Narrative Thinking

In my previous post I called out Play, Story, and Social Bonding as core human activities. There are other folks trying to riddle out this puzzle. What do they have to say?

From time to time I see many people pondering the nature of Games. Note that above we have Story and Play, but the word "game" ain't there. This is where most thinkers get off on the wrong foot with a bad premise. However the folks pursuing "Narrative" or "Story" don't suffer so much from the cul-de-sec of "Game".

Case in point, this morning, I read Raph Koster for the first time. His blog on "Narrative isn’t usually content either" was mesmerizing. A fantastic treasure trove of thinking and references to other thinkers on the subject. Absorbing and integrating all that material will take time.

The goal here is a succinct meta-story of human learning... one that provides actionable means to steer learning in ways that are both more useful and compelling. Any player of computer games can guess that useful and compelling are not complementary goals.