Bhinneka Tunggal Ika. Unity in Diversity

Everyone have intentions, based on the Ideal state of the shared universe in their imagination.
Everyone also have fear, based on the Un-ideal state of the shared universe in their imagination.
(From here on, I'll just refer "Ideal state of the shared universe" as "Intention to Create")

Many people wish none of their intention would be similar to another's fear, because it would possibly create conflict, which is also what the majority of people's Intention to Create is like.
When we apologize, we declare that we're aware of the similarity between what we intended to do and another person's fear. And most of us care about this reason, because our Intention to Create did not intentionally include such event.
This is one of the reason why I think is something that exists universally, within everyone and everything.

We're supposed to be in the moment, they say. But if we have to, we should only worry about the uncertain future. Uncertain past only start becoming an issue when dishonesty corrupts more and more of our major source of experience, which is each other.

Most of us don't realize it, but the more we spend effort worrying about the past, we're halving our chance to actually fulfill this "Intention to Create". Shouldn't we put more effort in something better?

Worrying about the past means realizing your body has an origin, which could be more than one thing, but one of them is definitely "you from a split second ago". The more you care about your origin, the more you worry about the past.
The less worry you have on that, the more you'll dare to try something new.
It's similar to walking:
If you're lost, you would worry if the direction where you're going is going to take you for the better or for the worse. But once a fire, a tower, or whatever start entering your far sight, you suddenly have a reason to go towards a certain way with more confidence.

At this point, some will probably assume my point is we should forget our roots and origin. Not at all. Like everything else, it's balance everywhere.
You can like when an event takes you closer to the faraway landmark, and you can not like when an events takes you further.
Just keep in mind our difference and how it can differ, and see it not only to separate us by factions, but also by how it can complement each other, strengthen, and evolve us.
First lets decide our first landmark. Lets get there. Can we?

Bhinneka Tunggal Ika, Happy Independence Day, Indonesia

The Properties of Change

The previous post explains a little about the project. In here, I’ll be starting a new topic, which is necessary to understand why this project is important.

Today’s topic is about change. You know, pretty much everything changes. Even changes that is unintentionally or intentionally, decided by a sentient being or by the random rock on the side of the street—everything.

For this topic, I’ve made a small Prezi presentation. This is my first time making something with Prezi, so please bear with me.

[edit]
Something I forgot to add there. Naturally, everything questions everything it interacts with. Whenever a lion meets something new, he questions it. Before he questions it, of course, he needs to be aware of it.
One big example of our Spirituality crisis is, we don't bother to question things anymore.
For instance:
1. Someone might have watched Jackass, and thought the only way to be awesome is to do silly and stupid stunts.
2. Mass media promotes beauty and wealth as the way to (attract) happiness, and then they don't bother asking any other question like, is there any other way to get happiness?
3. Mainstream stuff provides the question, we're only left trying to answer the same question over and over again. "Try out our new product! What could be more hip than this?!" or "Want something new-er than new for this 2014? Here's our newest product, the new-2014-tshirt! Because new is always better!"
By freely asking and making our own questions, we can evolve in a more universal way. "Oh, maybe new is not the only thing I want. Maybe being hip is not what I'll spend all my money on. Maybe I want to focus more on health, and comfort, and efficiency and economically and morally right."[/edit]

So far I only use human examples. But in my opinion, anything that contains energy has these properties in it. In other words, every energy has an intention, including, say, light. But the simpler and smaller these energy, the less it can 'sense'. And the less something can sense, the less the size of its reality, also the scope of Godhood it has.

I think someone mentioned to me, "Think in energy, because everything is matter and energy. Matter is energy, everything is energy."

Yup. I'll mention something metaphysical-ish sometime soon. Because there's a pattern on which the Physicality plays, and possibly the same pattern exists in the things before the physical projection of things.

That's it for today's post. Keep in mind whatever I write are:
1. Probably something that's already been discussed before by someone somewhere.
2. Never been discussed or thought about before.

3. Complete rubbish.

I really have no idea.
But relating to this project, I try to keep things as simple as possible in the beginning. It'll deal with more complicated things, so I try to make a solid basis for all the philosophies(and 'stuffs') in it.

And then I have to start thinking about starting the other blogs. Oh wow.

The Project, In Short

If we use the What, Why, and How format to describe this project, I’ll have to spend a moment to decide which kind of answer should I give. Because I’m explaining it in a non-interactive way, I’m assuming you’re an average person, having average job or go to an average school, has an average taste in music, art, at least aware of games, and, just because you’ve read past the intro, I’ll assume you want to do something(or at least, be aware of what you’re doing) to the world.

Every single person is different, so here’s one(of the many) approach to describe this. I’ll be comparing this project with our general concept of God.

(Picture explanation below)

“What is it”?

God is omnipotent, omniscient, the almighty who created everything so far and will create everything from now on, in eternity. This is our general concept of God; a concept even atheists can understand.

Whether God actually exists in this reality or not is open to debate, but this is not what I’ll be talking about.

