The LifeMaven

So I’m checking my Twitter feed Friday night, seeing what’s new, what’s interesting, what’s hot. And I come across a blog called The Art of Manliness. Now, I only read through a few posts so don’t be misled, but what I found was very thought provoking and inspiring. It made me think about the other two topics of this blog, gaming and football. It made me think about what makes these things “manly,” what makes them worthy, what makes them important when there are things like starving children in Africa or wars fought overseas.

And the only conclusion that I could come to was that I could possibly make these topics worthy. I could seek to use these topics as mediums to instill certain values in young men like myself or those still being schooled.

We know that gaming culture has arrived. We know that the average young male spends a lot of timing playing video games. So why not use this new medium to teach these young, malleable, people something useful besides how to bunny hop into a headshot. Why not use it to teach them the value of teamwork, competition, independence, and all of the other essential values to being a good human being?

Unfortunately, since I am not a game developer, I will be left to ponder these questions and see what the rest of the industry can come up with.

Okay, so that’s my idea of how gaming can change the world, but what else did I learn from my brief journey into The Art of Manliness?

Well I rediscovered some very cool, enlightening material from TED. I had already watched Seth Godin’s talks on Tribes and Being Remarkable. But then I began to explore the unknown. I looked at some “Related Content” linked to from Seth’s page and I found Malcolm Gladwell’s talk on Spaghetti Sauce.

This I found very entertaining for a few reasons.

One, spaghetti sauce? Pastfarianism? So the rabbit hole goes deeper I see.

Two, the idea of clusters, this notion that people are very varied and have different tastes and wants. It sounds awfully like the idea of tribes and how there are such a variety of niches in the world.

It gives me new hope in that just maybe there are other folks interested in using video games to change the world, or educate our youth. That it’s not just a waste of time hobby for the older generations to scoff at, but a true art form that can tell a story, teach a lesson, and change a life.

And so I hope you’ll take a look at some of the resources I’ve mentioned here and become equally inspired to implement your vision of changing the world.

But with video games as Yahtzee would say, “at least there’s violence and tits.” (3:54)

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