Ian Bogost
Ian Bogost
Ian Bogost is a philosopher and video game designer. He holds a joint professorship in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication and in Interactive Computing in the College of Computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology, where he is the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts Distinguished Chair in Media Studies...
Ian Bogost quotes about
effort universe
The actual effort that you can exert upon the universe is fairly limited.
world helpful celebrate
It's helpful to be prepared to celebrate the tiny things that you can do, where you meet the world and you negotiate an outcome that's quite tiny. But you can still make it feel remarkable.
wake-up find-me
No one wakes up and says, "Yay I get to mow the lawn!" But if I can find meaning there, then there's nowhere I can't find meaning.
today speak gods-will
God will not speak to me and tell me to mow my lawn today.
start-the-day revelations expecting
If you start the day not really expecting substantial change, but anticipating some small new revelation or some small alteration, then over time you're able to find them in more places.
sane gratification
To me, being able to find gratification in more venues, rather than greater gratification in a few, seems like a much more sane way of living.
concerned universe
The universe is not particularly concerned with you.
Looking for meaning in the ordinary seems like the most urgent thing that we can do.
world natural limitation
The whole idea of play is in finding, acknowledging, and then working with the natural constraints and limitations that you find in the world.
perspective gym jungle
The playful perspective is not meant to turn your life into a game or a jungle gym. It's rather that the activity is looking outside of yourself.
thinking important realizing
I think the most important thing to realize about play is that it's this thing that's in stuff, it's not in you.
fun thinking miserable
We think we want enjoyment, and that enjoyment is incompatible with work, and somehow we have to import the pleasure into these miserable experiences. That takes for granted that there's not fun or play to be found in the work itself.
depressing home thinking
We have to always spread sugar on top of it in order that we can tolerate swallowing the things we're supposed to do, which is an incredibly depressing way of thinking about living your life. Not just that your work or your home life would be so miserable that you have to slather sugar on it, but then the sugar is all you're tasting. If that's the only way that I'm finding meaning, then we have this sort of mental diabetes that we're descending into.
meaningful serious attention
Actually a lot of the supposedly serious and meaningful and worthwhile content on the podcast or on the television is no more or less meaningful than the clothes in the laundry basket or the dishes in the sink. It's more a matter of the attention you're willing to bring to them, where you're willing to allow meaning and pleasure and the light to escape.