Disposable Mentality Needs Re-Design

Michael Ciaglo and Dave Philipps recently published an amazing story, Disposable: Surge in discharges includes wounded soldiers, for the Colorado Springs Gazette. Amazing multimedia integration, heart-wrenching story, thorough documentation—just fantastic.

Reading the story got be thinking about videogame design—what would a FPS look like that begins with the IED blast, then tries to reintegrate a soldier (un/successfully) into society? Real people are being forced through this experience by the thousands; maybe a game could provide for a more comprehensive facilitation in terms of both societal reintegration (for military) and cultural reconstitution (for non-military).

It could be a FPS and RTS integrated system in which a player has the opportunity to analyze and affect the social and legal systems in place that create barriers to re-entry. The player should also have the ability to manipulate time—move forward and backwards—in order to experiment with different solutions and mechanisms.

May 6, 2013May 7, 2013

Remembering David

In his passing I have been asked by people who didn’t know David to explain who he was, but I don’t know how to talk about someone whose impact on my life was multiplicitous. Our relationship wasn’t of one variety or another; the experience was more like a jam session. We shared a wavelength. Simply put, David was someone who’s principals and guidance affected what I think about, and how I think and move about the world.

I’ve been writing a lot since I found out. For someone who doesn’t write often, the process has been very therapeutic. Maybe it’s ironic that I’m sharing some of my grief, but I think you should know why I am so sad, and why I will be grieving this loss for a very long time—for no other reason than to iterate the impact of a single person’s life. I think there are take-aways from that.

Continue reading “Remembering David”

February 12, 2013

Juggling + Mentoring

Intentionally and unintentionally, I’ve done a lot of mentoring as of late. Time consuming, but immensely rewarding. A pattern of advice has emerged through the process; here’s one such exercise I’ve recommended several times this past month to help people with busy schedules maintain sanity and liberty within their own lives.

I call this the

Do I Have Time for X? Test

Complete this test whenever you are positioned to add something onto your already bursting plate of “shit-to-do:”

Grab a pen & big piece of paper.
Find a secluded space for 5-10 minutes.
Without any hesitation, start writing down all of the things that you have on your mind as they come to you—all of the things you know/think you have to do, all of the special events you need to attend, all of the obligations you’ve been saddled with. Do not pay attention to the order, just write them down as quickly as you can, with as much detail as you care to add in that moment. Write until you have to strain to think of things on your plate. In my experience, once you write down some semblance of “eating,” all the important stuff has been penned.
Now, just soak in that list. Note that the really important things are the ones at the top, the things that you should probably care more about are in the middle, and try to find the neglected item near the middle or bottom that really should be at the top of the list. Pay attention to the fact that your personal well-being and health probably didn’t make the list.
Now, think about that thing, X, that you were contemplating adding to this list. Is this thing more important than the first half of the list? If not, you probably shouldn’t do X.

That said:

Look what I edited recently! It was definitely something I didn’t have time for in the grand scheme of my list: