Personal Development for Smart People Forums - View Single Post - The Game of Conscious Living

mdcmd · 11-19-2010, 02:52 AM

Hello all,

I am a long-time reader, but don't visit the forums much. I am writing because I had an inspiration yesterday that I wanted to share with this community and perhaps even with Steve.

I recently watched Tom Chatfield's TED talk on 7 Ways that Video Games Reward the Brain, and he shares some fascinating data about large multi-player video games and the communities that are created around them. These games are created and designed to stimulate our brains at very deep levels. They reward effort, they make tasks challenging, yet not too easy, they occasionally give fantastic rewards which surprise and delight us, and they build communities. Real people have paid real money (totaling billions of dollars) to buy items that only exist online, and they will come together in groups and try to solve problems in the game. Tom suggests there are lessons we could learn from this and apply to real life.

And then I had an idea that sent a tingle down my entire body, like a little wave of energy coursing through me. What if someone applied those lessons to design a new kind of video game, creating an online community of gamers focused on conscious living and health?

I see it as an adventure game, an online version of The Hero's Journey. Venturing out into the world to learn the lessons of living. Traveling through the world or even time, interacting with healers, philosophers, sages, yogis seeking wisdom. Acquiring points while learning lessons about how to live a conscious life.

And then...

The real power of this game would be figuring out ways to acquire points through real world action, integrating the game into players lives. Buy spinach at Whole Foods? 7 points. Log 3 miles on the treadmill at your gym? 13 points. Go into the virtual mediation room and listen with headphones to a 15-minute meditation? 18 points. Help another player? 4 points. Do a 30-day trial to wake up early each day? 270 points. Teach a virtual course on lucid dreaming? 6,421 points. The possibilities would be endless. But the key would be to tie the theory of the virtual world to real world actions. Isn't that what we have learned from Steve?

And points could be redeemable for real world goods. 1000 points gets you $10 in groceries. 1,000,000 points and you get free health insurance for the year. Again, the sky is the limit.

I am a family doctor, not a software developer, so I have no illusions that I'm going to create a game like this, but I would love to see something like it exist in the world, particularly because I find so many of the current video games to be so violent and negative and vibration-lowering. I would love to be able to recommend something like this to my patients, where they could enter a virtual community of people who are trying to live better, healthier lives. So I thought I would share the concept broadly in hopes someone would get inspired and take this on.

And then I had a second inspiration (not the full body tingle, but more of hair on my arms standing up). Who do I know of that is a former video game creator who has turned himself into one of the healthiest, most conscious people on the planet? Steve!

I believe that everything we do in our lives we are drawn to for some reason; the activity or job fills some need in our lives, engages one part of us. We satisfy or grow in the way we need to in that personal dimension, and then move on to something else. What if those things are prep-work for what we are ultimately going to do? I would love to see Steve integrate his former career and his current one in a way that could benefit so many others, like his writing and personal example have helped me. What a potentially powerful medium for Steve to spread his message, as a video game could touch the lives of people that may not read his book or visit his website.

Steve's writing on subjective-objective was very illuminating to me, and I just spent an hour reading through one of the monster Intention-Manifestation forum posts. I am still wrestling mightily with these concepts. But I do know that if I am creating everything in my own world, I would want my Steve Pavlina character to make this game.

As a disclaimer, I am not trying to say Steve should do this, or that I have figured things out for Steve, or that I know Steve's destiny, or anything like that. And we all know that Steve is going to do what he thinks is the right thing for him. I was just passing on an inspiration and putting an idea out into the universe so that perhaps some other conscious creator can run with it and make something cool for the rest of us to enjoy.

And if this all seems totally crazy, then I will quote the Flight of the Conchords in their awesome video Hiphopopotamus vs the Rhymenoceros:

Where did you get that preposterous hypothesis?
Did Steve tell you that, perchance?
Steve.

