talkback and prose

2011 was a pretty good year at the box office. Despite the industry claiming that their world will soon end because of piracy, ticket sales do not lie. Harry Potter 7 Part 2 made $169 million in a weekend, the highest of all time before The Avengers. Transformers, Twilight, Pirates of the Caribbean, all had blockbuster years at the box office.

And each one of them got their ass kicked by video games.

Harry Potter 7 Part 2 was the highest grossing film of 2011 and made huge waves for having a $92 million opening day. Modern Warfare 3 made $400 million in 24 hours. In five days it passed $750 million, a mark Harry Potter took nearly two weeks to pass. Transformers 3 came in second place at the box office and over its entire run made $350 million in the United States. Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim made $450 million in five days.

And video games are terrible.

Video games lack so much creativity that Mario is still a best seller. Imagine if you went to the movies and Marty McFly was having another grand adventure with Doc Brown. That's what video games are like. For those who don't understand the reference that's because Back to the Future came out in 1985, a few years AFTER everyone's favorite plumber.

But it doesn't matter. Because video games are the future.

Over the past decade gaming has become mainstream. With the explosion of home consoles like the Xbox and PlayStation and with the culmination of "casual" games on smart phones and social networking sites like Facebook, games have become entwined with our way of life.

And it is only going to continue.

With the exponential growth rate of technology there is no doubt that video games will soon dominate our conscious lives. Currently it takes a certain kind of dedication to become truly entrenched in a game. There are far too many barriers to immersion for most people to sink into a game. Controllers can be foreign to non-gamers, screens can't replace real life.

But the barriers will fall away.

As time passes, technology will become easier to use, more user friendly and more connected to every day tasks. Just last week Google patented an infrared ring that users wear on their finger to control interfaces on augmented-reality glasses. Microsoft is releasing the Kinect for PC this year, which will likely replace the keyboard with swipes of the hand and voice commands. If those are not two sentences out of a sci-fi novel, I don't know what is.

Gaming, as it's known today, is the real future. Just as it only took a few years for smart phones to become the majority of cell phones on the market, the gaming revolution will happen faster than we can understand. It won't happen when a gaming company invents a new technology, or programs a new graphics engine so that monsters look awesome. Those things will already exist. True innovation isn't about invention but combination.

The transformative moment is not Google's Project Glass or Microsoft's Kinect or any single idea. The transformative moment is when a game is released that combines so many different elements that it becomes more than a game, it becomes a way of life. At first there will be a relatively small group, as there always is. Then that group expands. What's going to be different about the video game revolution is that it will have no reason to stop expanding.

The common quip is, "That sounds like something out of a sci-fi movie." No arguments here, there are countless books, essays, shorts and movies that all predict a similar kind of future. What may be unclear is that books and essays and movies are just ways of bringing imagination into reality. When technology advances to the point when an all-encompassing "game" is feasible, all those writers and filmmakers and all the fans of those writers and filmmakers will become the first wave of gamers. Science fiction is the imaginative precursor to manifestation in the physical reality.

A new book will soon be released by TED that discusses the Hybrid Reality that will exist for the next generation. Life will be lived as a hybrid, taking place in both the physical environment and the virtual one. Robotics will continue to take on greater workloads in the physical environment while humans become more involved in the virtual worlds we create. According to Hybrid Reality, "what human civilization needs more than anything is not greater IQ or EQ, but TQ: technology quotient." The ability to adapt and use advanced technology.

Which makes for an interesting debate between those currently using technology and those who are out of the loop or shunning it entirely. If you're reading this then chances are you fall into the former camp, and my position should be fairly obvious. With time the differences will become even more stark. Since birth there are those who have been upping their technology quotient, preparing, in a way, for the video game revolution. Now that the future looks so bright there is only one thing to do...

Keep gaming.

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It all starts with my post on The Energy of People. Which was influenced by Jay Mohr (@jaymohr37). The basic concept is that people all give off certain energies and it is the job of the teacher (or in Mohr's case, comedian) to manipulate those energies to achieve the desired result.

"...and that's why the chicken crossed the road."

As I go about teaching it becomes more and more apparent to me how similar teaching is to stand-up comedy. I perform a routine every day. Sometimes it's four 10 minute bits with 5 minute breaks in between. Sometimes it's an hour and half, non-stop, Dave Chappelle at the laugh factory, crazy train. I stand up and do these routines 3 times a day, twice a week, and then I write new material for the next two days. Then the performance starts all over again. (To explain, our school uses an A/B schedule. I teach 6 classes, 3 each day. Hope that makes sense.)

Ultimately, it's all about those energies my students are giving off, and how I manipulate that energy. How I use it to make them laugh, to focus them, to quiet them, to get them to share something. But what is the most important part of this energy-manipulating equation?

Me.

It starts with knowing myself. Knowing my own energy. Knowing who I am. In order to feel this energy and take it in, change it, then deliver it back out- I need to be at peace. I need to be zen.

Athletes call this being in the zone. Ken Robinson calls this the element. The book I'm stealing this blog entry's title from, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, calls it Quality. Both are talking about the same thing; being in an environment where you are comfortable, knowledgeable and capable of producing results. When you get to point where "work" doesn't feel like work. It feels like creation.

I'm not perfect yet. Far from it, but I love going into the classroom to work towards perfection. There are moments where I tap into it. Great, wonderful, perfect moments that artists always hope for when things just flow.

One of these moments happened today. It was my second day of giving the same lesson (remember, A/B schedule), and so I was already feeling like a comedian who had worked out his material the day before. The lesson was regarding the Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de Leon. The textbook mentioned that he is often remembered for failing to find the fountain of youth. Near the end of class a student raised their hand and asked, "Why would someone be remembered for failing to find something?"

There's a bunch of different possible responses to that. It's Friday, with 5 minutes left in class. I could blow it off- "Because the text wanted something interesting to write about." I could dismiss it- "I don't really know."

Perhaps I would have given one of those answers if I had been feeling anything other than perfectly calm, in my element, zen.

I looked to my right, stared at a student for a few seconds who was talking to a neighbor until he quieted down. Now the class is silent, all attention on me. It's my audience to win over or lose completely.

"Why would someone be remembered for failing to find something? Good question. No, great question... I think it is because of the time period that had come just before. These explorers are sailing only a few generations after the dark ages; a time of decay and disgust. A time when there was no growth in culture or art or science. A time where someone was born, lived and died without ever traveling more than 25 miles from their home."

"Then come these explorers. They tell stories of lands so vast it fills the whole skyline from end to end. They tell stories of strange new people, and of riches so plentiful they make kings and queen look like beggars. They tell stories of cities made of gold and mythical fountains that can let you live forever."

"I think we remember these people because it doesn't always matter if you find what you are looking for. After times of darkness, sometimes the most important thing you can do is tell someone a story that gives them hope."

Bell rings. Class dismissed.

In a world where we are so often told that work is just a device to make us money; I think it is important to find something that you can do in your own element.

I think I've found mine, and I know that every day it's exciting to go back in and find myself in that zone of peace and serenity where words, and concepts, and laughter all flow effortlessly.

It's either that, or I'll try my hand at stand up comedy.

Thanks for reading. Love you all.


This is the first post in my Zen and the Art of Teaching series. Check out the second post here.