On Religious Leanings

Today at work I used a popular colloquialism "Mission Accomplished", where in this case nothing is accomplished other then more failure. This is of course in reference to Bush's famous speech, what is now, early on in the Iraq war. He landed on an aircraft carrier, and proudly proclaimed the Iraq War over, with a giant banner, emblazoned with the now famous words and the phrase that started a debate, the nature of which might have been hostile, I'm still not quite certain.

After the words were out of my mouth, not intended in any way as an attack toward anyone, the individual who is essentially my boss began a heated explanation of how that whole event was misconstrued by the media and how very few sources reported on the fact that the banner was completely unrelated to President Bush's speech. I knew I was now working among more religiously observant people then I had in the past, but I didn't know their predominant political leanings until today.

Shortly after this things made a hard turn into evolution with my boss taking the tact that it's consistently been proven wrong and refuted by scientists, and saying so in language heavily steeped in creationism. The discussion was happening at such a clip I couldn't get my bearings enough to ask him where these declarations were originating from. I'll admit, I'm pretty bad at debate, my mind is often fleeting, drifting away from what I want to say leaving my mouth flapping and my hands waving. Even still I feel I brought my views to the table, that evolution is a hypothesis, not a theory as many people have claimed, that the supposedly omnipotent and omnipresent nature of God allows for any number of creation theories to be true simultaneously.

Past that we swung into personal belief, and I still can't tell if my boss was outright offended at my view that everyone is entitled to their own faith, and that mine allows for everything to be true, no matter how contradictory. Of course he might just have been put off by my insistence in believing in Deism, or the idea that God or some form of creator figure fashioned the cosmos, but then didn't stick around or grant wishes. He kept pressing the idea that if you don't have God backing up his law, that if you don't have the threat of the afterlife to keep you in line, then what you have is worthless, that you'd have no moral compass to prevent you from just doing whatever the hell. I know this to be false because my parents instilled in me a sense of right and wrong. I have my own guilt, the moors of society, and the opinions of those around me to keep me from saying 'fuck all' and (insert heinous crime here). I just reread this paragraph and I feel the need to emphasise just how much guilt I have. Jewish mother guilt. That's how much.

Still in spite of my assurances he seemed ill placated and we eventually lapsed into silence. Others around the office seemed uncomfortable at the debate, it's not exactly par for the course, and people came to bat for me and for my boss at varying times, though so intense was our conversation that they didn't stick around for long. I finished the day with the distinct impression that I had left him both mad and smug due to the nature of my own faith, as well my failure to stand up to his arguments against evolution.

I will admit that the whole affair left me feeling very uncomfortable. This is the first time that I've worked a job where godless heathens weren't at the rudder and I suppose I'm feeling a little out numbered. The insistent, rehearsed and single minded nature of my boss's argument isn't helping. Two of the few things that really disturb me are fanaticism and the concept of absolutes. During the discussion today I very much got the impression that my boss wasn't interested in my end of the argument. In fact the only reason it wasn't a straight lecture, was because he needed ideas and statements to cut off and pound to dust before they had fully formed.

Suddenly my perfect new job is feeling a lot less perfect...

What am I worth: Part 2

I'm still stuck in a bit of an existential doldrum so I find the need for further review of the earlier post. The big question I'm faced with is, if I'm in capable of follow through, if I'm good for nothing other than salted ideas, if nothing I think up will ever see fruition, then should I spend any time thinking them up at all?

Let's be honest, the ideas I come up with are exciting. They're marketable with some extra spin, engaging with some actual development, and strong because as I learned in the biz you steal the best bits from everyone else and then mash them together. I genuinely want to play, read and watch the concepts I come up with, but when the end of the day arrives, I can't be bothered to exert myself enough to make any of them. I've built a life around myself that encourages and rewards apathy. I get up. I go to work. I eat a lunch. I think about all the awesome ideas I have while I work more. I drive home thinking about those ideas. I get home. I ready myself in front of the computer. And then fail to do any of the things I want to and instead I play games, or read a book, or more likely, surf for porn.

I am a parasite!

I feed off the hard work and passion of others!

I live vicariously in the mists of my own head, accomplishing little, and holding myself up to almost no standard!

Sometimes on a good day, like today, I'll write, but not about any of the things I want to. I don't assemble any of the epics that have gnawed at me from within for decades. No, I just jot down mind vomit, which frankly is little better then the masturbation I usually engage in. Even as I do it I'm chastising myself for not writing in the voice of Tom (what little he has) as he tries to salvage the shambles of his life without losing it in the process, or record the discoveries ofReconnoiter as she runs through seas of green grass under an achingly cerulean sky. These visions I have are as strong as anything I see, but I lack something fundamental necessary in making that next step from day dreamer to dream maker.

Is it drive? Maybe. I've always been a fire once and forget it type of game developer. I never want to go back an examine the things I've created because, and this is a sneaking suspicion I have about myself, I don't think I actually know what I'm doing. Whenever it did come time in the dev cycle to make improvements I would always look at what I had put together... And that's pretty much it. I would push some things around, shift them from left to right, but I never really felt it was any greater or lesser improvement on what had already been done. More polished maybe, but what was already there, was it fun? I couldn't ever tell. I don't know what fun is, and that is the heart of game design, the ability to convey an engaging experience. Nothing of what was in the actual game was fun for me. What was fun was the blue sky, highly abstract, early design process. That part I'm REALLY good at. That part I REALLY enjoy. The heady feeling of assembling a game one fundamental piece by piece and then playing those off one another in concept alone was euphoric. The actual slog of building out each of those things was in it's own way, torture for me, especially when it became clear that I lacked the ability to guide both myself and the team around me toward the fruition of my dream. That was anguish.

Of course now that I look at it under this light I'm beginning to understand that I don't really play games for the game. Often times not even the story. I play them for the concept, their most base potentia. When I first hear about a title it exists as little more then a brief description, high concept only, ready to be fleshes out by a broad range of what-ifs and wouldn't-it-be-cools. The next step is getting my hands on it and seeing if it lived up to the pillar I've built, and you better believe I know from pillar building. Often times it doesn't. Oh well it happens, but all of that is secondary to the fact that I engage my media in the same way I produce my own ideas: for the concept's sake alone.

Bringing it back around to the beginning, with this knowledge exposed, should I be coming up with ideas? Should I be wasting my time putting sperm to egg if it will simply sit in the womb, never to be born? Is there some way I could use this talent for ideas to benefit myself and the world as something more then mental wank material? Considering I just came up with an idea for an action/stealth title featuring a character with the ability to alter his personal gravity as a movement mechanic, I don't know. Maybe not.