I’d give the Oculus Rift a whirl, given the chance, but I’m not that geeked up about it, and I don’t know why. Google Glass, I could tell why I think that’s dumb, but the Oculus Rift seems fairly rad to me, and that’s all. Fairly rad. Not dumb, not the coolest, just pretty neat.

Maybe it’s the timing, with this coming out so soon after the 3D movie resurgence. 3D movies have always spoken to me conceptually, but there have been lots of let-downs in that space over the past few years. Although Hugo was incredible. And I am all about the 3DS. Hm.

Okay, so this is a theory I’m formulating as I’m writing it, but maybe the technology is awesome and I fear that won’t be enough? I look at something like the Wii, and, man, I friggin’ love the Wii, and I think it inspired some brilliant games that never would’ve been possible before, but the greater legacy of the system is not the way it inspired innovation and creativity, but the way developers looked at it, collectively shrugged their shoulders, and said, “Meh, waggle waggle, this doesn’t work.” And they gave up without really trying. They dismissed motion controls as a shallow gimmick, completely disregarding the strong cases for the Wii Remote presented by such spectacular works as Wii Sports, No More Heroes, Boom Blox, Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, Elebits… There was a lot of great stuff, but that wasn’t the conversation.

There’s all this talk about whether or not 3D can work in games – or even if 3D can not ruin games – but in my mind, it already works. Most of the time, I’d rather play 3DS games in 3D. That, for me, is the end of the discussion. I’ve been given an option, and I choose 3D.

Most 3D movies, are sloppy, post-production conversions that are dim and blurry, and the effect distracts, but I saw Hugo in 3D, and I thought it not only looked like the bee’s knees, it enhanced the storytelling. Just because 3D is bad the majority of the time doesn’t mean it’s inherently bad. It just takes getting used to, for both the audience and the creators.

I think it will be a long, long time before VR headsets become the norm, if they ever do, and I think it will be much longer before they gain acceptance. And if I’m right about that, it means we’re in for quite a wait before the Oculus Rift will have enough to offer to justify its cost. Regardless of any of that, though, I think I want it to succeed. I want to play it with a Novint Falcon. I was promised a VR future, and I want it. I’m just not excited for what’s on offer at the present.

(Also, this is the best: http://youtu.be/Vi6Rdpw1zTE)

Your article reminds me of this one wonderful quote by Michael Jackson: “If you enter this world knowing you are loved and you leave this world knowing the same, then everything that happens in between can be dealt with.”

Honestly, I don’t know. I wish I could be a good and kind person, to not let my passions get the best of me. “Do not be quick with your mouth, do not be hasty in your heart, to utter anything before God,” the Good Book says. I’m not near contemplative enough before I’m already yammering, though. And I’m guilty of the art of the snarky tweet, for sure; it’s too easy for me to write those off as legit “criticism.”

However. A quick web definition of bullying suggests the real difference between snark and actual bullying is “intimidation.” It’s a type of power play where someone tries to get the upper hand. It isn’t like having (and winning) an argument; instead of trying to change the person’s mind about a worldview, the bully is trying to just make the person hate herself. Google’s web definition also suggests that, in whatever given hierarchy, the aggressor is often already in a “superior” position—which is to say, bullying tends to be a way of maintaining a preexisting “pecking order.”

I feel that there is one enormous problem with bullying, and that is that no-one ever takes responsibility for being a bully. I’ve definitely acted incredibly awfully towards people, especially as a teenager, but I simply wish that people could flag my behaviour as bullying so I had a better idea of reference. I know I’ve upset people, and I prefer to remind myself of this.

Perhaps it’s a matter of saying that ‘everyone is a bully’, or at least, most people have made someone feel persecuted and pressured unfairly within a wretched social conform.

People highlight the extremes, such as threatening emails, and like to pretend that a snarky forum reply or tweet is any less damaging.

Interesting comments about the “voice problem.” I have a somewhat similar thing; a distinctive voice which just occurred, yet is continually taken as either affectation or performance.

“Just knock off the Radio Voice for a second, already” a date once told me. So I did my dead-on Zoidberg impression the rest of the evening. There was no second date.

On the plus side, I was the first choice to record the advert for my old WoW guild. Google “Asgardian Guild WoW” and click on the page’s audio player. That’s me.

Best of luck with things, fellow Deep Voiced One.

This little bit of contact has been immensely reassuring though. Even if, in the end, you don’t find you have anything you really want to say about it, that’s fine too. The thing which scares me is being ignored, and it always has been that, but I have had to face the fact that the only way to ever not be ignored is to keep talking.

Otherwise I get ignored by default.

