A few days ago while I was in San Diego, I was thinking that "ritual/rite of passage" is my program, and not a direct focus of my thesis. I may now disagree with the latter, but the former has merit if I consider what do with stratified overgrowth in a landscape of ruin. By itself it is a wondrous, mysteriously aggressive and dangerous landscape but what (designed intent) can you do with it? This is where these "rituals" of experience come to play. Perhaps I was subconsciously thinking that I was already thinking of program months ago with these rituals, but I felt it important to proclaim that I am.

The next step in this is to categorize the types of "rituals/rite(s) of passage" that would work with the three levels of experience, such as basing them on emotion(s), logic, etc. A sudden thought came to mind -- I've been playing recently Dragon Age Origins, a phenomenal RPG that, like all RPGs, involve directing a character which gains experience by accomplishing certain tasks like quests and battling monsters. Each "level" of "experience" has a certain amount of points that you must fill to progress to the next level. At the point of "leveling up" you have the option to pick new attributes for your character for strength, mental and physical perseverance and so on. Choosing new skills for defeating more powerful enemies is also possible. Thus, what I am attempting to design for my thesis is much akin to the narrative and mechanics of an RPG. But that is not the sudden thought that came to mind. Rather, particularly for Dragon Age, there is a type of enemy called a demon (part of a larger force called the darkspawn which of course you are battling) which assumes five different "strengths." From weakest to strongest: rage, hunger, sloth, desire and pride. Therefore, a rage demon is significantly weaker and easier to defeat than a pride demon. The sudden thought is this: what if I categorized a type of "ritual" as not only being a certain emotion but one that cannot be conquered until the adventurer has attained a new level of experience. For example, taking the above example, perhaps rage and hunger are only available to overcome for those who have reached Goethe's first level of experience (making observations of the world around them). To reach sloth and desire, one would have to defeat the first two and reach the second level, which is questioning the conditions of those observations. Finally, defeating/coming in terms with pride could only be reached once all previous engagements are complete and one has reached the highest level of experience, which is questioning the observations themselves.