Games & Masks

A short reflection

I'm David Gasca and this is Mystical Silicon, a weekly newsletter on mindfulness, how to make the world more full of life.

There’s this thing that happens sometimes when my kids are trying to do various tasks, where I stop them and remind them what type of game they’re playing.

It can be us looking at “Where is Waldo,” for example, where instead of actually scanning the illustration, they will start randomly poking around the page to find him. “This is a ‘looking game,’” I’ll mention. “How are you planning on finding him?”

Or it can be math homework, where instead of actually thinking about a result, they’ll start guessing randomly. “This is a thinking game,” I’ll tell them. “You have to actually think for this.”

There are lots of other types of games as well: reading games, “paying attention games,” games of skill… Remembering what type of game we’re playing changes everything: knowing it’s a game changes where we focus our attention and transforms our behavior. It moves us out of one frame of mind and into another.

Games are everywhere of course... The problem is, it’s often not obvious what type of game we’re playing, nor is it easy to remember that we are playing a game to begin with.

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One of the main benefits of physically going to a place of work, is that the new space marks the delineation of a new game. Putting on different clothes acts as a work-specific costume. This new game has special rules, special characters and special scripts…

When I log into work from home, only a few steps from where I am normally play with my kids, my persona is intermixed and it takes time switch. Like muddy rivers from combined tributaries, it takes time to change mindsets and roles. At the end of the day, after hours in work mode, it also takes time to reverse the process…

A few years ago a coach at my son’s preschool suggested to the parents that before they go into the house from work, before they leave their cars to go back in, they take a few minutes to compose themselves and recognize they are moving into a new space, leaving their work outside.

Another friend mentioned he always leaves his phone at the door when he goes home; the front door a hard boundary where he leaves the mask he uses beyond.

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“Every episode of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood began the same way: He’d walk in, singing. He’d take off his suitcoat and put on his sweater. He’d take off his shoes and put on his sneakers. For more than 900 episodes, this opening ritual was as reliable as death and taxes. He had other rituals, too: feeding the fish, talking to Picture Picture, bringing out the trolley. Sure, Mister Rogers gave us variety, too — a tour of a factory or a visit from Mr. McFeely or even a funeral for a dead goldfish. But Rogers’ routine — his ritual — allowed young viewers (some of whom might’ve had precious little stability in their own homes) to slip into the show as comfortably as Rogers slipped on his sneakers and deal with whatever upheaval might be in the offing, either on or off-screen.” (link)

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In Keith Johnstone’s book Impro, he goes on a long discussion about the power of using masks in theatre. (He uses capital “m” Masks because he thinks they unleash almost magical powers.) Johnstone provides example after example about how using masks transforms people and unleashes powers that modern society has almost completely forgotten about and suppressed:

It's difficult to understand the power of the Mask if you've only seen it in illustrations, or in museums. The Mask in the showcase may have been intended as an ornament on the top of a vibrating, swishing haystack. Exhibited without its costume, and without a film, or even photograph, of the Mask in use, we respond to it only as an aesthetic object. Many Masks are beautiful or striking, but that's not the point.

A Mask is a device for driving the personality our of the body and allowing a spirit to take possession of it. […]

Actors can be possessed by the character they play just as they can be possessed by Masks. Many actors have been unable to really 'find' a character until they put on the make-up, or until they try on the wig, or the costume.

We find the Mask strange because we don't understand how irrational our responses to the face are anyway, and we don't realise that much of our lives is spent in some form of trance, i.e. absorbed. What we assume to be 'normal consciousness" is comparatively rare, it's like the light in the refrigerator: when you look in, there you are ON but what's happening when you don't look in?

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Anytime things get too serious at work, moving into the mindset of games helps me expand my perspective. Almost like fuzzing my eyesight to view the panorama, the shift to seeing games releases new options – it suddenly can make the intractable tractable.

Masks are so powerful they are usually invisible to the wearer. This is what I love about doing improv - by the very nature of the practice I’m forced to remove the normal mask and try on new ones. Moving into the spontaneous now of new, improvised games, forces me out of stasis.

This post is a reminder to myself to not take things too seriously. A reminder to embrace the games while playing, and then, to let them go.

🙏🏼

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Mori Point, Pacifica, California January 2023