02 Aug THE INNERTAINMENT BLOG
I’ve loved entertainment my entire life, ever since my passion for learning to play music was transformed into an early career as a musician and vocalist. My motivation has been rooted in exploring my inner gifts and talents, accompanied by the freedom of autonomy, creativity and self expression. For me, entertainment with its accompanying artistic challenges, has provided the perfect pathway to self empowerment. Others find entertainment a powerful and necessary tool for stress relief and pleasure, in a world of accelerating change and unpredictability. All the above benefits, can offer important possibilities for our future well being, when understood and integrated into our life styles in positive and transforming ways. But what happens when our life becomes more and more complicated and stressful? Do we begin to seek higher and higher levels of pleasurable experiences such as entertainment, as a form of compensation and coping? And if we do, what are the tradeoffs that we make in developing the necessary skills for our long term journey toward well being, success and fulfillment?
My early entertainment experiences paved the way to a Ph.D. in psychology, with a focus on the research, role and implications of today’s media on developmental, social and educational psychology. This passion has become pretty much of a 24-7 exploration for the past 40+ years. Along the way I’ve had the privilege to work and learn in the “trenches” with some of the best companies in the world, exploring products, characters, stories, toys, educational programs and the like. https://iamfuturewise.com/client-experience/ https://iamfuturewise.com/client-projects/ https://innertainment.org/character-design-experience/
As my interest and experience in the psychology of entertainment, media, technology and consumerism has intensified, one particular factor has begun to emerge as a core element of focus and concern…psychological identification. Identification is a psychological process whereby the individual assimilates an aspect, property, or attribute of the other (the surrounding Circles of Influence) and is transformed partially or wholly by the model that the other provides. This is one of the key factors that influences and shapes our personalities over time.
The importance of this process has become increasingly important today, and raise a number of important questions.
-We live today, in what some have called the Entertainment Economy, where the global entertainment and media market is expected to reach approximately USD 6,709.4 billion by 2030. It is growing at an exponential rate, as media content combined with increasingly immersive and innovative technologies, continue to combine their power and expand their reach and frequency. This has powerful consequences for who and what we identify with, along with our individual and planetary well being.
-As the entertainment industry grows at an exponential rate, do the stories and characters we relate to in film, video games and other mediums, have the increasing potency and potential for creating more and more powerful forms and levels of identification?
-How do the values and world views embedded in entertainment media, through the new forms of technological innovation, have the potential to change our personal values and world views through the identification process?
-What role do the developmental ages and stages that a person moves through in their life, play with regard to the exposure and influence of entertainment and the identification process?
-When we enter into our external story worlds, through more immersive technological innovations such as virtual reality and augmented reality, how is the process of identification effected?
-If the “hidden agendas” of people creating immersive technologies, stories, characters and more engaging processes, are aligned with profit more than our human elevation, what are the implications for children in the future, that are engaging in media at younger and younger ages?
These questions and many more, have been the catalyst for an alternative paradigm of self development called INNERTAINMENT. This perspective is based on the current scientific research emerging in the fields of neurology, psychology, sociology, anthropology, consumerism, technology and media. The focus of this research places ELEVATION (human development) at the core of its foundational elements with the CHALLENGE OF CHOICE as the core concern.
The INNERTAINMENT posts that follow introduce a relatively simple, Integral Theater metaphor (The I-Theater), as a framework for understanding the process of self development, along with a wide variety of media tips, tools and techniques. Each of the posts unfold as a series of “building blocks”, leading to a deeper understanding of how and why your personal story is more important now, than at any other time in our past, and how entertainment can open up a world of possibilities for the process of INNERTAINMENT.
Each post will contain a number of commonalities to assist in the process of comprehension and application.
#1. The I-THEATER: provides a framework for integrating the past, present, and future dimensions necessary for self understanding and transformation.
#2. SPOTLIGHT: highlights one or several of the core ideas in the post.
#3. ELEVATION: offers a tip or tool to guide you toward a specific self development ACTION.
#4. MULTIMEDIA: adds additional media examples and support with entertaining examples that enhance attention, comprehension, involvement and motivation.
As we explore the INNERTAINMENT Blog, we will include a number of related categories with information and experts that share their knowledge and experience, as it relates to helping us to make better CHOICES in the future, to improve our well being , happiness, life fulfillment and success.