I’m not always quick to respond when I like something (or even if I don’t, but also if I do), because there’s that idea again, digestion. I could say “here is what I liked” and then give you an outline of everything you said. That isn’t helpful! That’s just silly.

Everything about your column struck me, but the bit about “never time to construct a complex thought” especially did. That’s the thing about both “shooter zen” and “crisis,” isn’t it? There’s never time to complete your mental sentence, no. Anyway, still thinking.

—j

I was thinking about your voice story/metaphor just now. I don’t like to see photos of myself or recordings of my voice, or even people who look or sound like me. I tend to resent people who I perceive to exceed a threshold of similarity to myself. And just now, through the lens of what you wrote, I see a concordance between this behavior and my behavior as a creative person, where the moment I feel comfortable in one mode of creation I tend to expand beyond that, where the moment I feel that my ‘voice’, as a writer or artist or whatever, comes too easily, that I’m not trying hard enough any more and I have to try a different approach or I will stagnate.

I don’t know if this is a good approach or a bad approach in terms of long term creativity, but I didn’t much like what it said about how I think of myself. Perhaps I should try expanding my scope of voice from the center outwards, expand my core, rather than, as I have been doing, trying to conquer new voices and integrate them into my own, to speak through simulacra of other people until they merge with myself. We always end up integrating strands of what we consume into our own works, but I think it’s important to digest rather than regurgitate.

By the way, I hope you liked the hexagonical piece I wrote. I tend to assume when I don’t hear anything that it’s a case of “if you don’t have anything nice to say then don’t say anything at all.” I don’t know if that’s true here or not, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed to get no response: I tried to write something good and strong and interesting and personal knowing that someone I respected would be reading it, but there’s never really any knowing what will connect with an audience. That’s the difference between being a writer and a performer, I suppose.

Unfortunately, drawing unusual connections also sometimes has the side effect of making us sound like crazy people.

Oh, right. I’m going to fire this at you on twitter as well, but I said I’d put it here so:
http://problemmachine.wordpres.....ing-shape/
Oh, it’s very much related to the foregoing comment about drawing unusual connections sounding kind of crazy…

When I was a kid, I was ruthlessly teased for my distinctive voice, and after an adult mentioned my voice problem (some people who cast me in a play confessed they thought my voice would “clear up”), I went to an ENT who concluded my voice was, heh, natural. Ha, ha, ha! (I took opera lessons for seven years in an effort to learn to control my voice—volume, pitch, all that. The ENT warned “she’ll never sing,” and years later I returned, informed him that whether he remembers the ordeal or not anyway I am a mezzo-soprano, and thank you, and I left again.)

Look at all the issues we invent for other people!

But when I was already in my late teens, a “competitive acting” judge applauded me for my “boom,” writing that she was so startled that loud mature bravado could come out of such a small person. Here you see, again, how “voice” stops being literal and becomes its own metaphor. (Jesus, hello, how can I make myself not turn every small question into a teachable moment! Augh!)

Because of my “voice problem,” it was a strange, strange pleasure to inflict myself on Terry’s audience, very “ha!” You should know my real beef is not with Terry’s audience but with an otolaryngologist who probably doesn’t even practice anymore. I am hilariously petty.

PS: How does it feel to know that thousands of gamers are now pavlovianly conditioned to your voice? You could probably cause some sort of mass heart attack by saying “GAME OVER” at GDC now.

(I think we can be try to be patient with all people, but when it becomes terribly clear they have only your worst interests at heart, the very kindest thing you can do unto everyone is just bow out. That goes for arguments, relationships, jobs. Wishing you all the best.)

Also, I too am in the process of ascribing greater meaning to Super Hexagon having just recently picked it up on Steam and having it blow my brains out my ears. If you’re interested I’ll link you to whatever I end up writing about it. And if you’re not, I won’t!

I am going to give you the haps, now, Doug: right up until my adoption, no one wanted me. No one would have me. This isn’t a matter of popular opinion or public debate. I never lasted a month anywhere because, even at age three, age four, age five, I was insufferable.

Well, we are all five-year olds, Doug. We are five-year olds playing at adulthood, all of us. My awful personality is pretty well cemented, and also well documented, and let’s face it: if I’m remotely lovable now, it’s for the same reasons I was hugely unlovable as a child. (In writing, we say “Turn that weakness into a strength!” In each iteration of Windows it’s “It’s not a bug; it’s a feature!” In romance, we call it “Quirky! Cute! Relatable!” Get used to trying to accept some of your own features, Doug.)

Someone suggested to me, a few years ago and after a terrific breakup I initiated, that one of my great life foibles is testing how long any one person can take me. “And no one can win,” she warned me.

