Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World (31 page)

But as a happiness activity, solitary deathbed reflection leaves a lot to be desired. It’s simply not something most of us are inclined to do—or if we are, we’re not likely to take it seriously or do it for very long. We can’t just tell ourselves to remember death—the ancient philosophers, Hecht notes, insisted that “it takes active meditations and gestures.”
²⁴

Moreover, it’s hard to force ourselves to grasp the reality of our own individual mortality. It’s easier to acknowledge the universality of death—and that’s where cemeteries come in. Cemeteries present us with vivid, extreme-scale, irrefutable historical evidence of the one thing that connects us all, the one thing that makes it possible to enjoy life to the fullest—if only we felt inclined to spend more time in them.

At this point in my research, I was convinced that spending more time in cemeteries was a worthy social goal—and that a graveyard game could do a lot more than bring a historical video game to life. The
Gun
project was the perfect opportunity for a happiness hack. And the key to making this happiness hack work would be to generate the kind of positive emotions we typically associate with crowd games—excitement, interest, curiosity, social connection—and simply unleash it in the physical context of a cemetery.

Once I started playtesting in cemeteries, the design pieces fell quickly into place. I knew I would need a focused activity that, in some respect, had nothing to do with remembering death—that had to be the side effect, not the purpose, of the game. And since Texas Hold ’Em poker was a larger theme for the alternate reality campaign, it made perfect sense to bring the familiar game to the cemeteries.

But the poker needed to be site-specific and really needed to use the natural affordances of a cemetery—otherwise, you’d just play the game somewhere else, defeating the entire purpose. And that’s where the idea of using stones as playing cards came in. Tombstones are the single design feature that all cemeteries have in common, guaranteeing the game would be playable anywhere. And paying close attention to the content of the tombstones directly supported the goal of the happiness hack—each card you “decoded” meant literally staring death in the face, but in a way that wouldn’t provoke fear or anxiety.

As for the other design choices, I made it a partner game because this seemed like a good way to ensure that it was not just social, but also cooperative. Cooperation always provokes positive emotion and meaning in games, especially if a physical connection is involved. Meanwhile, touch is one of the fastest ways to build social bonds—holding hands, touching someone’s back, and patting a shoulder all release the oxytocin chemical that makes us like and trust each other. But, as Dacher Keltner’s positive-emotion research has shown, “We live in a touch-deprived culture.”
²⁵
To put it another way, as Michelangelo said, “to touch is to give life”—and I couldn’t think of a better way to enliven a cemetery than to unleash a flood of oxytocin in the crowd.
²⁶

When a game is in motion, there’s an air of happy participation that simply isn’t the norm for cemeteries. It’s a distinct break from the typical atmosphere, usually one of quiet, solitary reflection or collective mourning. At the same time, small pockets of conversation often break out, among friends as well as strangers—people sharing small pieces of their own experiences with mourning and loss. This has unfolded at every Tombstone Hold ’Em game I’ve been to—it’s almost impossible not to, given the setting. In this way, the game perfectly serves its purpose: it simultaneously activates positive emotions and social bonds while putting us in the perfect environment to get our recommended daily reminder that we are all dust, and to dust we shall return.

Which brings us back to the potential controversy. Tombstone Hold ’Em was featured in a number of news articles, and some online readers commented that the game seemed “disrespectful,” “insensitive,” or even “obscene.” Which raises the question: Is it appropriate to play games in a cemetery? Based on my direct experiences, absolutely. At more than a dozen trials I’ve organized of Tombstone Hold ’Em, participants have overwhelmingly agreed that this particular game
feels right
in the space—especially when the net result is that the tombstones receive more attention from the living and are better taken care of as a result.

Perhaps more than any other project I’ve worked on, Tombstone Hold ’Em has demonstrated one of the most vital powers of gameplay: it gives us explicit permission to do things differently. We are accustomed to being asked to behave and think unconventionally in a game. We’re used to being creative and playing outside of social norms when we’re inside the socially safe “magic circle” of a game. And the more people who come together to play an unconventional game like Tombstone Hold ’Em, the safer it feels. A crowd carries the social authority to redefine norms.

Does it really work as a happiness hack? I’ve played Tombstone Hold ’Em with hundreds of people and spoken with nearly every one of them about it immediately afterward. (The games are usually followed by social gatherings in restaurants or bars, a way to decompress after what can be an intense, emotional experience.) The most common reaction is that players felt “more comfortable” being in the cemetery after playing. Other words most commonly used to describe the experience were “strangely happy” and “relaxed,” as well as “grateful” and “connected” to the people at rest. I’ve even talked to visitors at the cemeteries who spotted some of our players in the distance and asked me about the game; just once did a visitor express dismay. Most often, I heard a variation of the following sentiment: that it’s nice to see a loved one’s final resting place not lonely and empty, but full of people running, smiling, laughing, and having fun together.

