My fiancée and I met with a friend of mine recently and in retelling how we met it was noted that the story wasn't, "love at first sight." As deeply in love with my bride to be as I am it did cause me to wonder a bit. I do think there was some initial attraction between us way back then, but ultimately I agree there was no falling in love head over heels upon laying eyes one on the other. As I look back on our relationship it's grown over time, slowly and gradually. We don't have love at first sight, but we have what I'm calling love day by day.
Love day by day is that understated love that's expressed between two folks consistently and sincerely. It's us saying our daily "I love you"s and wanting to spend time with each other. It's trying to find ways to make the other person happy. I could go on, but don't wish to belabor readers with a sappy list. Going back and reading over this I'm almost getting a little snide myself.
I would like to discuss the triangular theory of love, though. It floats around in relationship advice, therapy, and books and promotes the idea of love primarly being made up of intimacy, passion, and commitment. Intimacy and commitment without passion is friendship, and other combinations can define other relationships. I'm prone to a certain measure of emotional austerity and suspect it would be difficult for me to ever feel "love at first sight", but from the descriptions I believe it to be a magnificent burst of passion toward another. A couple can feel this and then grow in intimacy and commitment to match the passion they feel, and I hope those who live giving their feelings greater quarter than I do do so.
That said, love day by day is based around commitment. It's commitment that comes easily because we feel intimate and passionate about one another. Commitment is a powerful concept, and - likely due to the aforementioned emotional austerity - I feel more important for a relationship than passion. Being dedicated to another is what will allow one to break down their barriers and their pride and allow themselves to be vulnerable in the unnerving depths of intimacy. I've always belived passion and physical affection in particular should represent a deeper commitment, and as such I've become more passionate toward my fiancée as I've committed more and more to her. Commitment lasts beyond hurt feeling and dull days, and I'll gladly live without love at first sight, as long as I have love day by day.
Thursday, September 27, 2012
Monday, September 3, 2012
The Rise of Video Games: Sci-Fi
I just watched a trailer for a new game coming out called Remember Me. I see people describing it as Total Recall in a Blade Runner setting. It looks like a great piece of science fiction: computers becoming part of who we are as humans making our memories open to manipulation, changing what we do and who we are through one electronic attack. I have a feeling I'm really going to like it.
Last post I bemoaned the loss of good, let alone great, science fiction on TV. It's sad to see it go, and I still hope eventually we'll turn away from our love of watching the "reality" TV dregs of entertainment and return to having something on TV that seeks to challenge and explore our existence and future, but until we do when I really want to experience that I'll have to turn to video games.
Currently I've been playing Mass Effect 3, the latest in one of my favorite series and what I'd argue may be one of the best pieces of science fiction ever written. In my humble opinion Mass Effect can easily go toe to toe with Star Trek, Star Wars, or any of the other greats of science fiction. It's a classic space opera with aliens, intergalactic politics and adventure, and spaceships. It's got some fascinating science to go with the fiction, the title of the series referring to localized physical phenomenon that changes the effective mass of objects in a certain area. It's probably the only work I've seen that mentions that lasers as a weapon could work, but will be limited to short ranges due to diffraction.
Mass Effect also carries the proud tradition of solid writing and well done characters set forth by developers Bioware. There's an alien from a proud warrior species who's gruff and cynical like one of those proud warrior race dudes might be, but wistfully lament's his species inability to come together and rebuild themselves after being struck with a biological weapon that's reduced them to near sterility. There's a professional, very physically attractive woman whose appearance might seem pandering to a male audience at first, but I feel reinforces the later revelations of her difficulty accepting herself as an independent human being more than her father's genetic experiment in creating the perfect offspring to carry on the family name. There's an artificial intelligence seeking that if you prod in the right direction will fall in love with your ship's pilot. And these are just the outstanding instances, the game is full of great stories. You get to take part in writing some of them yourself if you play it.
I've also quite the fondness for the series Deus Ex. Deus Ex may be the quintessential exploration of what it means when we finally begin to merge ourselves with machines. The title itself is almost certainly a play on the phrase "deus ex machina" or "god from the machine" and likely refers to the apotheosis of humanity through human augmentation. It plays on what it will mean for mankind when electronic surveillance becomes a part of everyday existence and communication, what will happen when physical ability can be bought and sold, and every moment of gameplay makes you wonder what we'll be able to do when our eyesight can be enhanced with a computer chip or our strength with a set of servos. It's a game that makes one wonder deeply about the future of humanity as we hurtle toward technologies drastically changing who we are and how we interact.
Thoughts such as this are what make science fiction is a wonderful and important genre. While it may be too expensive to hire the writers and special effects team necessary on a TV show now, video games make the perfect stage. The games already computer generated, and so special effects are mostly just paying artists for the ideas. Writing in video games is still an art that few can do well, but the industry is constantly learning and we've clearly already made some gems. There's not much I like on TV these days, but there's some great things to play on the game console.
Last post I bemoaned the loss of good, let alone great, science fiction on TV. It's sad to see it go, and I still hope eventually we'll turn away from our love of watching the "reality" TV dregs of entertainment and return to having something on TV that seeks to challenge and explore our existence and future, but until we do when I really want to experience that I'll have to turn to video games.
Currently I've been playing Mass Effect 3, the latest in one of my favorite series and what I'd argue may be one of the best pieces of science fiction ever written. In my humble opinion Mass Effect can easily go toe to toe with Star Trek, Star Wars, or any of the other greats of science fiction. It's a classic space opera with aliens, intergalactic politics and adventure, and spaceships. It's got some fascinating science to go with the fiction, the title of the series referring to localized physical phenomenon that changes the effective mass of objects in a certain area. It's probably the only work I've seen that mentions that lasers as a weapon could work, but will be limited to short ranges due to diffraction.
