| Richness permeates almost everything in October. It is such a golden age. This summer I burnt through a lot of midnight oil, pneumonia bearing down on breath, the limitations of my dev team, the expiration of my old lease on life. It was a serious soul reckoning of 2011. As the summer's heat + my hot seat diminished, and I found myself breathing a little more easily, I couldn't help but mine for meaning about these rough roads. What's with all the friction? What am I fighting for? I miss being a free spirit. And why shouldn't I? When we're free to move about easily and flexibly through our goals and challenges, that choice is essential. It's playful. We deserve the freedom of voluntary participation. Many people might chide me for being childish, but I beg to differ (as usual.) Our culture is literally working through a depression epidemic. Some of the discoveries of Randolph Nesse, a professor of evolutionary medicine at University of Michigan, confirm what I've been suspecting: Depression may be an adaptive mechanism meant to prevent us from falling victim to blind optimism – and squandering resources on the wrong goals. This mechanism + our tendency to set unrealistic goals (hello supersized personal achievements) may be the cause of our current depression epidemic in the US. While we're encouraged to believe we can do anything, we try to achieve unrealistic dreams. We don't hone our real abilities and focus effort on surmountable goals.Nesse, R.M. "Is Depression an Adaptation?" archives of General Psychiatry, 2000, 57; and McGonigal, Jane. "Reality is Broken," 2001, 75. Nesse's confirmation has unleashed more fuel for fodder toward work along a more authentic path, which for me ironically means playing more games. Games, in my opinion, are a powerful means of organizing communication, community, work and life toward greater good. While my business has largely focused only on the communication piece alongside the technical heft of making magic happen on demand, we have only begun to strategize about gaming's importance in this arena. It's time to honor the possibility that gaming is our next layer to the sea of social media bringing us closer together. Over breakfast at the ever delightful Milk & Honey this morning, another champion of the greater good, Dawn Hancock founder of Firebelly Design, reminded me how essential it is to do what makes us happy. We also chatted about the Institute of Play and how digital media is being used in both formal and informal learning environments. This is all so exciting. We're truly on the leading edge of a major tipping point.
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Breakfast with Champions
Tuesday, 18 October 2011 14:16
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