77 Quotes by Ian Bogost

To me, being able to find gratification in more venues, rather than greater gratification in a few, seems like a much more sane way of living.

The universe is not particularly concerned with you.

Looking for meaning in the ordinary seems like the most urgent thing that we can do.

The whole idea of play is in finding, acknowledging, and then working with the natural constraints and limitations that you find in the world.

The playful perspective is not meant to turn your life into a game or a jungle gym. It's rather that the activity is looking outside of yourself.

I think the most important thing to realize about play is that it's this thing that's in stuff, it's not in you.

We think we want enjoyment, and that enjoyment is incompatible with work, and somehow we have to import the pleasure into these miserable experiences. That takes for granted that there's not fun or play to be found in the work itself.

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.

Actually a lot of the supposedly serious and meaningful and worthwhile content on the podcast or on the television is no more or less meaningful than the clothes in the laundry basket or the dishes in the sink. It's more a matter of the attention you're willing to bring to them, where you're willing to allow meaning and pleasure and the light to escape.