#19 - We Play With What We Make (WPWWWM)
Finding Strengths; The Birth of StoryGame; Describing Mind States
Hello, my friends,
Summer is definitely here in Los Angeles with temperatures approaching 90F in some areas. Not as hot as Arizona where it’s over 100 (hi Kim!). Lots of people are talking about the weather these days, and more generally various climate occurrences — smoke crowding the east coast of the United States and apparently July 4th was the hottest day humans have ever recorded, at 62.9F — sweater weather for us, Angelenos. Speaking of the 4th, we mostly stayed home this year. I heard fireworks but had no real desire to see them. When the kids get older it’ll be a nice family outing, but while they’re still small the hassle of fussing with parking and crowds doesn’t seem worth it. I’m not yet old enough to be a curmudgeon, so please consider this mumbling about weather, parking, and crowds to be a dry run of HMF in thirty years.
Finding Strengths
I’m almost done with my Positive Psychology class on Kinnu and one of the topics it covered toward the end was the benefit of focusing on strengths. A group of researchers led by Drs. Martin Seligman and Neal Mayerson (or was it Christopher Peterson?) identified 24 character strengths which led to a book. Last week, I took a free 90-something question survey from the VIA Institute to figure out my character strengths. Here are my top ten with explanations from VIA:
1) Honesty - Speaking the truth but more broadly presenting oneself in a genuine way and acting in a sincere way; being without pretense; taking responsibility for one's feelings and actions.
2) Gratitude - Being aware of and thankful for the good things that happen; taking time to express thanks.
3) Fairness - Treating all people the same according to notions of fairness and justice; not letting feelings bias decisions about others; giving everyone a fair chance.
4) Love of Learning - Mastering new skills, topics, and bodies of knowledge, whether on one's own or formally; related to the strength of curiosity but goes beyond it to describe the tendency to add systematically to what one knows.
5) Judgment - Thinking things through and examining them from all sides; not jumping to conclusions; being able to change one's mind in light of evidence; weighing all evidence fairly.
6) Curiosity - Taking an interest in ongoing experience for its own sake; finding subjects and topics fascinating; exploring and discovering.
7) Social Intelligence - Being aware of the motives/feelings of others and oneself; knowing what to do to fit into different social situations; knowing what makes other people tick.
8) Self-Regulation - Regulating what one feels and does; being disciplined; controlling one's appetites and emotions.
9) Creativity - Thinking of novel and productive ways to conceptualize and do things; includes artistic achievement but is not limited to it.
10) Kindness - Doing favors and good deeds for others; helping them; taking care of them.
Take the test and let me know whether you found the results surprising. I’m still chewing on mine.
The Birth of StoryGame
In #17, I wrote about how I thought table-top role-playing games (TTRPGs) were so cool in theory, well I did something practical about it. I’d been meaning to find a simple dice adventure game to play with Michael who is pretty good at improvising, is very imaginative, and loves stories. I asked for suggestions for games to play with a 4-year-old in the Minimalist RPGs Facebook group and got many responses, which was delightful. In the end, though, I just did it myself.
I took a piece of paper, drew a simple map on it with suggestions from Michael (he wanted a big wolf in the corner, and a moose in the forest). Then we created his character: A name (Michael “Mickey Mouse” Bernard), 10 tokens to distribute into four categories (S - Strength / C - Craftiness / A - Agility / T - Talking) and one special ability (he decided he wanted “Lightning Speed”) which modifies one of “SCATegories” and can be used three times during the game. And we were off! I told the story and he asked questions and chose actions. Outcomes were determined by a rolling a single six-sided roll. And StoryGame was born!
We’ve played it a few times since last Friday with both me and him as the storyteller. During my turn as the player my character, "Salty" Squirt Adams, successfully voyaged to the castle, befriended the King, and got the cookies.
Describing Mind States
Writing about quitting caffeine last week got me thinking about a sticky question: How can we objectively describe changes in our mind states? For instance, if you go to the doctor with a headache, they might ask you to describe the level of your pain using the Wong-Baker Faces Pain Rating Scale or simply on a scale from 1-10. I loath those assessments! I have no idea how to distinguish whether my pain is a five or a seven. For me, pain is non-existent, minor/tolerable, or intolerable. But pain is simple, most people can come to a consensus of what it is. But how about the changes to our mind states after having caffeine, smoking marijuana, or watching ASMR videos? If you pay close attention to yourself moment-to-moment after any of those, you’ll experience various minute changes. How do we objectively describe those? I expect that there are ways to measure chemical and physiological signals as well as brain scans to get visual representations of internal phenomena. But which ones? And is it possible to match those with a feeling we can describe as it’s happening?
In science fiction books, a character can take drink something, take a pill, or otherwise introduce something into the body in order to generate an optimal state for a specific activity. I’m waiting for science to reach that level of exactitude for us, and when it happens, I will smoke the joint that will make my brain receptive to studying and devour the articles that describe what’s happening to me.
DEMOLISH THIS BUTTON:
You created your own roleplaying game?!! Bravo!!
I'm currently sitting in Fiction Café in Brooklyn where I met a friend for a coffee (and smoke) this morning, and when I went to buy a pack (green American Spirits because why not), I didn't really analyze my decision to self-harm like this. I mean, it was basically compulsive, and it's a social activity (even though I smoke alone too). I've told myself I shouldn't buy them (only bum!), because that's hard-earned money that goes toward the destruction of my lungs and the strengthening of dependencies. But, today, I did. And so I've put coffee, tobacco and menthol into my system today, and wouldn't you know—I have a bit of a thumping in my head...
So, I know how this sounds. I never thought I'd be a 'smoker,' and I've always admired anyone who resists temptations on principle (I didn't score high on this on the VIA Survey). Ultimately, it's up to me what I do with this pack. I could throw it away, give it to someone else, smoke them all in a day or two, smoke a majority of them over the course of a month—the money's already been spent; I can't undo that. But maybe I can exercise some self-control this time. I certainly don't want to smoke another one right now. Anyone reading this, what would you do with it? Say you started this habit recently, and it's kind of fun, very New York, but it does feel...dirty.
Anyway, my greatest strength according to the VIA Institute is...
Love! Valuing close relations with others, in particular those in which sharing & caring are reciprocated; being close to people.
Creativity was second to this, and there's actually plenty of evidence in recent memory of this being true. The past two days, I took time to myself to be "creative" but I don't think my creative spirit and I were all that close. I felt a bit lonely and yearned for someone to reciprocate love with. Over the past year I think I've learned to see the love in my life very clearly. And the reflections in that clarity are so appeasing—I would be majorly satisfied with just that. It's almost as if that's what's central to the 'proper-life-world' of the human being.
Thank you for "Hello My Friends" dear O. I love the game you play with Michael. My friend was telling me about DnD the other day and it piqued my curiosity in the same way joining an improv team or co-writing a play does. Love may come first but Creativity is a full-throttle second. They run together.
Cheers to all,
JOE
<3