
So I just rest my foot on the weak side of it and say I'm going to have to tell people this is a castle, not a house, so that that weird bulge on the side they'll think is a turret. I call it "Castle". Then I have dressed it in that costume. I paint it grey, but hang colorful banners and hire knights and ladies to inhabit it so that I can watch how often they come and go and how they carry on their strict social codes inside my structure. One day I drop a dragon in there to see what happens. The knights and ladies train it to be their primary protective force in their military. Then I start sending in Arabs and Chinamen from the East to spice things up. They all live together and their culture grows and there are fights but its only about things like what color to dye the rice today. I love how they would think to dye rice a color and eat it.
I invite some humans to come have a look at the Castle and see this and they say, "That's not a real Castle. It only has one turret. And knights and ladies and Arabs and Chinamen can't live together. And NO ONE dyes rice a different color. There are books on this. We all learn it in school." And I'd never thought to ask myself what it meant that my Castle only has one turret and the people dye the rice a different color. I must be pretty dumb not even thinking there would be books on it too.
If you've ever wondered whether God gets lonely, then this is where it's at. We turn to our Castle and we whisper in self-shame, knowing we're betraying our own joy because we want our Castle to meet the height requirements to play on this other game that just incited our innocent arrogance by questioning the value of what we at heart think is incredibly good. "Yeah? well, my Castle can still survive in the big leagues. just you watch."
We turn to the Castle, "knights and ladies. Arabs and Chinamen. listen up. You can't dye the rice a different color. If we're going to play in the big leagues, you can't be doing that. It's against the rules there." But they ask why and I have no answer, because I ask the same question and in the end we'd certainly choose each other over these "big leagues" we don't even know what are about except that people come back hand in hand laughing and that looks new and interesting as well.
The knights and ladies, Arabs and Chinamen have only me though, and I have no answer, but they ask until they are depressed from no answer, and they turn on each other in confusion and anger. They segregate the Castle and wear hats that say "Knight", "Lady," "Arab," or "Chinamen" and they just stop eating rice because they're too anxious about what color I think they should leave the rice as and stop changing it. And so they starve and the dragon flies away and now the turret looks like an embarrassing bulge again. A lot of people would come around and point at the homeless guy on the corner and remind me, "THAT guy thought that knights, ladies, Arabs, and Chinamen could live together and dye rice different colors."
Anyway, this is nothing new. It's probably called life. And the probability is that it goes on.
24 Apr 2012, 1:23 am
