We’ll Forget It’s A Game… Again…

Posted by TheZimp on Aug 16, 2011 in Blog | 3 comments

When will we forget it’s all a game… again? This morning I stumbled upon the gameplay trailer for EA’s Battlefield 3. I’ve honestly never seen graphics so realistic in a video game. I was watching the trailer and was blown away by the realism and the way everything looks. Then a thought hit me… “it’s coming… we’ll forget it’s a game. Just like we did.”

Before I elaborate, check out the trailer:

See that? Games and technology are evolving at an insane pace. In the last 100 years, humans and technology have evolved more than at any point in the history of humanity. We’re getting closer and closer to that point in time where we hit the technological singularity, where technology and human capacity will match. As games become more and more realistic, as our immersion in them gets deeper and deeper, as we become more encompassed in the world of technology and gaming there’ll come a point where we’ll forget it’s all a game…. again.

As gaming technology progresses more and more, gamers are looking to experience more and more of a thrill. Games aren’t any longer about collecting objects or getting to goals, games put us in the shoes of the hero, the action star, they put us in control of a story we can dictate… much like a smaller scale of our own lives. The problem is, there’s only so much we can experience before we need to evolve in order to get that “thrill” back. This is why I think gaming with “motion” controls has taken off. While it seems a little like a “gimmick” at this time, I believe “motion” controls in gaming will evolve in a way that really put us in the game in ways we’ve never expected and I don’t mean just swinging around a Wii controller in hopes you’ll hit a baseball or bowl a strike.

Funnily enough as I was thinking about gaming and it’s evolution, I ran into this little tidbit by Alan Watts that nails the whole thing home:

Suppose you were given the power to dream any dream you wanted to
dream every night. Naturally, you could dream any span of time—and
it could be anything you wanted—because you make up your mind before
you go to sleep. “Tonight I’m going to dream of so-and-so.” Naturally,
you would start out by fulfilling all your wishes. You would have all
the pleasures you could imagine, the most marvelous meals, the most
entrancing love affairs, the most romantic journeys; you could listen
to music such as no mortal has heard, and see landscapes beyond your
wildest dreams.

And for several nights, oh maybe for a whole month of nights, you
would go on that way, having a wonderful time. But then, after a
while, you would begin to think, “Well, I’ve seen quite a bit, let’s
spice it up, let’s have a little adventure.” And you would dream of
yourself being threatened by all sorts of dangers. You would rescue
princesses from dragons, you would perhaps engage in notable battles,
you would be a hero! And then as time went on, you would dare yourself
to do more and more outrageous things, and at some point in the game
you would say, “Tonight I am going to dream in such a way that I don’t
know that I’m dreaming,” and by so doing you would take the experience
of the drama for complete reality. What a shock when you woke up! You
could really scare yourself!

And then on successive nights you might dare yourself to experience
even more extraordinary things just for the contrast when you woke up.
You could , for example, dream yourself in situation of extreme
poverty, disease, agony. You could, as it were, live the essence of
suffering to its most intense point, and then suddenly, wake up and
find it was after all nothing but a dream and everything’s perfectly
OK.

Well, how do you know that’s not what you’re doing already? You,
reading, sitting there with all your problems, with all your whole
complicated life situation, it may just be the very dream you decided
to get into.

If you don’t like it, what fun it’ll be when you wake up! “

These ideas aren’t new. Philosophers have discussed them throughout time, going all the way back to Socartes’ “The Cave.” Everything you know, everything you see, everything you’ve experienced, can all be just one big game that, for the sake of thrill, you’ve forgotten that you have been playing. And, if you look at the technology we’re creating to immerse ourselves in world of gaming, you can see we’re inching closer and closer to that technological singularity. That point where suddenly the lines of our material reality will blur with technological reality and we’ll forget we’re in the game…. just like we once did.

WTF Birds?

Posted by TheZimp on Jun 24, 2011 in Blog, Video | 1 comment

A while ago I tweeted (no pun intended) that when I’d go stand by a certain area near my pool, birds would congregate and swoop down in an effort to either attack me or scare me. I got some @ replies back exclaiming along the lines of: “Video! or it didn’t happen!” So, I decided to get some video footage of these crazy birds. It’s all interesting how it happens. If you’re nowhere near the pool, there’s almost no birds in sight. As you make your way to the pool you hear some chirping and the closer you get, the louder the chirps get. Then they start flying in, from all around you, chirping and confusing you. I thought they were going to pull a “clever girl” velociraptor from Jurassic Park move on me and pluck out my eyeballs through my ears, but alas, they were only trying to scare me. I only found out later as to why.