Speaking about reality, I like to divide it to 2 types:

1.         The Shared Reality, which is what we all see. From the “I” point of view, you, you over there, and everyone else besides the “I” falls to this Shared Reality. It’s basically this certain place or stage where every actor contributes their influence in shaping it. Actor in this sense means other people, animals, plants, and basically anything that is outside the direct control of “I”.
   
   If we compare this Shared Reality to an abstract art piece, God would be comparable to the artist who made the art piece. When this art piece is placed right in front of you and if you happen to have the urge to try to enjoy, or at least understand it, there are usually 2 methods in which we try to understand. First is to observe it from every angle, touch it in every place to make sure it won’t explode, bring it to a lab, or anything along those lines. The second method is simply, to ask the creator, in this case the artist, this question: “What the hell is this?”, and hopefully the artist answers.
   
   If only we can ask God the same question, then we wouldn’t be spending so much effort in science, space travels, and everything else.
   
2.          The second type, I call The Personal Reality. It’s what we think, where we think of our next step, and where we figure out what kind of action, or intention, we should project unto the Shared Reality. Simply put, before I figure out what I should do in this sandbox, I picture massive amounts of thoughts in my Personal Reality, on which I eventually came up with a design of a sandcastle. The decision of actually making that sandcastle(projecting my idea unto the real world) is another question to be decided in my mind, but generally what we consider upon figuring out the answer to that is to make the Shared Reality that much closer to our image of reality in our Personal Reality, or hesitate/be shy/doubt and end up not making the sandcastle altogether.

In conclusion, the existence of God in the SR(Shared Reality) is questionable, but there is definitely a God in the PR(Personal Reality), which is our own mind that governs our thoughts.

If we go back to our original question, that is, “What is this world?”, we’ll just go back to the lab researching protons or figuring out how big the universe is with our telescopes. But if we try to be God, take the role of the Creator, and make another world where we can explore the strength of our imagination freely, wouldn’t it be a more interesting approach to understand this world?

And of course, if we take another look at the abstract art piece, there’s no way of understanding it fully if we don’t take into account every point of observation available, like seeing it from all possible angle or detect anything necessary in order to understand it. In this world, there is no one who is able to see everything that’s going on, no matter how much security camera the higher ups have installed. In a simpler term: There is no single entity who holds the absolute truth. This is why we communicate, upon wanting to know what we can’t see, we ask a friend what’s written on our back, or at least stop trying to look with just our eyes and look for a mirror.

“Why it?”

The will to understand the world is within all of us. Some may take it to another level and wanting to control it(Lots of Master Yoda quotes would go here), but this issue is more about morality, which this project will also try to handle.

This is why, in order for this to work, we’re supposed to respect every point of observation existing in this world. Not only every people’s subjective view of the world, but also animals’, plants’, and basically every contributing energy within the universe. That sounds too extreme; we’re currently nowhere even close to being able to keep track of all that information. But at least, we should understand, that it is only then can we understand the world as a whole. Since we can’t do that yet, why don’t we, for now, make a world our own?

So we’ve come to the first meaning of Godplay: (Fortunately, this one’s also the simplest one):
To understand the world not (only) by being the observer in a certain reality, but take the role of the Creator in a fictional(man-made) reality we all can control and contribute. A simulation, maybe like in the Matrix(but the digital world in Matrix is created based on a very messed up intention, so, not really), except we figure out what we want to achieve, or understand, before we make it. We figure out the Question, before we Play it.

“How will we do it?”

Everyone has their own way of contributing a change to the world. Every action one does is simply an effort an individual does to make the world change towards this certain world he has in his PR, no matter how small their effort is.

The main intention of this project is actually neutral. It does not provide an answer, or a definite method to save the world. In fact, the project itself has nothing to do with saving the world.

How this project works is to provide a certain “platform” for people to contribute ideas, and let others see, criticize, support, or scrap the idea. Up to this point, it does sound very similar to kickstart.com, and it’s exactly it with many other features and methods.

I did say it will relate to saving the world. Well, since this project is my creation, there are many things I want to suggest and contribute to it. Not only the project itself, but the contribution of ideas from myself, which mostly will relate to saving the world. If you’re in, then it is your right to criticize the ideas I will present from now on, or suggest an idea yourself.

Every person is like a point of observation to see the abstract art piece that is the world. Every point of observation contributes to the real understanding of the piece, and every person’s ideas relates, complements, or disregards each other’s result of observation. In short, every person’s ideas are important.

-d

3/12/13

Introduction to the blog

Explaining the project on paper is something I always hesitated to do. As it is a massive project concerning and involving literally every aspect of humanity, the universe, philosophy, and so on, I’ve decided to make a lighter and more casual presentation for the public; the blogs.

Yes, blogs.

3 of them.

For the introduction, I’ll start not with the project, but more on how the blog is arranged, what each blog contains, how to understand some of my *cough*profound*cough* terminologies, and what to do if, somewhere in the middle of the writings, you just have no idea what you’re reading about anymore.

