I’ve been living in Leicester for almost 3 years now. It’s been great! People I’ve met, friendships fostered, course complete, exploring the arts and discovering more of the wonders in life, have contributed to a great chapter in my life, certainly a time to look back on and smile.

I’ve been making a point of savouring every moment with my friends here before I leave for Canada and then, indefinitely China. Baha’u’llah said:

“Regard man as a mine rich in gems of inestimable value. ”
(Baha’u'llah, Gleanings from the Writings of Baha’u'llah, p. 260)

Everyone has their own treasures, their own gems which I’m going to miss, but life goes on and it gladdens me to see everyone moving forward in life.

Some are working, some are moving, some are staying put, committed to nurturing the local community, some are continuing to hone their skills, and some are searching for their path to tread.

I’ve always wanted to travel, travel far that is. I’ve seen a fair bit of Europe (although there is still plenty left to explore) but I’ve been yearning for a long time to see more of the world. To explore new countries, climb new summits, meet new people and become acquainted with their cultures and be of service in their Baha’i communities. It’s time to chase my dreams.

“I live my life a quarter mile at a time. ”
(Vin Diesel – The Fast and the Furious)

I couldn’t resist quoting Mr Diesel, I feel much the same, never really knowing what’s going to happen next. I just try to make the best of it and live one step at a time, trusting in Baha’u’llah (but tying my camel albeit somewhat loosely), and seizing what opportunities I want that come my way.  I like it this way, it’s unpredictable and exciting.

At the moment I’ve been asked to house sit for a lovely sounding lady, and she as a cat! I really miss having a cat, I can’t wait!  I’ve also been presented with the chance of a job at Starbucks in Vernon, the city in Canada I’m going to move to.  I really like the idea of working in a cafe, and Starbucks is awesome.  I wouldn’t say its a life job, but it would certainly be a fun way to keep me alive, go on small trips and save up funds for further adventures in China.  I feel so blessed.  I’ll need to say lots of prayers for thanks.

There’s been so much running through my head to blog about but its 4 am and time to wrap this up.  I went hiking and camping in the Lake District with Paul last week, which is where I am in the picture up top.  More photo’s will be viewable in my photo’s page very shortly.

Time for some rest methinks.

Filed under: Baha'i, life musings by kiamo
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Game design often doesn’t get the respect it deserves, and gets taken lightly.  In fact, I think there’s more to game design than people might initially relate to it.

Creating games requires massive amounts of consultation and flexibility, strong storyboarding/comic book skills, strong music skills (organic adaptable music), strong film direction (some of you may have played MGS4 which fills up a 50gig blue ray and has HOURS of the best animated movies I have ever seen in a game, the ending movie of which totalled around 75mins long).  And also strong digital and traditional art skills, and its worth noting that games are reaching a point near equal to that of animated films with regards to graphical beauty already.  A lot of friends and people I know are interested and skilled in a variety of arts which have a place in game design.  I think its very exciting to work with a vast diversity of talents and skills, to produce a finished piece of work that incorporates it all.

It is also worth noting that the game industry as it is now brings in more that double the revenue than that of the film industry, and the margin is increasing.  On top of which we are now seeing people starting to play games from as young as 3 until people of old age, its an industry that is growing exponentially.

The game industry is HUGELY exciting, and is growing and transforming at a rapid rate, and is becoming embedded into every aspect of our lives, whether we are a hardcore traditional gamer, or a social wii player, or playing on our phones on the tram to work, or (and this is of particular interest to me) the role games are going to play on spiritual, psychological and material education.

In a world where the current music and film industries are being forced to evolve the way they operate, and with the successful growth and development of the game industry it seems entirely possible, that more and more, the application and use of these aforementioned media’s will dwell primarily within interactive entertainment and interactive education.

Its important to not only look at the problems we see in industry now that need to be overcome, but also to look at what is on the horizon.  Fully immerssive virtual reality is in the not so distant future and super high speed bandwidth connections being standard in all homes (if not freely available wirelessly from any location) opens up pandoras box.  In 5 or 10 years the media world will be radically different.

In a world where full emmersive gaming is possible, where we can write images directly onto peoples retina’s(something that is estimated to be possible within a few years), there are going to be mega social and spiritual problems emerging from this and it seems critically important to have a positive foot in this industry which is closing in on us.

The industry which is in fact already established around us, and known as “the game industry”.

To quote Ray Kurzweil: “the word game is unfortunate, because it makes it sound like it isn’t real, but in multiplayer games and virtual worlds we do real romance, real learning and real business.  Second Life has $2 million a day in real economic transactions.  Unfortunately, these names have stuck.  Artificial Intelligence is real intelligence.  Virtual Reality is real reality.  In the 19th century, the telephone was virtual reality. With a billion fold increase in performance and a hundred thousand fold shrinking in size over the next 25 years, you will be able to implant blood-cell sized devices that are even more capable and can expand our intelligence and provide full immersion virtual realities”

The age of doing what your told and following instructions without creativity is coming to a close, and an age where all business’s crave creativity and innovation is opening up. And education is slowly starting to reflect this demand.

The transformation we have all witnessed on the internet testifies to mankind’s growing desire to interact and express creativity in a wide variety of forms, from customizing our myspace page, or creating music/pictures/videos and uploading it to places like icompositions, or flickr, or youtubeand so on.  All of this is a clear indication that people want to be creative and interactive.    Clearly interactivity is the future.

As I said in the beginning, I think there’s more to the game industry than people might initially relate to it, and in my opinion its worth exploring.

phew… that ended up to be quite the rant.

Filed under: freelance thinking by kiamo
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