Here’s the video:

The Awesomesausage – Zimp Vs. Brain 2

Posted by TheZimp on Jun 22, 2011 in Blog, The Awesomesausage | 3 comments

So, last week I went ziplining in St.John’s New Brunswick. It was a very interesting experience and, really, what else is there to do in St.John’s? Oh, I saw a SEAL also. This ziplining excursion was my first real brush with my greatest fear: HEIGHTS. Seriously, that motherfucker was HIGH. We even crossed over the river with the zipline at one point. Here I was having to put all my trust in my harness and buckles that were strapped to me and quite possibly smothering any ability I’d have to procreate. In the end, it was all worth it to look down below me as I zipped across and realize that fears can be conquered… however, having to hold your pee and being stuck high up in the air, well, that, that needs improvement (for the sake of saving me from embarrassment, no, I didn’t piss myself).

It’s All For You.

Posted by TheZimp on May 28, 2011 in Blog | 16 comments

I think I’m done trying.

Really, I am.

What has started as a journey through the world of self-discovery has lead me here, to this moment, where as I type this I can accept that I am indeed an anxious person. If these were the stages of being wrought with the news of a terminal illness, I think I’m getting over the brink of rejection and falling into the peace of acceptance. The truth is, I really want my dreams to come true and in wanting this you struggle with the notion of value and the value that you believe you’re worth. I want to be a filmmaker. I want to be the next Steven Spieldberg, James Cameron, or even Quentin Tarantino. I know saying something like can bring about lots of flack from others and there’ll always be those who are ready to bring down your dreams, there’ll always be those who tell you to “be realistic.” And, you know what? Be grateful for these people because they test your resolve. They test you in how strong and committed you are to being that person you want to be. The more time you spend BEING who you want to be, the more you become who you want to be. Lady Gaga walked around telling people she was a “superstar” before she was anything but. PROCLAIM who you are and EMBODY it.

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I became a self-help junkie a while back. Reading books upon books on just about everything, from spiritual to scientific, books about sex, body language, meditation, neuro linguistic programming. I’ve listened to hundreds of audio books, watched documentaries, movies, videos, posted on forums, subscribed to news letters, and so much more. Finally, I ran into one video where the speaker was talking about self-help as an industry and mentioned that, “if self-help REALLY worked, then you’d probably only own one self-help book.” That’s when it hit me: what am I looking for? Why am I scouring book upon book. What’s the answer? Where’s my goal? What’s the ONE THING that’ll change me, that’ll make me be me, with no worries? That’s when I had ANOTHER epiphany. I had turned my search and journey of self-discovery into an excuse to keep me away from myself. I made feeling good a destination rather than something I needed to tune into. I made it a goal, a point in time. In truth, there is no time or point in space, there’s no goal, there’s nothing to attain, there’s just simply being. When I had this thought, I looked out my window and saw a blade of grass swaying back and forth in the window. There was no one else there, no one else to watch this blade of grass flowing back and forth. It existed just for me, it exists only because I am there to experience it, in it’s majesty, being driven by the wind. Now, I might go into new-agey sounding stuff here but I understood it all. I understood what it meant to be alive. WHY we had to be alive. In truth, we’re all truly alone. There’s no one there to share OUR experience, to feel our feelings, our anxieties, worries, and fears. That everything is just meaningless. However, it’s meaningless that it’s meaningless. WE are the ones who give life meaning. Watching that simple blade of glass, I realized how everything just existed for me. A conversation I would have with my girlfriend, parents, or friends would be only for my ears. Their voice an orchestra, a song, for I am lucky enough to be the only one to experience it the way I do. This is what life is about. Life isn’t about trying to experience it the way you think someone else would, it’s about enjoying how you experience it. Loving every moment of it despite what that moment might be. Being calm, peaceful, and present in all moments of your journey. Feeling anxious is part of that, feeling fear is part of that, just as much as happiness is all a part of that. Remember, dear reader, these words you’re reading (if you made it this far) exist only for you because you are there to read them. They’ll travel through the optical nerves in your eyes, through all your childhood memories, through all the decisions you’ve made, through all the people you’ve met and how they’ve affected your life, through all the music you’ve heard, movies you’ve watched, books you’ve read, through that moment where someone forgot your birthday, and through that moment where you went out of your way to help someone. They’ll be filtered by these and then what’s left may be that little inkling of something. That little piece that puts you in touch with who you really are. That piece that sends shivers up your spine and connects you with the infinite. It may not even be in anything I’ve written, it may arise because you’ve looked off somewhere and noticed something you hadn’t before and that brought you to that moment, that place, of a deep-inner peace. In the end, this is worth all the anxieties and the fears, to find this place where you can just be. Find this place and cultivate it, it’s the way to true presence, peace, and acceptance that we’re human and being human is beautiful.

