Fragg’d – an oddly graceful moment of Zen

Interesting commentary at Wired on virtual killing [and death].

— you watch as your corpse goes pinwheeling
gracefully through the air, arms and legs flailing in the grip of
rag-doll physics.

Clive Thompson recounts the ways he’s died in video games and a new paper on emotions of gamers by Niklas Ravaja. It appears we actually enjoy getting fragged. Or as Shakespeare writes in Othello:

If after every tempest come such calms,May the winds blow till they have waken’d death!

Spirituality Graduate School

David B. Bohl from Slow Down Fast blog, writes at Pick the Brain:

Recent surveys have shown that the vast percentage of society holds religious or spiritual beliefs. It is also interesting to note that a majority of these people have broken from childhood teachings in order to seek out a belief system that holds greater personal meaning to them.

I can appreciate this quiet revelation given that my own spiritual journey took me far from my childhood path.    In the end I agree most strongly with two key ideas in David’s article, “spirituality is not religion” and “spirituality is deeply personal.”    Those views and an open-minded approach, allow me to find common meaning and purpose in almost everything around.