Since I first shared the rules online, the game has spread mostly by word of mouth—like most good hacks—and I periodically hear about Tombstone Hold ’Em games popping up in cemeteries around the world. It’s the best outcome possible for any happiness hack: a solution that’s been tested, proven, and shared, and now continues to be passed around to those who can benefit from it. Today, Tombstone Hold ’Em lives on as a viral happiness solution—it’s free to adopt or adapt, and no products or special supplies or technology is required. All you need are a set of regular playing cards, something to use as poker chips (some people use coins or colored glass stones), and a way to invite friends or strangers to play their respects with you.

“As a happiness lesson, nothing could be more straightforward: if you get a chance to dance in a circle, get up out of your chair and do it.”
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That’s Jennifer Michael Hecht’s advice in
The Happiness Myth
, and with good reason. Dancing together has been used throughout human history as a reliable source of a special kind of euphoria, the
dancer’s high
.

Dancer’s high is what we feel when endorphins (from the physical movement) combine with oxytocin (from touch and synchronized movement) and the intense stimulation of our vagus nerve (what we feel when we “lose ourselves” in the rhythms of the music and are part of a crowd moving together). It’s an expansive mixture of excitement, flow, and affection that is hard to experience any other way.
²⁸

But dancing in groups also makes many people feel embarrassed or awkward. Everything from self-consciousness to social anxiety to a general disdain for any kind of group participation can prevent us from joining or fully enjoying a dance.

To really dance your heart out in front of others, to not hold back at all, is a daunting proposition for many (although certainly not all) people. It requires letting go, and showing people a side of yourself—exuberant, unguarded—that you might ordinarily keep hidden. For some, revealing that side requires a lot of trust in the people around you. And, in fact, according to positive-psychology researchers, the necessity of trust is one of the reasons why dancing is such a powerful happiness activity.

When we dance, we’re forced into an emotionally and socially vulnerable state in which we have to hope and trust that others will embrace us, rather than judge us. At the same time, we’re given the opportunity to embrace others and help them feel more comfortable dancing. In other words, dancing with others is a chance both to receive and to express our compassion, generosity, and humanity. As a result, Dacher Keltner writes, “Dance is the most reliable and quickest route to a mysterious feeling that has gone by many names over the generations: sympathy, agape, ecstasy, jen; here I’ll call it trust. To dance is to trust.”
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But first, we have to have both the
desire
to dance and the
nerve
to do it. Many of us are missing one or the other.

Some people, as a rule, just don’t like “getting involved.” And group dances in particular set off all kinds of hokiness alarms. It’s no coincidence that one of the best-known group dances is actually called the “hokey pokey.” If you’re not in the mood for dancing, when a big group dance breaks out at a wedding or a street festival, for instance, being dragged into it can feel incredibly forced and inauthentic.

Others have the desire, but simply lose the nerve.

The more I kept hitting up against the same happiness advice—dance more, in large groups if possible—the more convinced I became that there had to be a way to make it easier for introverted types who were more likely to watch from the sidelines to participate, and to give people who are already willing to dance together more daily opportunities. After all, even people who are ready and willing to dance anytime, anyplace, don’t get nearly enough opportunities. We simply don’t have a lot of everyday venues for dancing together. I began to wonder: how could we all sneak a few minutes dancing together into our
everyday
lives, not just the occasional weekend?

My solution: take all the basic mechanics of a massively multiplayer online role-playing game, and swap in real-life
dance quests
and
dance-offs
for traditional role-playing quests and raids. I called it Top Secret Dance-Off, or TSDO for short, and I launched it as a stand-alone social network site dedicated to the adventure of dancing together.

Admittedly, this is not exactly dancing together, at least not in the traditional sense. Most of the dance quests and dance-offs involve dancing alone, then uploading a video to the Top Secret Dance-Off social network site. But the game serves two important purposes toward making it easier to dance together.

First, by providing a goal-oriented, feedback-rich, obstacle-intensive environment for dancing, it makes dancing more motivating, fun, and addictive. In other words, it increases a person’s likelihood of dancing at all. Second, TSDO puts dancing, even dancing around your apartment alone, into a collective social context. It still takes nerve to share your dancing with an online community—and it’s a real opportunity to express compassion, generosity, and humanity when we cheer on other players in the comments. In other words, the game is a hack for group dancing—a way to dance together alone, and make people more likely to dance together for real, in the future.