Rahul Vohra's 7 principles of game design
[The conditions for flow include: 1) knowing what to do next; 2) knowing how to do it; 3) being distraction-free; 4) receiving clear and immediate feedback; 5) feeling a balance between challenge and skill.]
Rahul Vohra's 7 principles of game design
[The conditions for flow include: 1) knowing what to do next; 2) knowing how to do it; 3) being distraction-free; 4) receiving clear and immediate feedback; 5) feeling a balance between challenge and skill.]
[Bliss is just a word: you can desire it but not know what it is. Only one who has tasted it can give it to you, and without doing anything: from their presence alone the unknown flows toward you.]
[A master is an availability, not a teacher. A teacher may not know, having perhaps learned from other teachers. A master gives you a taste.]
[A guru has not mastered anything, or gone through training, or disciplines himself. Rather than mastering art, they have lived life completely, natural, and loose—without force, by moving with the winds and allowing nature its course. Through millions of experiences of suffering, pain, bliss, happiness, they have matured. Ripe and heavy with the fruit, ready to fall, they can fall into you if you are ready to receive. Pregnant and heavy with the divine, he is ready to pour down, only a thirsty earth is needed.]
[A guru is God's address.]
[A great teaching doesn't give you instructions for doing, as it is concerned with your being.]
You are already that which you can be.
[Picking my phone, looking at the lock screen, and putting it down again is enough for me to take a break.]
[Apps that check in by asking 'are you still watching?']
[Technology provides a sense of bubble-ness, a place to go. Like a parent that's always there for you.]
[Acknowledge the different parts of you that might be in conflict with each other.]
Ornette Hawkins: Raw Sun Live Sessions (2018)
Live jazz-infused drum and bass from an artist with a killer name.
The Everly Brothers: All I Have to Do Is Dream (1958 single)
One of the first things I played in public on the piano when growing up; the harmony fits perfectly in one hand and can be pretty satisfying to repeat for hours—great way to learn about 3rd and 6ths.
The Dixie Cups: Chapel of Love
From Chapel of Love (1964). Super soulful vibe created from vocals, bass, horns, glockenspiel, drums, and clapping—fewer ingredients than ice cream.
posted to Blog
Precisely at the moment distraction begins, take a huge slow breath, feeling the air in your lungs, and continue with awareness, observing as much as possible.
collection of video games UI interfaces, screenshots and videos.
Did anyone tell you how awesome you are for doing what you're doing right now?
Beau of the Fifth Column doesn't have an ending tag, doesn't ask to like/share/subscribe, doesn't ask for anything and only gives.
[If someone says 'there is no time to rest because it compromises a goal', tantra says running and being in a hurry causes one to miss.]
[Yogis who simply fast and repeat mantras are dulling their nervous systems and ability to respond.]
[Standing on your head for extended periods overflows the tiny nerves and destroy them. Humans keep the blood flow regulated by standing, whereas animals keep their brain at body level.]
[Remaining homeless helps you find the real home. Avoid abiding anywhere and you'll abide in yourself. You can enjoy a relationship but don't cling.]
[The parable of the prodigal son] means that if you remain on the right path, you will not be celebrated by existence. You will be a simpleton, you will not be enriched by life. You will not have any salt in you; you may be nutritious, but no spices. You will be very simple, good, but your goodness will not have a complex harmony in it. You will be a single note, not millions of notes falling into a melody. You will be a straight line, with no curves and no corners. Those curves and corners give a beauty, they make life more mysterious, they give depth. You will be shallow in your sainthood, you will not have any depth in you.
[Mantra forces the causes into your unconscious, delaying transformation. Tantra awakens for better awareness.]
[The symptom is useful in that it keeps nagging you when something is wrong.]
[Never seek someone to help: only an enlightened on can help, and it flows naturally. A true master never tries to change anyone: like a subtle fragrance they surround you and enter only if you take a whiff.]
[Meditation is just coming back home to rest, not even a prayer or mantra.]
Your seeking creates a smoke around the flame. You go on running around and around, you stir much dust, and you create much smoke, and it is your own effort that stirs the dust and creates the smoke, and the flame becomes hidden. Rest a little, let the dust settle back to the earth. And if you are not running very fast, not in a hurry, you will not create smoke. By and by, things settle and the inner light is revealed.
[The idle mind is not of the devil but of God. By being empty we are able to receive.]
[You don't sleep by doing anything: when activity stops, you simply go into sleep.]
[Relaxation means the moment is enough: feeling yourself, and being present is so satisfying it's too much.]
[Activity is goal-oriented and constantly turns the present into a means for the future, thus ensuring relaxation remains on the horizon and never comes.]
[The celebrator doesn't need to create anything because everything already exists and they are grateful for the abundance.]
[Don't desire anything, including spiritual things, God, or liberation. When you are desire-less, the seed explodes.]
We're accustomed to carry out activities with some kind of objective. Normalizing this makes it uncomfortable when nothing is being accomplished. Finishing something early and confronting stillness and silence invokes a reflex to fill space by checking your phone or notifications, distracting yourself for fear of a void. It feels wrong to simply breathe, stretch, exercise, practice capoeira movements outside the context of a structured activity: "can't just sit and breathe for the rest of my life, gotta actually do something". Nothing is possible without breathing: mental and physical health is necessary for accomplishing anything, so it's strange that we're afraid to connect with it in an unstructured context.
Each moment of stillness is actually a gift: we can celebrate an opportunity to focus on the gaps. We're always breathing in the background, so stopping gives us a chance to pay attention to the whitespace, or darkspace. Enjoy connecting with it like meeting an old friend. The tendency to ask "I did my breath, now what?" might be an anxiety about the activity not having a well-defined start and end time, so we can practice being there without expectations, and when something compels us into action, we are free to move on.
Tagged: relate.
Visualizing texts by frequency of their punctuation marks. I’ve always been a fan of data visualization, especially condensing an entire work into a single graphic to facilitate comparisons. I did this once when studying Hindustani music by transcribing an improvisation and mapping out which notes of the raga were used and how they were approached (laborious but interesting to look at). Curious to try this on my own writing some day to know what it ‘looks’ like.
From The Delta Sweete (1968). Complex interleaving of multiple parts with folksy Southern USA accents. Listen to the percussive clapping, bass drum, and guitar on the left channel, with voice and trumpets in the right channel. Reminds me of Moondog.