My Mother is a Crazy Cunt

My name is Tyler Owen Morris. You know me as Owen. That choice was made by my mother- when she lost the coin toss to my father.  My mother makes a lot of choices for other people.

When I was 3 she decided I was gay.  She desperately wanted a daughter, to shower with the love she never got from her mother.... and I think this was her crazy solution.  Cute little blonde boy in San Francisco, diagnosed gay.  She decided I should grow my hair long. She decided I should do ballet. She decided all things masculine were to be discouraged. I am not gay. I am a heterosexual man, and that's my decision.

She has been an ER nurse for the majority of my life.  All of life's problems can be diagnosed, and treated.  If it's not sick or ill or broken- then it's not worth her attention - everything is triage.  I spent much of my childhood feigning symptoms for attention. She decided I was depressed. She decided I was suicidal. She decided I was out of control. I learned to reach out for love in unhealthy ways, but I am not sick. I am not ill- I am happy and healthy, and that is my decision.

Neglect can hurt as deep as any beating.  She decided to work 12 hour shifts. She decided to bury herself in so much work that she doesn't ever have to stop the triage. She decided I was not worth her time. She decided that I was worth her time unless I was hurt- so I learned to hurt.  I learned to crash around.  I learned to be desperate, and panicked. I learned I was not worthy of her love without being in pain. I am worthy of love and attention all the time. I can decide that today.

She's not a cunt for what she's done.  I can forgive everything that's happened. I love her deeply, and want so desperately for a loving relationship with her.  She's a cunt because she decided that's too hard for her.  She's a cunt because she's not trying to be better today. She's a cunt because she refuses to speak to me. She's a cunt because she chooses to fight and fight and fight, and I'm so ready to surrender to love.

The internet- and all the little avatars that might love me back- all the chat windows, and virtual spaces where someone might love me back... I have reached out unhealthily because someone decided I was unhealthy, and I inhabited her reality.  I choose to be healthy and happy today, and I choose to do the work needed to maintain that.

I surrender to god, to the world, and to my life.  My name is Falling Water Flicker. My name is Tyler Owen Morris. I am in control of my reality.

God is Real

If you can't explain something simply - then you don't understand it well. This is my spirituality, my life, my reality:
   
God is real. We, the self, experience god through our bodies- through the world we call real. Our only choice is in the reality that we make of the experience we are given. "give yourself to god" means the same as "flow with Tao" is the same as "follow jesus" is the same as "allah is the one true god, and Mohammed is his prophet" giving yourself to god is giving yourself the power to create- through god- our world. The words and the story change across cultures, but the understandings and the conclusions are the same. Even as science explores the building blocks of this world - observing the state of a particle changes the observed state. The observer participates in the particles location through observation... unless I'm understanding the math wrong.

It is with this understanding that I set out to create an alternate reality game - a virtual world on top of our own that lets players examine the reality they put into the world. An opportunity to play at life without all of the fear that bogs us down. We live in a country where the #1 cause of death is people eating themselves to death (obesity, heart disease, etc), yet we are easily frightened at the thought that another person could harm us. We give them convenient names that scare people like "taliban" "terrorist" or simpler still - label them as "insane"... because obviously their reality does not line up with the rest of ours.

 The fact is that that scary person was created. That violence was created. Not by them, not by some organization, or nation, or institution- that person was created by us. Collectively we have created this nightmare world, and collectively we can change it. Our fears ostracize eachother, and alone in our minds - without god - we are free to assert the terror we feel when we are alone, as our reality... We are never alone. God is always there. Give yourself to him and you will be forever free. give yourself to god and he will give you the power to create your world...
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... and I used to trash talk this religious talk as 'insane' just needed to be removed from the world I was taking to be real for a bit, to better understand my relationship with god. I'm back!

Video game is on it's way still! (design plans in the BG up there)

Thank You Jane McGonigal!

Jane Mcgonigal is famous for advocating games as a means to improve and even save our lives.  In her most recent TED talk (also above), Jane got quite personal about how her game, Superbetter, gave her hope when she wanted to die, incapacitated by a concussion.  It took a traumatic event, and the ensuing struggle for Jane to realize how powerful a simple game could be.  I too required a traumatic event to gain this knowledge, but my post traumatic growth came after my return from Afghanistan.

I was recently awarded a Presidential Unit Citation for my 2009-'10 tour to the Helmand Province in Southern Afghanistan.  Our award comes now, two years later, reflecting the intensity of war during those months.  American forces surged across Afghanistan, creating the bloodiest months of the war during the time my unit was in country.  In the middle of all this, I began designing the first game I had ever designed.  As I stood guard at night, I made notes and drew pictures of what would later become ARG Zombies.  However, it wasn't until later that I realized the impact and intensity of these events.

