“We have so many choices that it's only always our fault if we're malcontent.” IfsChoicesFaultsMalcontent Author:Ian Bogost
“Our ideas of happiness, gratification, contentment, satisfaction, all demand that those feelings come from within us. If you flip that on its head and say "What if I took the world at face value?" and then ask "What can I do with what is given?" it's an interesting trick to turn around the whole problem of how you feel.” IfsWorldFeelsIdeasWholeFeelingsProblemFacesValuesTurnsAsksGivenInterestingDemandSatisfactionTricksContentmentWhat IfGratificationFlipHow You FeelFace Value Author:Ian Bogost
“If you think of play as being in things, there are things that are playable, then it becomes the work of figuring out what a thing can do.” IfsThinkingPlayCan Do Author:Ian Bogost
“If you stop someone who's talking about something being fun, and say "Well what do you mean?" it's almost impossible to answer.” IfsWellsMeanFunAnswersTalkingImpossible Author:Ian Bogost
“Every now and then if you try, you can discover something new.” IfsTryingSomething NewNow And Then Author:Ian Bogost
“If you think about the contexts in which we talk about things being fun, often there's a certain kind of misery or effort that's involved with it. The difficulty of travel, getting all your bags packed and your work done and navigating the airports and all that. That sort of struggle.” IfsThinkingKindDoneCertainFunEffortStruggleInvolvedDifficultyMiseryBagsAirportsWork Done Author:Ian Bogost
“We have to always spread sugar on top of it in order that we can tolerate swallowing the things we're supposed to do, which is an incredibly depressing way of thinking about living your life. Not just that your work or your home life would be so miserable that you have to slather sugar on it, but then the sugar is all you're tasting. If that's the only way that I'm finding meaning, then we have this sort of mental diabetes that we're descending into.” IfsThinkingWayHomeWould BeOrderFindingsSpreadMiserableSugarTolerateDepressingLive Your LifeWay Of ThinkingDiabetesTastingDescendingSwallowingHome Life Author:Ian Bogost
“Normally if you're dating, you're looking for compatibility, and then the moment that there's incompatibility, you're like, "Well, swipe left on that, let's just keep looking." In some ways I think the same lessons apply to people that apply to objects. It's just much easier to see that lesson in things because they're these fixed intangible lumps of stuff. People are not. They can change.” PeopleIfsThinkingWayWellsMomentsLeftStuffObjectsEasierLessonsDatingFixedLumpsIntangibleCompatibilityIncompatibility Author:Ian Bogost
“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.” IfsI CanWake UpFind MeLawnsYay Author:Ian Bogost
“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.” IfsAbleRevelationsExpectingAlterationsStart The Day Author:Ian Bogost
“Be contemporary. Have impact. Strive for it. Be of the world. Move it. Be bold, don’t hold back. Then the moment you think you’ve been bold, be bolder. We are all alive today, ever so briefly here now, not then, not ago, not in some dreamworld of a hypothetical future. Whatever you do, you must make it contemporary. Make it matter now. You must give us a new path to tread, even if it carries the footfalls of old soles. You must not be immune to the weird urgency of today.” IfsThinkingWorldGivingMatterMomentsTodayMovingPathAliveImpactStriveContemporaryCarrieImmuneUrgencyLive For TodayHypotheticalNew Paths Author:Ian Bogost