Yesterday, I took out a notepad, I wrote down what I wanted out of life and I put it in a pill bottle. I walked out into my yard and buried it by a young tree. I’m done. I’m done chasing the books for answers, I’m done believing that I’m not worth my dreams, I’m done trying to pretend to be who I really am, this time, I’ll just be it. And when I’m not, that’s okay too. And, it’s okay for you too.b

My plan on becoming the next Spieldberg: I want to make a short film every month. In doing so, I want to refine my skill. Sometimes, as young artists, we set out to do something and it doesn’t turn out like we had in mind and we give up. We NEED to give ourselves the chance to let our skills catch up with our tastes. Don’t give up, to ANY of you out there who might be working in the arts or toward something they’ve wanted. Don’t give up. YOUR gift to the world is to stay on your path.

The Awesomesausage: Zimp VS. Brain

Posted by TheZimp on May 18, 2011 in Blog, The Awesomesausage | 3 comments

So, lately, as I begin to listen and take with stride all the things my brain tells me, I’ve become aware that a lot of what it says is full-out bull plop. Seriously.

Obliquity

Posted by TheZimp on May 17, 2011 in Blog | 3 comments

I started a new job about a month ago. It’s really not much, just something I needed to get me out and into a routine. A lot of people ask me, “but, Ant, WHAT DO YOU DO?” Contrary to popular opinion, the success of Nonna Maria doesn’t have me basking in the sun on my 80 foot yacht while eating truffle bruschetta or drinking coffee that’s been pre-digested by a ferret like animal. Instead, I’ve probably plunged myself deeper in the maniacal workings of my brain… or so I thought. In fact, in doing the things I loved, I’ve actually been brought face to face with my fears, fears that have sometimes gotten the best of me. Lately, they might have but the thing is, I always bounce back. I’m always ready to attack in some form or another and every time I do, I make it further. Why? Cause I don’t give up. But that’s not the point of this blog post, the point is: I started a new job.

Rich people brew my shit.

It’s a pretty mindless piece of work that has me away from a computer at least 9 hours a day and for more than 40 hours a week (you probably could’ve noticed from my absence from the internets). While it’s mindless, it’s allowed me to reassess the things that matter and, most importantly, it’s allowed me to reiterate my own true value. A value that I had set too low for myself. I think some of us are guilty of that one too, thinking we’re not worth much when really, everything conspires on our behalf. Have a sense I’m delaying telling you what my job is? Well, yeah, cause it’s not really important. If you need to know, I work at a Prop House right now that rents out props for films, photo shoots, events, etc. I’m lugging around furniture, delivering packages, counting countless plastic flamingos, and once I also built an over sized pearl necklace. Again, mindless, but it keeps me busy and I’m gaining some hands-on experience and become a lot more handy. What gets me through the day, mostly, is my iPhone (or my iPhone’s iPod (INCOMING APPLE JOKE: How do you know when someone uses Apple products? Don’t worry, they’ll tell you.)). I put on my earphones and listen, not to music, but rather to informative videos mostly consisting of TEDtalks and School of Life. Through videos such as these, I’ve gained a lot of insight and have began to see how I function. See, I was (and still am) quite an anxious person. However, lately, I’ve begun to see the very things that lead me to be anxious in situations that don’t require anxiety. I’ve begun to see how my brain works, to see what triggers what, what anchors what feeling and where, and when, and why. What does this insight do? Well, at first it fucking sucks. You become a walking self-analytical zombie. Every action became a conscious effort which caused a lot of hardship. I felt unable to perform because every thought, word, action, routine, had to be thought out beforehand. Everyone knows that performance is born from no-thought. A great hockey player doesn’t have time to think of who to pass to, he goes with his instinct, his gut, his sense of the ice and where his teammates might be. That’s where I realized: holy fuck, I think too much! That was a major epiphany for me. The fact that my cure didn’t come from sitting down and thinking out ALL my problems, but rather NOT thinking, just, well, DOING. I’ve been on this journey for a few years now and just the fact I’m even mentioning on my blog that I’m an anxious person is leaps and bounds from the person I used to be. The truth is, I guess we’re all trying to look like the thing we really want to be but in order to get there you really got to get to the core of what’s stopping you. What do you find when you get there? Well, you find that it’s not education or lack-thereof that stops you, it’s not your parents who stop you, it’s not your friends, boyfriends, girlfriends, or co-workers who stop you, it’s not your job, your government, or even that douchebag that might’ve cut you off this morning. It’s YOU. You are stopping yourself. You’ve made up some story for yourself that you’ve grasped and hold on to for dear life, why? cause you think it gives you meaning. It doesn’t. It gives you the opposite. It always makes you a victim of the circumstance. And one thing I know for sure is that if you play the victim, you’ll always BE the victim.