This last aside doesn’t have any grand life lesson tacked to it, it’s just a thing. But I do caution against looking so hard for love outside of yourself—the reality is, you are your own best mate. It isn’t so alienating to consider there is one person who identifies best with you, and that person is you. (I joke about wanting to get away from myself, too, but I am getting so much better.)

I notice, Doug, that you feel unworthy. You are feeling unworthy of giving or receiving love. I am going to venture a presumptuous guess: you are not a dog-owner.

I would love to give you pages of advice, but all my idiot advice comes down to this: if you seek unconditional love, or if you seek repeated validation every day that your very presence is enough, get a dog. Have yourself a dog, Doug. I am not saying this funnily, Doug. It has reformatted my entire weird alien life.

If a dog isn’t in the cards, I do suggest things like writing exercises, all of which are configured to test your own mettle. You test yourself, you challenge yourself, by making something, just to prove your own worth to yourself, even if it’s just a list of “ingredients I enjoy on sandwiches” or “scents I enjoy.” My favorite scent, Doug, is that of the gardenia.

If you don’t love writing the way I love writing, I recommend anything else. You don’t have to blog about video games or pizza. You can instead make bracelets from lanyards and hand them out to people you like. Recently a total stranger, who was wracked by the loss of his father, handed me a polished rock. You might share yourself in another way. Do you like cooking? Would you like to be a musician or a teacher?

You have caused me deep pain with your comment, and that tells me you have a gift for writing and expression. I want to encourage you to channel it for good, for good, and not for self-loathing.

I think, if you either commit to a dog or write a list, or if you make bracelets and quiches or polish rocks to hand out at funeral homes, you will discover that you contain untold and valuable and countless depths.

If you were to begin with a list, just a list, I think even the shallow parts—things like “I hate olives” or “dog farts I find particularly gruesome” or “why does anyone enjoy tomatoes”—will go a great distance in reminding you that you have a great deal more to offer than olives, dog farts, tomatoes. Doug, I have penned so many lists.

Your feelings are valuable and valid and I very strongly identify. I struggle to be lovable too. Without my parents, I struggle to find, day-to-day, real purpose in life, and I often prefer my own loneliness to the company of other people. Other people can be daily reminders of what I’m missing. I know you know this.

I want to point you toward one of my blog’s ideas, Doug, and that is that you are no victim, no cynic. You have survived something—not sure what, but something. Waking up in the morning can be its own victory, and sometimes if you can make yourself brush your teeth it’s its own reward. But for the good of me and others, I’d ask you to please trust yourself. If you have to prove your own competence to yourself, begin with a dog. (I will tell you right now, don’t do the plant thing. It turns out it is much easier to keep people and dogs alive than plants.)

Please check back in or feel free to email. I’m sorry if I’ve been domineering or presumptuous, but I am looking forward to hearing more about your journey.

I am miserly with my time, and yet my nickname in college was “time vortex,” so do know that I’m, on top of everything else, the worst hypocrite. Even being miserly—I think that acknowledges something about life being valuable, something about the importance of time and people. Like, remember: being a hipster about music means scrupulously listening to three bands no one’s ever heard of. What’s funny is that hipsters behave that way precisely because they are championing music on the whole. That’s how I feel about people.

I don’t waste too much time on negative or awful people anymore. That is a thing I’ve learned lately. It is okay to be begrudging, I think. I want to be careful when I say this, but when I rally against certain attitudes, I don’t think I mean “meticulous about time/space/person management.” I talked a lot here about economy, too.

P.S. For anyone curious about the “Oscar” comment, I told Twitter I’ve finally gone full Sally Field. Thank you for catching the reference, PM. For everyone else, I’m pretty sure there’s a video. Aaaaand: yes. There is a video. Richard Dreyfuss is also in it.

I’m greedy: I begrudge other people my time and try to carefully choose the things I read because, you know, it’s easy to be surrounded by words and never hear anything of substance. But I’m going to try to pay attention to the things you have to say because I think it will make me more insightful and make my own writing better in a fairly direct way.

Good luck with the writing gig and with life. Shit’s rough. But… exciting!

Unfortunately it’s not something I’m capable of having. I’ve told this to one person: There’s something intrinsically odious and worthless about me. No one cares to know me or to stick around. That person told that wasn’t true, but a few years later i sit here still reeling from that person’s abrupt abandonment which happened a couple months ago with no explanation. no deterioration, no obvious impetus.

Instead of sharing your life and partaking in others’, you are quarantined from the human experience.

It’s no way to live; isolated, stagnant, neglected.

If it were the inevitable end for us all, there would be far more grandpa suicides.