The Presence of Narrative in Non-Linear Experiences

Being exposed from an early age to highly thematic and narrative-based literature and film, my mind is predisposed to understanding the world through linear mediums that seek to communicate ideas intentionally. Since college I’ve been fascinated by non-linear representations of the world, mostly because their apparent lack of cohesive ideas present a challenge to demystify their meaning. This pursuit has mostly just facilitated a better understanding, and thereby respect, of visual art. However, this respect does not envelope all art; forms of highly self-expressive nature are of little value to me. Surely there is meaning behind the works of Dadaists or Abstract Expressionists.

Over the past year or so, a critical outlook towards the medium of games has also emerged, much for the same reasons. Again, the main question is whether games that lack themes or centralized ideas are worth playing. A popular genre that routinely lacks these tend to place the player in a non-linear sandbox. In such an environment the player is often given little story or overarching themes to the world. I find that in these settings, instead of taking actions that gravitate around a meaning or story, I am forced to focus on mechanics and technique. Often this has turned an enjoyable experience into a practice in micro-management. All allure is removed as the game’s relationship to the player is no longer a dialog, but is forced to be game-centric through requiring the player to obsess over technique in order to progress.

Appreciating forms of this nature in games while coming from a narrative-heavy background has been a great challenge. However, I think I was able to find an answer through friends, my own occupation, and a couple of recent sandbox games. While in San Antonio for a time, I was able to get to know a good friend who is a general contractor; a job that requires a lot of physical manipulation and knowledge of how physical systems work. I was also employed as a software engineer, which typically requires one to design and think about software as analogous to objects and tools. The realization is that objects in this genre of game, and in real life, have a level of intrinsic meaning. The specific games that helped the realization of this were Katamari Damacy and Just Cause 2. Previously I mentioned that the typical result of playing these games is to obsess over technique. While recently playing Just Cause 2, the realization came that I could determine a relation between the designer’s crafting of physical objects to the other elements in the game (such as story, music, etc). Since most of the game involves manipulating objects in order to achieve objectives, each object is given certain physical properties, and all objects operate along a common set of physical laws. The variation in the properties present of the objects convey a different meaning when used, much in the way that a sledgehammer can be used in a different manner than a knife. Now, I’m not trying to say that Just Cause 2 uses realistic physics. But rather, that the designer’s embed their choice of meaning through making objects that operate in certain ways, even if those ways seem minute. An excellent example can be seen through the sound queues that arise when picking up objects in Katamari Damacy, which taken with the rest of the game, convey an idea of the futility of material wealth.

Lastly, so as to not convey that I intend on spending countless hours seeking meaning within sandbox games, I don’t believe that I can personally invest large amounts of time in these games and still derive just as much meaning if I were to read a book or have a good conversation. As stated in the beginning, I’m predisposed to other ways of understanding the world. As such, this method is intended merely to assist in interpreting what otherwise tends to appear as chaos. At most, I intend on using it to understand better the designer’s vision and how people find meaning in non-linear contexts, which seems a popular outlook.

Defining Individuals by Their Societal Expectations

The typical way to judge a person’s beliefs and place in society is comprised of asking what they do. What about instead of focusing on the person to determine this, we asked what this person’s assumptions and expectations out of society were? Assumptions and expectations are rather vague words, so they might be better understood as what a person views as a service or commodity in their life; a resource that guaranteed to be available for use when needed. For example, many Americans assume that electricity, running water, and gasoline will be available at all times. The result of assuming that these consumables are readily available is that the mind is able to focus on other matters and thereby provide without the burden of worrying about such things. Most of my life I’ve had a hard time understanding how people can commodify these things and result in extreme anguish when they are removed. I suppose I’m such a essentialist that I assume or expect very little. Anyways, if one can determine this about someone, the core beliefs and world views can be revealed. Gas, electricity, and running water are expectations of nearly every American. Other items, such as money, the internet, a filled refrigerator, a mowed lawn, and a quiet house, a serving spouse, keep to themselves neighbors, a slice of pie every night, etc, can more readily identify these qualities. In fact, for many, the context in which people find themselves could theoretically define them more than what they actually create in life. That is, that life could be defined and understood more by what they’ve surrounded themselves with and consumed than by what they’ve contributed.