But first, back to the DOING part. While listening to my educational videos at work I came upon this notion of Obliquity which sounded very interesting. Obliquity is defined as “deviation from moral rectitude or sound thinking.” Basically, it means when you do stuff differently, stuff happens differently. I heard this and thought back to recent events such as Nonna Maria and thought of how Obliquity played a big part in Nonna Maria’s success. Obliquity states that “the success of complex goals will usually come from an indirect source.” Which means that even though you might have the most thought out plan in the world, achieving your goal will most likely happen in a way you wouldn’t have imagined. Before Nonna Maria, I had simply just wanted to start making videos constantly and at the same time explore the possibilities of YouTube. My plan was simple, just make videos. Basically, I had decided what my goal was and I acted immediately. I made video after video until I made the first Nonna Maria video with my friends and, well, it clicked. It became viral and the rest was history. Later, the notion of having things properly planned creeped up on me and I felt like I needed a process when, in fact, not having one was what made my success a reality in the first place. I just needed to know what I wanted and go for it, act on the tasks, and get stuff done. Reflecting on this, I see that in the process of doing what I wanted to do (make videos) I became and was a lot less anxious. In fact, doing anything productive lead to an ease in my anxiety. Even writing this blog post makes me feel at ease cause god knows I could be playing Portal 2 right now. I’ve also learned how to enjoy my leisure time, like video games, which I first saw as an escape from the mounds and mounds of overwhelming work I had to get done and now see as my release, relaxation, and reward when I’ve done something productive (there’s a masturbation joke in there somewhere).

I think it’s important that I record the course of my thinking, actions, and discoveries about myself. In my journey of self-analysis and self-discovery, I’ve learned that a lot of people hold the same anxiety, fears, and weaknesses as other people and it’s by other people SHARING their experiences that I’ve been able to improve mine. That’s why I offer my own findings so as to reach out to those in my circle and community that might think they’re not worth as much as they’re really worth. In the end, I’m comforted by the fact that this motivates me to write and take charge of my online presence over solving puzzles in a video game (even if that game is as awesome as Portal 2). So, let’s get shit done together! Well, that’s the end of this blog post, time to play some Portal 2.

TL;DR: Cure for anxiety = Getting shit done!

Alesia’s Magnolias

Posted by TheZimp on May 14, 2011 in Blog, nonna maria | 2 comments

I know, it’s been a while. I hate HATE posts apologizing about not being able to update, then promising I will update the site, and then I falter off again into some unknown piece of the universe. The reality is I needed to step back from it all, the internets, the blogs, the videos, the Nonna Maria so I can refocus my vision. It’s a tough thing to do but it must be done and with that new-found reflection I’ve come back to my work, slowly, and with more honesty. For those wondering about Nonna Maria, she will be back and bigger and better than ever. In fact, you can meet her tomorrow if you want.

Tomorrow I get to celebrate a cause that’s very dear to my heart (no pun intended). My nephew, Justin, was born with a heart condition that almost took his life and because of complicated heart surgeries done even before he was 6 months old he got to celebrate his 2nd birthday last Wednesday. Sometimes, however, there’s always the other side of the coin, as is the case with little Alesia. Alesia was a 2 year old girl, full of life, light, and beautiful energy who passed away on May 1st, 2010 from a very rare heart condition. Her parents (Sheyda Senoglu and Vasilios Karidogiannis), who are warm, kind, loving, and personal friends of mine have decided to honor Alesia’s memory with an annual event designed to raise money for the Montreal Children’s Hospital via Alesia’s tribute fund. Sheyda and Vasilios have turned a parent’s unspeakable horror into an act of selfless gratitude and celebration and I am honored to have been invited as a guest (with Nonna Maria, of course ) to perform. I personally invite you to attend, bring friends, family, children. Let’s honor the memory of little Alesia as best we can so that the little Justins of this world can have a better chance. The event happens all day with plenty of guests and activities for children and adults alike! From the bottom of my heart, I’d love to see you all there.

Information on event -> https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=151782014858666&ref=ts