“kiss your friends' faces more / destroy the belief that intimacy must be reserved for monogamous relationships / be more loving / embrace platonic intimacy / embrace vulnerability / use emotionality as a radical tactic against a society which teaches you that emotions are a sign of weakness / tell more people you care about them / hold their hands / tell others you are proud of them / offer support readily / take care of the people around you”

—Lora Mathis

An excellent breakdown of the brilliant level design of Super Mario Bros. World 1-1, which teaches players almost every crucial rule for the game within the first two frames:

“the big question of level design – and i mean that every level design lesson i ever write will be a response to this question – is: how do i teach the player these rules? an unfortunate trend in contemporary games is to spell out every detail in a hand-holding “tutorial” session at the outset of a game – unfortunate because it shows both a great deal of contempt for the player’s intuition and a lack of confidence in the designer’s own design. but more than that, it’s a design failure because it tells the player the rules instead of allowing her to learn them.

what if the first level of the game were laid out in such a way that the player could learn the rules simply by playing through it, without needing to be told them outright?”

Check out the whole essay, by Auntie Pixelante (via the Wayback Machine, since her site is now defunct).

“...the whole persona complex includes your moral principles. Ethics and social mores are internalized as part of the persona order, and [Carl] Jung tells us that you must take that lightly, too. Just remember, Adam and Eve fell when they learned the difference between good and evil. So the way to get back is not to know the difference. That's an obvious lesson, but it's not one that's very clearly preached from pulpits. Yet Christ told his disciples, “Judge not, that ye be not judged.” You judge according to your persona context, and you will be judged in terms of it. Unless you can learn to look beyond the local dictates of what is right and what is wrong, you're not a complete human being. You’re just a part of that particular social order.”

—Joseph Campbell, Pathways to Bliss

When you judge someone, you're not just affirming that they're “wrong”, but you're also affirming that there is wrong. And you're also affirming that they're not infinite, which follows that you're not infinite because you're also affirming that you're separate (or that there is such a thing as separation). Judging people for being wrong, also affirms the same wrong inside you. Instead, by not judging and forgiving all, you see people as Christ/Buddha/Self, which means so are you.

Simply put, judgment is an affirmation that you want more judgement, which means you are affirming and strengthening the ego. The ego is what keeps the illusion locked in place.

If you have a belief that you don’t want to do anything, then you never will do anything.

If you have a belief that you want someone to take care of you because you are incapable of taking care of yourself, then you will never do anything and you will always be dependent on someone else.

If you have a belief that you don’t want to have to do anything, then you will never be able to progress to the level of acceptance of the way life currently is showing up (i.e. you won't be able to change ANYTHING in your life).

If, because of the belief of needing someone to take care of you, you have a belief you need to get married/settle down with/partner up with someone AND you have a belief that the only people out in the dating world are sad sorry saps, then you will either “settle” for a sap, or be alone and/or miserable for the rest of your life.

If you have a belief that there’s no exceptional people around to support you, then you won’t look for anyone, and you certainly won’t appreciate the support you already have.

If you have a belief that people should never disappoint you, then you will always be disappointed or stop connecting with people altogether.

If you have a belief that it’s really the other person who disappointed you and not the expectations you placed on them that caused you to be disappointed, then you will forever be giving your power away and feel like a victim.

If you have a belief that it’s better to play it safe and be small, and not attract any attention, then no one will ever pay attention to you.

If you have a belief that you have nothing valuable to offer the world, then the world will not value what you do.

ON THE OTHER HAND...

If you had a belief that there are all kinds of things you want to do, then you will start thinking about ways to do them (beginning with, “I wonder how I could do that?”).

If you had a belief that you are strong and capable of taking care of yourself, you have true freedom because you would not be dependent on others, and you would be able to do anything without having to please others first. And because you believe you are capable, you feel capable and you begin to act capable (of anything).

If you had a belief that in order to make progress and get to where you want to go, you have to accept your current position (i.e. how life is currently showing up), and then you will look for ways to change anything standing in your way.

Since you have a belief that you can take care of yourself, you only want to partner up with someone because they too are strong and capable and have things they want to do. You would feel a source of energy, inspiration and fulfillment from this relationship.

If you had a belief that there are untold numbers of exceptional, supportive people in the world, you’d wonder what they look like, how they act and behave; you'd take stock of whether you already know some of these people. You’d nurture and appreciate these relationships. You’d also start looking for where other people like this hang out and begin spending your time there. You’d ask: I wonder where I can find these people?

