The Vanguard

I’ve just finished Affluenza by Clive Hamilton and Richard Denniss, and it’s a fascinating read. I recommend you read it. It made me realise what it was I want to aim for in life. Although it’s mostly about Australian society, I still think non-Aussies can garner something from it.

I had a pretty good life growing up. I never went without, my parents haven’t split up, hell, they even job-shared when we were kids so they could spend equal time with us. I went to a private high school, even got to university, and am about to finish a science degree.

To put it in perspective, these things are not universal. Every kid in the world does not get access to schooling. Some kids don’t have parents. A lot of kids are going hungry. I live in a politically stable country that has never had a civil war. I have freedoms a lot of people don’t. I have a damn good life compared to what some have. (more…)

I watched the second part of Gamer Revolution tonight. Fascinating documentary. The way I see it, it can be interpreted in two ways: 1) it’s just a doco about computer games; or, 2) it goes much deeper than that to explore games, their impact and how the internet has spawned this whole new world.

It mentioned how kids who’ve grown up with computer games are living in two places at once: online and offline. I’m one of them. There’s this physical world I interact on and live in, then there’s the internet. It’s so intangible a thing, the internet. You can’t really touch it, or actually live in it. You can’t see it. You can observe it, interact with it, use it to connect with anyone in the world.

See, I’ve got this theory about The Divine. When They made us, They gave us a small spark of Their power. You could call it our soul, but that’s not quite what it is. It’s almost like consciousness, almost like it, but not. It’s hard to define. It’s the remnant from our creation by the Gods. Because of this, when we create things, as the Gods did, a small part of our spark is imprinted in what we make, so the Divine is passed to us and into what we make. (more…)