If some of this writing sounds like a joke, it’s not. I mean everything I say and I’m very serious about everything. The names and terms I use may be weird, but every one of them has a reason why I call them that. Some even have several reasons.

If you happen to laugh at something here anyways, that’s probably when you have no idea what I’m talking about anymore. Close the blog, play some games, go out and go have some drink. Hopefully things will look different when you come back(but hopefully not too different).

If even after you did all that, you still find something funny here, then you probably drank a little bit too much. Hopefully this blog can also help get rid of your drinking issues.

This project has several main intentions; one of them is, basically, to save the world. So before I go on talking about how to follow this blog, I should point out that you won’t find too much insight relating to personal benefit-focused stuffs. Basically this is the complete opposite of what you get in business class(but business oriented people may still be inspired by something from here). If you have no slightest intention in saving the world, or thinks the world is fine as it is, then feel free to close the blog.

In relation to saving the world, I will also not point out too much of the world’s problems, since I assume those who intends to save the world already has some picture of what needs to be acted upon. In general, I also try to avoid talking about existing problems in detail, because what most people know about specific cases are often already a product of people’s biased opinions. Also, detailed discussions of any problem or conflict requires an expert(which I am not) and accurate facts(which I often lack). There’s Google for that. This is also not a blog about who’s more accurate than who(comparing conspiracy theories and whatnot), but more about what could be done if a certain understanding of the problem is indeed the case.

The Godplay has 3 basic components; the Philosophy, the Creativity, and the Projection, which explains why I feel the need to make 3 separate blogs covering each aspect of the project. I don’t think understanding the project can be done after only reading a blog entry or two. It still took in total of almost a hundred hours to explain it to someone, in person(which is the only way I’ve been spreading the idea around to people so far). If something you read makes no sense to you, pray that it’ll be explained further on the next post. I knew the best way to share the idea is interactively, so having to write these down and expect people to grasp it just from a 1-way mean of communication will be a challenge.

So let’s start with the general breakdown.

1. The Philosophy – The first blog. The blog you’re currently reading. It is where most of the topics that will show up within the project will be discussed. It can be related to psychology, economy, art, or anything, really. Some of these will probably be already familiar to you, some might not. To be honest, I have no way to tell if the things I’ll be writing here will be a breakthrough or just some same old stuff. But that’s not the point. If I put it here, it means it’s related to the Godplay approach of viewing human’s problems and questions.
2. The Creativity – After a few readings, I’ll eventually reach the point where I choose game as my media of choice for the project. This one will be the technical one, and I’m hoping it’ll interest fellow game designers, storywriters, coders, musicians, and artists in general. This part will talk about things such as how the design of a character is, what plot should drive the story, how much agility and intelligence does the player get when consuming a ginger bread, and so on(and most often about gameplay, story, and characterization) Most of the progress of the game will also be mentioned here(that is, if I can allocate enough time to work on it, as the whole project is non-profit).
3. The Projection – Within the project, there is a story. Just like the story of Genesis, Abraham, and Jesus in the Bible, or Luffy’s quest to find the world’s treasure in One Piece; whether these stories are really real or not is not the important point. What matters is the message, morals, characters, plots, and generally, how awesome the story is. Under the name ‘Raziel’ the archangel, it tells about himself within the story, and the fictional world in which he exists.
   

This blog is not the project. The blog only tells about the project(including #3, because there is also a project called Godplay, in-story).

Throughout the blog, you’ll find several new terms and definitions. Since I don’t take economy, business, biology, yoga major, or anything besides game design, some of the terms I use will be made-up. Sometimes I’ll even capitalize certain nouns, and treat it as if it is something sentient, like Life, Idea, and Connection. Most of the usage of these abnormal capitalizations as a term can be found in #3, and a bit less frequent in #2 when the creation of such game object/entity is being discussed.

Lastly, none of the things I write here are definite facts. Whatever ideas or inventions that may be sparked by something from this blog are free to use by everyone. Whatever I mention here are not definitely original anyways, but if it gets mentioned in #1, I’ll definitely make it appear in-story. If you want to use anything after reading it here, go ahead. If you want to copyright it, it’s none of my business either. That won’t stop me from using it for this project. Copyright will be one of the issue I’ll be discussing, and this project’s design, by itself, operates beyond the idea of copyright, property, and profit-oriented projects anyways, so I have absolutely no problem if people take ideas from this project for their own use(if I indeed originally came up with them, that is).

In closing: this project is seriously serious. It’s “let’s make a new religion”-serious. But I’m not telling you to seriously take it and follow it. This project, no matter how grand of a scale the topic it deals with, and how real it can later be applied to, is Fictional. Imaginative. Artistic. You might have an idea what I’m talking about, but trust me, you haven’t. Not yet. Just remember that last underlined part. That statement will go a long, long way.

Have you been following? We haven’t even started walking.

Are you ready?

-d

2/12/13