That last statement isn’t meant to condemn those that consume more than contribute; only that certain kinds of contribution can only be given if their environment is sufficiently guaranteed. An engineer may need a large quantity of money in order to support a highly controlled environment in order so that he might focus on just his work. A governmental leader likewise may need an even greater amount of environmental control in order to have sufficient focus to analyze data to make proper governmental decisions (now I'm not saying that governmental expenditures are free of suspect, there are surely members who by corruption indulge). Without these, focus is taken away and that person can no longer give to society in those ways.

A natural understanding of this system is that some portion of individuals will contribute more than they consume. However, their contribution is likely to be from industrial labor and thereby do not need such a highly focused mind in order to guarantee the product they are to yield.

Modernist Lifestyle Patterns and Sources

The past several months have been very illuminating in understanding the properties of modernism (including its gratifications, pressures, and vices), and understanding my need to have distance from it due to my pre-modernism ideals. I have understood first hand the ways in which modernism as a way of life causes participants to support a system in unity and with all knowable efficiency even though its appearance is largely alien, but also ironically (though not causally) in which such a pursuit causes a regular need for gratification through equally-as detached sources. Before this experience, I had little empathy for people who seemed to be in endless pursuit of clean and packaged sources of gratification. In my past, I had heard statements indicating that such a pursuit of gratification was caused by modernism. Reflecting now, I do not think that is the case.

When considering what kinds of alien gratifications that are pursued, I think the nature of desire comes more to light. For the majority of society, indicated by the prevalence of this type of consumer good, all gratifications have their primary asset as sensual enjoyment. Cognitive or logical constructs (which are themselves modernistic) are a lesser priority. Since these sources are sensual, I think people pursue them because they’re trying to detach themselves wholly from a lifestyle that does not comprise of what feels natural to them. Childhood and upbringing for most is a particularly sensual experience, and it becomes the strongest familiarity (at least until later age). Entering into the adult world and being thrust forcibly into an industrial system opposed to the personal causes an eventual and inevitable mild level of rejection by those whose experience up to that point was primarily personal. The choice then for sources of alien gratification, sources which ask nothing of the taker, is ironic due to the nature of the item being alien (likely even created by modernism), but is caused by a need to re-acquaintance with what is natural and familiar. The reason people take this action changes slightly over. Those new to modernism choose sources of gratification out of rejection (hardly a choice really at all). Those who have lived longer choose these sources out of a need to detach from the modernistic system and attach to another; in the process adding to the irony.

Upon reflecting upon my reflections, I’m not all that sure what is written here is much beyond what I can be expected to understand. Coming from an intellectual background which promotes the idea that humans add practices and beliefs unnecessarily to their lifestyle (a non-denominational Evangelical perspective), it seems only natural to conclude that most people spend their lives in constant readjustment back to what makes them core; what is natural and true about them.

A good question therefore to ask of myself is whether there are new lifestyles within these modernistic systems that humans can adopt. Is it truly possible that mankind can evolve such that he is defined by something other than a core that for most people is derived from their childhood experiences?

Moon and Institutionalization

Last night I decided to watch Moon. I'm posting about this because in the course of doing so, the film began to seem oddly similar to a contemporary computer game, Portal. When I played Portal, I never understood why so many thought it was something of a revolutionary game. Moon changed this because even though I noted the similarities, somehow the film portrayed the notion that there was symbolism to be had more clearly.

Seeing the symbols in Moon revealed those in Portal, and through processing the possible meanings brought to light perhaps why I had missed the ideas in the first place. Four essential ideas exist in each:

• Humans are born into a world where protocol has defined the environment.
  
• Centralized control exists, which imposes upon inhabitants duties or tests.
  
• Nonhuman entities exist to facilitate duties and are given empathetic qualities.
  
• Escape from this world is only possible due to an oversight in the protocol.

The first idea, that protocol has defined the environment, is evident from the aesthetics and location of both works. Stark white in definition, paneled, and buffed, both worlds give the impression that nothing beyond what one can see exists. The location also plays into this idea, by either being located on the moon during a communication blackout, or in a compound artificially lit that begins a plastic cell, from which travel is controlled by an external computer. The second idea, of centralized control through duties or tests, is easily recognizable, but significant in that it reinforces the impression of the highly controlled world. The existence of nonhuman entities in each bearing empathetic qualities is one of the most striking similarities. In Moon, this is represented by GERTY, who exists to keep the station's occupant on their task. In Portal, I believe this is represented by the Companion Cube, with which the player completes tests. The empathetic quality in each is from their similar aesthetic qualities: GERTY has a face reflecting its current emotion, and the Companion Cube has a pink heart printed on each of its sides. The third idea, concerning escape, occurs in Moon only because the clone resuscitation process is tied to when the system thinks the previous clone has died. Somehow the system in error believes this, and so the new clone ends up retrieving the first, who is not dead, eventually allowing for the clones to realize that they are clones thereby cause a break in the system. In Portal, this more or less exists due to the software in the centralized computer allowing the player to leave their cell even though the world the player is released into needs maintenance.

After seeing these ideas in both works, it isn't hard to see the reasons why Portal was popular and perceived to be innovative. I'm willing to make the wager that people enjoyed the game because it aligned with experience in secondary education. From people trying to understand Generation Y, there has been much talk about how Y's life has been defined more than previous generations by institutionalized practices. This impression comes from the increased prominence of standardized testing, over-medication, over-scheduled lives, and growing up digital. If correct, my own lack of understanding makes sense. My life up to college was rural; I went to a school having on average less than 80 people per class; an anomaly compared to my peers in college. From understanding Moon more, I'd say that the film is important culturally, and hopefully further excursions into art which discusses these ideas will round my understanding of why segments of Generation Y hold these ideas.

Interpreting "Modernism"

Although this realization is rather elementary, recently the answer to a question often asked: "what is modernism, doesn't that just mean, current?", become obvious. This realization came mostly from some readings which eloquently defined the idea. "Modern," meaning "now" or "current" isn't a reference to our time or to a period; doing so is the primarily incorrect way of approaching the term. Rather, since this is a philosophic term, one needs to interpret just the word in how it defines a philosophical outlook. Thereby, the idea becomes more obvious: modernism is the philosophy of the present, the ideal of living in a timeless current or "now" of non-linear experience.

Given this method of interpretation, the term postmodern becomes more clear in its definition and, given more understanding of the philosophy, a humorous label. The term meaning that, first, postmodernism is a reaction to modernism, but that it is historic, or backwards looking. Where modernism defined itself by its timeless objectification of reality, postmodernism defines itself from a more linear experiential stance, where less in life can be quantified, universalized, and objectified.

Last Night's Insomnia

I'm a postmodernist working through a modernist lifestyle. No contradictions seem apparent while doing modernist work and I'm pragmatically superior to my peers for my modernistic disciplines and focus while I work. The answer to this lies in truly understanding postmodernism as seeing life full of a multitude of philosophies that can be all embraced effectively, choosing one or the other merely based on the context appropriate. Extension, and perhaps less trustworthy, is the idea that according to the postmodernist, these philosophic systems generated not out of universalized natural law which is a modernist idea, but from a context. For example, information systems are an inherently modernistic practice and thereby cause modernistic philosophic systems to by used by those who engage in said practice.

The Environment and Natural Contentions

Given the assumption that life has within it, some degree of struggle or fight, there is a relation between environment and type of struggle which man encounters. For three simple environments, of desert, jungle, and agrarian plain, there exists respectively the struggle of man against the forces of nature, man itself, and the mind.

The first, being the desert, is perhaps the most interesting because the environment is itself the opponent that man finds itself against. In a desert, resources are so scarce and other creatures, human or otherwise, so few, that in order to survive, man must chiefly concern himself with the elements; how they behave, what they demand, etc. This pits man against a foe who is highly abstract, and has little to no empathetic qualities that humanity can call commonality with, and thereby is highly alienated from this experience. What comes forth to survive is a perspective "incapable of reflection", but instead of "suspense and watchfulness", because clues to surviving are so unapparent and inaccessible (The Plains of Patagonia, Hudson).

The jungle provides such comparatively abundant resources that survival is often against man itself. Equivocal environments to an actual tropical jungle, is that of the city; similar principles can be derived. Although resources are numerous in the jungle, so is life. Because of this, there is life such that it lives by fighting other life. Man therefore, must orientate himself around human, animal, insect, and plant kind, in order to survive, both feeding off of as well as defending against these groups. As such, man’s skills become strong in external expressions: social behaviors, physical strength, political renown, etc.

In the agrarian plain, man struggles against the mind. The environment allows human life to exist more easily than the desert, but less than in the jungle. Less population density detracts the importance of human interaction. Greater allowances to grow give less pressure on having a perspective of "suspense and watchfulness", and thereby more of an ease of what the plain will bring to fruition. Having no opponents other than what the land gives him with relatively little struggle, and having little reason to compete, man’s reality is relatively fixed. Thereby, the struggles which do emerge are those of the mind and inward life.