Mass Effect also carries the proud tradition of solid writing and well done characters set forth by developers Bioware. There's an alien from a proud warrior species who's gruff and cynical like one of those proud warrior race dudes might be, but wistfully lament's his species inability to come together and rebuild themselves after being struck with a biological weapon that's reduced them to near sterility. There's a professional, very physically attractive woman whose appearance might seem pandering to a male audience at first, but I feel reinforces the later revelations of her difficulty accepting herself as an independent human being more than her father's genetic experiment in creating the perfect offspring to carry on the family name. There's an artificial intelligence seeking that if you prod in the right direction will fall in love with your ship's pilot. And these are just the outstanding instances, the game is full of great stories. You get to take part in writing some of them yourself if you play it.
I've also quite the fondness for the series Deus Ex. Deus Ex may be the quintessential exploration of what it means when we finally begin to merge ourselves with machines. The title itself is almost certainly a play on the phrase "deus ex machina" or "god from the machine" and likely refers to the apotheosis of humanity through human augmentation. It plays on what it will mean for mankind when electronic surveillance becomes a part of everyday existence and communication, what will happen when physical ability can be bought and sold, and every moment of gameplay makes you wonder what we'll be able to do when our eyesight can be enhanced with a computer chip or our strength with a set of servos. It's a game that makes one wonder deeply about the future of humanity as we hurtle toward technologies drastically changing who we are and how we interact.
Thoughts such as this are what make science fiction is a wonderful and important genre. While it may be too expensive to hire the writers and special effects team necessary on a TV show now, video games make the perfect stage. The games already computer generated, and so special effects are mostly just paying artists for the ideas. Writing in video games is still an art that few can do well, but the industry is constantly learning and we've clearly already made some gems. There's not much I like on TV these days, but there's some great things to play on the game console.
Sunday, September 2, 2012
The Fall of Television Science Fiction
I just watched an episode of Star Trek (Next Generation to be specific-¡Picard rules!) and afterwards thought about playing some more Mass Effect 3. I actually turned off the TV and did some reading, but my mind got caught up considering the state of sci-fi these days.
I think most any fan of the genre will happily, or I suppose more like disgruntled-ly, tell you there really isn't any good sci-fi on TV anymore. Personally I think this ended with the show Firefly, and maybe that's why it holds such a fond place in my heart-it was practically television science fiction's dying breath. Don't get me wrong, there's been a good one or two in the last while. I liked Sarah Conner Chronicles, and Dollhouse. I might debate whether or not Lost counts as sci-fi, but that doesn't mean it wasn't quite enjoyable. I hear lots of praise for Fringe, though I lost interest somewhere about halfway through the second season.
Television science fiction isn't going away, for sure, but I remember the days of Star Trek, Babylon 5, Farscape, Stargate, and Sliders. I lived in a time where I could watch something that truly imagined something outside normal human experience and embraced that concept to explore. You have to dig for that on TV nowadays. Of course, you have to dig for anything of remote worth these days.
I recently heard that when TV was first invented people thought it would change the world for the betterment of humanity. TV may have been a major part of winning the cold war. It changed the way people communicated, allowing a story to reach millions from all around the world. People thought that this power could be harnessed to spread messages of thoughtfulness, enlightenment, and truth to better humanity. Such a grand vision is now swallowed up in banality as we're treated to a parade of vapid celebrity voyeurism and bad parenting, lack of life skill, or legitimate mental illness freak shows.
TV may be no more than a plethora of pathetic pandering to the "lowest common denominator," but there's still great science fiction out there in literature (I listen to a weekly sci-fi short story podcast that's wonderful) and also in one of our emerging art forms, the video game. I'm getting a little long on this post already, so I think I'll make this a two parter and express my love for video game science fiction separately later. So, ¡Tune in again for the exciting conclusion!
I think most any fan of the genre will happily, or I suppose more like disgruntled-ly, tell you there really isn't any good sci-fi on TV anymore. Personally I think this ended with the show Firefly, and maybe that's why it holds such a fond place in my heart-it was practically television science fiction's dying breath. Don't get me wrong, there's been a good one or two in the last while. I liked Sarah Conner Chronicles, and Dollhouse. I might debate whether or not Lost counts as sci-fi, but that doesn't mean it wasn't quite enjoyable. I hear lots of praise for Fringe, though I lost interest somewhere about halfway through the second season.
Television science fiction isn't going away, for sure, but I remember the days of Star Trek, Babylon 5, Farscape, Stargate, and Sliders. I lived in a time where I could watch something that truly imagined something outside normal human experience and embraced that concept to explore. You have to dig for that on TV nowadays. Of course, you have to dig for anything of remote worth these days.
I recently heard that when TV was first invented people thought it would change the world for the betterment of humanity. TV may have been a major part of winning the cold war. It changed the way people communicated, allowing a story to reach millions from all around the world. People thought that this power could be harnessed to spread messages of thoughtfulness, enlightenment, and truth to better humanity. Such a grand vision is now swallowed up in banality as we're treated to a parade of vapid celebrity voyeurism and bad parenting, lack of life skill, or legitimate mental illness freak shows.
TV may be no more than a plethora of pathetic pandering to the "lowest common denominator," but there's still great science fiction out there in literature (I listen to a weekly sci-fi short story podcast that's wonderful) and also in one of our emerging art forms, the video game. I'm getting a little long on this post already, so I think I'll make this a two parter and express my love for video game science fiction separately later. So, ¡Tune in again for the exciting conclusion!
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