Day Three Hundred and Fourteen - TEDTalks: Life Hacks - Jane McGonigal, "Games = Life Well Lived"

Scrolling through the almost endless plethora of documentaries and reality shows that Netflix offers, I was confronted with a very disturbing thought: there is just SO MUCH CRAP out there that it's hard to find something worth watching. Cake Boss, Comic Book Men, Extreme Cheapskates (I shit you not)... I just really, really don't watch to watch these tributes to American Pseudo-Exceptionalism.

Now, don't get me wrong, there are plenty of feature-length documentaries and very entertaining "science" shows that I dig watching. I do love me some Mythbusters and am really intrigued by A Band Called Death... it's just, I didn't want to invest a lot of time today. A half hour is about all I can book and still get my NaNo wordcount in (over 30k and counting, btw, on track to finish this coming Saturday).

So.

Short bursts of informative, possibly inspirational non-fiction programming? TEDTalks. Has to be. And, today, I went to the Life Hacks season of TEDTalks that are available on the Instant Stream and clicked right to episode 2, Jane McGonigal's talk on "The Game That Can Give You 10 Extra Years Of Life."

Intriguing, no?

It turns out that Jane is a game designer by trade, go fig, and that she really thinks (and I agree) that time spent in games actually ISN'T wasted time, lost man-hours or moments of family time. Instead, it's a great way to BE connected to your families and friends, to play your idealized self, and reduce stress at the same time.

But, more than that, you can make a game that can help you live longer.

Jane has a personal story to tell... one of constant pain and mental torment where suicidal thoughts pervaded her waking moments, which were tortured enough as it is due to the aftereffects of Traumatic Brain Injury. In order to combat this morbid thought spiral, she enlisted people she trusted to help make a game out of her recovery. And it worked. It worked so well that she shared this process and, to folks around the globe, her SuperBetter concept helped others not only survive, but thrive during and after their own health trials.

And THIS... is what I LOVE... about TEDTalks.

Where smart, creative people share these relatively small ways to make life BETTER. Kudos to you, Jane McGonigal, in nineteen minutes you managed to make me cry and smile, get my butt into motion (however briefly), thank dear friends for their help and support, and watch a kitten call its mother, all in the interests of better living through games. Thank you.

Until tomorrow, Potatoes~

Day One Hundred and Fifty-five - Happy, "How to get Happy? Try. That's it."

I am very rarely disappointed by documentaries... and I find it particularly ironic to be so with Happy.

On location across the world, in places both affluent and isolated, Happy tours the gamut of socioeconomic statuses, mostly focusing on the poor and communal showing them to be quite happy folks, much more so than your typical westerner who emphasizes money and materialism.

And, I think I could get behind that message if the piece wasn't so damned lazy explaining it. The science involved here is glazed over with relatively few experts barely touching their respective subjects and a disproportionate amount of airtime is spent lingering on poor folks doing what they love with whom they love and living very happy lives.

Well, that's great and all, but there needs to be more science and less anecdotal interviews when talking about a core concept.

I was especially disappointed when around the middle of the doc, there's this rather longish segment about a middle school lecturer/comedian trying to call out bullying with this "keeping it edgy/real" persona to connect with the kids. It comes out of nowhere and doesn't seem to fit with the themes of the doc at all.

That's not to say some of the interview subjects don't have relevant things to say, but most of them are just examples of possibilities without a lot of hard facts to back them up.

Take, for example, the karoshi segment. Heart-rending, to be sure. Interesting, most certainly, but barely any time is spent on the phenomena. I would much rather have had each and every one of these individual stories given prime treatment, turning them into hour long, in depth analyses with science to back them up. Instead, the doc briefly describes karoshi and gives a short segment on one of its victims.

ONE.

And that's the problem with the whole doc. Instead of spending its time honestly, it meanders from place to place giving fruitless vignettes about happy, salt of the earth types with a few tragedies or ironies to give the barest of contrasts.

It's a shame... because, as one of the researchers who is only briefly featured noted, no one used to talk about happiness, only depression. Now, apparently, they're talking about it to no effect. But that's okay, it seems. Just get out there and exercise and find some close friends.

That's all you need, really, according to the doc.That and an adjusted income of no more or less than 50k dollars.

It's nice to hear quotes from the Dalai Lama about compassion, but they lose their efficacy in a hamfisted doc like this.

Until tomorrow, Potatoes~