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
kids prisoner
Even when we tell kids to go play, what do the kids do? They come up with a set of constraints and structures. "Oh, we're gonna build a fort out of clothes, and now that we're in the fort we're going to pretend that we're prisoners," or whatever.
thinking world
We don't like to think of ourselves as subject to the forces of the world, we like to think of ourselves as exerting that force.
thinking people misery
I think a lot of the misery that people experience comes from that sensation of boundlessness, of infinite possibility.
real thinking people
We're stuck in these situations with other people and our stuff and our jobs, and thinking that we can extract ourselves from those seems doomed to me. Instead, how can we live within those systems of constraints? We don't have to enjoy them, exactly, but at least acknowledge that those boundaries are real and that they structure our response to the world. And then once you do that, you allow yourself to say "I did my best given the circumstances."
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.