Active Participation - Volume 1. Edition 1.
Jul 21, 2020 6:36 pm
Active Participation
"Create before you consume."
I read this a lot on Twitter. It's a useful adage when dialing in the creative process. You open up the potential for all sorts of roadblocks when you over-consume. We've all ended up binging some book, game, or show when we should have been working on our own worlds.
But, you can't create worlds without first experiencing others. A blank slate does not beget a world. The greatest creators all have important influences.
In the future, we'll work on how you can structure your time to maximize consumption for both enjoyment and education. For now, I want you to keep consuming but with a twist.
Reframe your consumption time from escapism to active participation.
Don't turn your mind off. Turn it on completely.
The musicians in the Guild will recognize this as "active listening." A professional jazz trumpeter gave me this advice when I was a young saxophonist: "Turn your car into a university on wheels." Trained musicians know how music is created so they enjoy music in ways that the untrained cannot. Musicians don't listen for the same reasons everybody else does. They listen to learn and be inspired.
Try these exercises next time you visit another world:
1. "Look" around you. This is easy when you're in a video game or an amusement park. You have to be more deliberate with how you "look" around in a film or a book setting since it happens partly in your mind. Ask yourself: What's there? How are the boundaries defined? What stands out? What's missing or what did the builder deliberately leave out?
2. Push on the guardrails. You might try to "break" a rule when playing a game (though I don't recommend inventing new moves in the middle of a chess match). Do it as a mental exercise away from competition. Why does a certain rule exist? Is there a reason why you can or can't do something? What if you did it and got away with it? How does the world change when you do?
3. Become a part of the world's shared reality. Professional wrestling looks strange to an outsider. But, fans know they're all in on the shared suspension of disbelief necessary to enjoy it. Everybody knows pro wrestling is "fake" (more accurately, it's "pre-determined"), and yet millions love it. It's a billion-plus dollar industry. Why? Because when you visit the world of pro wrestling, you allow yourself to become part of that shared reality.
Play, read, listen, watch to learn and be inspired.
Actively participate.
Dico.
To future worlds,
Matt Ventre
twitch.tv/PlayArchitect
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