While in Afghanistan, I stood on top of IED's that didn't go off.  I was shot at, and I saw young men die without even knowing what hit them.  I saw burning vehicles that contained the bodies of men I'd known, and I saw the dead Afghans we'd killed in combat.  I didn't PLAY a game to get over this (like Jane did)- Instead I ended up MAKING A GAME...  ARG Zombies became my Superbetter.

The more I worked on ARG Zombies, the more I saw the potential for influencing positive behavior in players.  Alternate reality games afford the unique opportunity of confronting our ideas about the world, and I knew that zombies represent the fear of strangers, friends, and family alike.  Zombies are popular now precisely because we are surrounded by so many more people than any generation before us, and we fear these people turning on us.  I grew to understand how this same root fear grows in a society- and spills over in the form of war... and, by confronting this idea within a gaming environment, I believe that games have the power to end war...  all wars... forever.

My friends and family feared that I was experiencing post traumatic stress, and developing PTSD. However, I believe that I experienced Post Traumatic Growth- instead of Post Traumatic Stress.  The symptoms are right out of the TED talk.
-I was not affraid to do waht made me happy- I wanted to make a game, and I wan't afraid of any of the challenges or the fact that I'd never made a game before.
-I understood myself better, and I know who I am- I have a wide range of experience and skill, but I am a game designer who makes games that I hope will improve the lives of my players.
-I have a new sense of meaning and purpose- What I learned about the human condition can be influenced through the experience of gaming.  I believe it is my purpose to translate that into a playable experience, that effects positive changes in players.
-I am better able to focus on my goals and dreams- Now that I know what I'm here to do... it's pretty tough to get in the way of a Marine on a mission.  I can see the path to make my dreams happen, and I am undaunted by the immensity of the task. After all...  I've got the rest of my life- plus an extra 10 years if I play the game well!

(PS- Thank you Jane!)

ARG Zombies update.

Work has been continuing on my mobile Alternate Reality Zombie Game "ARG Zombies" We have launched a closed beta on Testflight, and we have nearly completed the story for the game. Independent game production is, of course, much harder than I initially imagined... but, I have been shlogging along just the same.

My brother Trevor has been a lead game tester for the game Blacklight Retribution a free to play first person shooter from Perfect World and Zombie Studios. Today he quit his job to come work on ARG Zombies!!

This means that Tando Productions (our company) now has David O'hagan doing social media and user engagement, Trevor will be doing our sound effects and QA, and I am the director designer (and of course business guy)... So yeah- that sounds like a team to me!

Look out world... TANDO is coming!

Occupy Movement Protests

This weekend I went to check out the Occupy march in my home city, San Francisco. I ended up creating my first video blog... more to come perhaps?

Gamers are going to change the world

If you haven't already seen this link you should check it out. Gamers solved a protein puzzle, expected to help in AIDS research, in 3 weeks after scientists struggled with it for 10 years.

http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/games/online-gamers-crack-aids-enzyme-puzzle-20110919-1kgq2.html

This is concrete proof of the potential power of gaming. Folding proteins in a simple game is just scratching the surface of what gamers are capable of. I was going to write a lot more about this, but I think it speaks for itself.

Is Man Evolving a Collective Consciousness?

Life is constantly evolving. Since protein began replicating in strings, life has been adapting and moving, but towards what end? Much like a chromosome trying to understand a creature, we may not be capable of grasping the next evolution of man, but we all know it is coming.

the past two hundred years have recorded the largest changes to human society ever witnessed. Technological advances have changed the way that most humans interact with the planet. These interactions are so different that we believe ourselves and our actions to be "un-natural". While a technologically advanced object is not, by itself, natural, the drive to create and share such things is a natural drive seen in humans for ages. Like the first leg on a fish, we have sprouted a fledgling collective consciousness- the Internet.

We have all known that the Internet is an amazing technological achievement since it's early days. However, much like the first leg on a fish, the Internet has flopped around a bit. We all knew it's potential to unite people just like we know that that fish will eventually walk with ease. Technology, being unburdened with the constraints of biology, has quickly strengthened and adapted. Nowhere is this new strength more apparent than the middle east, where twitter has toppled governments. The illusion that any man has power over another instantly dissolved in Tahir square.

Mans creation of technology is natures adaptation to the constraints of our biology. Operating as a society on such a massive scale requires adaptations like the smartphone (the world in your pocket) in order to function. These things draw us together like the nervous system unites the bodies organs, toward the single purpose of life. Like a fledgling organism the collective mind has gone through some growing pains, but trudges forward up the beach. The future is never certain, but somewhere inside, the fish knows he will walk, and perhaps one day- even fly.

See Also: Transcendant Man