If you had a belief that people sometimes have shit going on in their life and they don’t quite show up in your life the way you might wish them to, you’d think of all the times in your own life you were confused and didn't have your shit together, the times you said things you didn’t mean, the times you didn’t do things you said you would, or weren’t present for the person you were with. Then you’d love and forgive yourself for being human and feel compassion and understanding for the person who is in front of you acting in a perfectly imperfect way.

If you had a belief that you have complete freedom over the thoughts you think and the perceptions you hold, and that with willingness, you can shift your perception of anything at anytime (A Course In Miracles defines a miracle as a shift in perception), then you could shift your perception of what disappointment means to you — and realize that it was not the other person’s actions that caused you to feel disappointed, but rather your own expectations. And you can shine a light on those expectations, and say “those are mine, I’m responsible for them,” and then get to know why you had them for this person, and then smile or laugh about it. Suddenly, you're no longer disappointed! And you get to retain your power. What a relief :)

If you had a belief that the world is safe and there are people right now who are desperate to hear what you have to say, then you would start thinking of ways to start sharing your message and begin to take action. And if you had a belief that you didn’t have to do it on your own, so when you start sharing your message, you suddenly find supporters who will help carry the load. You would also have a belief that the message you wanted to share was so much larger than yourself that there was no way you were going to keep it all to yourself, because that would be selfish.

If you had a belief that the most valuable thing you have to offer is as simple as making one person smile, or one person laugh, or one person to begin to think or feel differently; and since you have a belief that there’s an infinite supply of that value to share with others, you’d want it to grow, and you’d only focus on one tiny step at a time, but also you’d want to measure every time someone laughed, or smiled, or said thank you. By the time you’re through, you will have thousands of little checkmarks next to SMILE, LAUGH, and THANK YOU. In other words, you'd be looking at the proof of your value and your worth.

I came across this incredible quote in the Guardian about Danny Boyle directing the opening ceremony for the London Olympics:

“Danny created a room where no one was afraid to speak, no one had to stick to their own specialism, no one was afraid of sounding stupid or talking out of turn. He restored us to the people we were before we made career choices — to when we were just wondering.”

I also found this article at The Intentional Workplace that asks how he and his team managed to pull off the spectacle, and importantly distills it into five lessons for intentional leadership and healthy, happy collaboration. Lesson 1 is “Assemble the People You Believe In & Maximize their Freedom”

Lesson 2 is “You Can’t Truly Succeed Unless You are Willing to Take Real Risks”:

Anyone who has seen the way bureaucracy — in government, in the fearful corridors of corporate America — eviscerates originality, seeks comfort in consensus, and hides behind the fear of even the most benign level of risk-taking to quash even the most tepid examples of boldness — has to marvel at the miracles of intact survival that Danny Boyle’s conjuration represents.”

Lesson 5 is “Be Gracious. Be Grateful.”:

If you’re a leader, your reputation precedes you. And as the saying goes, they’ll remember how you made them feel. That’s what stands out in Danny Boyles’ experiences with people at every level. One volunteer described, “He’s the most down to earth person you could imagine. He chats to everyone. He’s not just on the sidelines waiting for people to come up to him. He actually mingles with people and starts conversations with them.

Read the rest of the article: Team Danny Boyle: 5 Lessons in Leadership

When Ed Lorenz, who was studying weather systems at MIT in the 1960s, plotted the changes of all the variables in his chaotic weather simulator as points in an imaginary "state space", he discovered an image appear over time — what he called a "strange attractor," and which looked strikingly like a butterfly.

He also inadvertently discovered fractals. An attractor is called strange if it has a fractal pattern. In other words, the butterfly attractor when magnified infinitely, still produces orderly patterns all the way down.

Conclusion: It's butterflies all the way down.

(a nice review I came across for Brian Swimme’s charming and profound book, The Universe Is a Green Dragon: A Cosmic Creation Story):

“The universe continues to unfold, continues to reveal itself to itself through human awareness”. Simply stated, Swimme’s premise is that “the universe is a single multiform event. There is no such thing as a disconnected thing. Each thing emerged from the primeval fireball, and nothing can remove the primordial link this establishes with every other thing in the universe, no matter how distant”. The same dynamics that forged the fireball and the trillions of stars are also at work within us. We are dragon fire.

“The universe is enchantment”, and Swimme’s profound book is liberating. As the universe unfolds, it demands our response: “Do we awake, dedicating ourselves to a vision of beauty worthy of our fire’s origin?”.