(but, alas, no, Steve was only my muse)

11-19-2010, 02:52 AM	#1 (permalink)
mdcmd Junior Member Join Date: Jul 2008 Posts: 3	The Game of Conscious Living - Steve's Ultimate Destiny? Hello all, I am a long-time reader, but don't visit the forums much. I am writing because I had an inspiration yesterday that I wanted to share with this community and perhaps even with Steve. I recently watched Tom Chatfield's TED talk on 7 Ways that Video Games Reward the Brain, and he shares some fascinating data about large multi-player video games and the communities that are created around them. These games are created and designed to stimulate our brains at very deep levels. They reward effort, they make tasks challenging, yet not too easy, they occasionally give fantastic rewards which surprise and delight us, and they build communities. Real people have paid real money (totaling billions of dollars) to buy items that only exist online, and they will come together in groups and try to solve problems in the game. Tom suggests there are lessons we could learn from this and apply to real life. And then I had an idea that sent a tingle down my entire body, like a little wave of energy coursing through me. What if someone applied those lessons to design a new kind of video game, creating an online community of gamers focused on conscious living and health? I see it as an adventure game, an online version of The Hero's Journey. Venturing out into the world to learn the lessons of living. Traveling through the world or even time, interacting with healers, philosophers, sages, yogis seeking wisdom. Acquiring points while learning lessons about how to live a conscious life. And then... The real power of this game would be figuring out ways to acquire points through real world action, integrating the game into players lives. Buy spinach at Whole Foods? 7 points. Log 3 miles on the treadmill at your gym? 13 points. Go into the virtual mediation room and listen with headphones to a 15-minute meditation? 18 points. Help another player? 4 points. Do a 30-day trial to wake up early each day? 270 points. Teach a virtual course on lucid dreaming? 6,421 points. The possibilities would be endless. But the key would be to tie the theory of the virtual world to real world actions. Isn't that what we have learned from Steve? And points could be redeemable for real world goods. 1000 points gets you $10 in groceries. 1,000,000 points and you get free health insurance for the year. Again, the sky is the limit. I am a family doctor, not a software developer, so I have no illusions that I'm going to create a game like this, but I would love to see something like it exist in the world, particularly because I find so many of the current video games to be so violent and negative and vibration-lowering. I would love to be able to recommend something like this to my patients, where they could enter a virtual community of people who are trying to live better, healthier lives. So I thought I would share the concept broadly in hopes someone would get inspired and take this on. And then I had a second inspiration (not the full body tingle, but more of hair on my arms standing up). Who do I know of that is a former video game creator who has turned himself into one of the healthiest, most conscious people on the planet? Steve! I believe that everything we do in our lives we are drawn to for some reason; the activity or job fills some need in our lives, engages one part of us. We satisfy or grow in the way we need to in that personal dimension, and then move on to something else. What if those things are prep-work for what we are ultimately going to do? I would love to see Steve integrate his former career and his current one in a way that could benefit so many others, like his writing and personal example have helped me. What a potentially powerful medium for Steve to spread his message, as a video game could touch the lives of people that may not read his book or visit his website. Steve's writing on subjective-objective was very illuminating to me, and I just spent an hour reading through one of the monster Intention-Manifestation forum posts. I am still wrestling mightily with these concepts. But I do know that if I am creating everything in my own world, I would want my Steve Pavlina character to make this game. As a disclaimer, I am not trying to say Steve should do this, or that I have figured things out for Steve, or that I know Steve's destiny, or anything like that. And we all know that Steve is going to do what he thinks is the right thing for him. I was just passing on an inspiration and putting an idea out into the universe so that perhaps some other conscious creator can run with it and make something cool for the rest of us to enjoy. And if this all seems totally crazy, then I will quote the Flight of the Conchords in their awesome video Hiphopopotamus vs the Rhymenoceros: Where did you get that preposterous hypothesis? Did Steve tell you that, perchance? Steve. (but, alas, no, Steve was only my muse)