A journaling game for grief

A lot of very bad things have been happening here in the United States of America, bad things with global impacts. In a democratic republic, every election has consequences, but this one feels different. This one feels like the end of an era, and things will never be the same.

When bad things happen, it's easy to get into a doom cycle. Recently, I've been taken by Ezra Klein's observation:

The obvious thing to say is: The opposite of doom is hope. But I think the opposite of doom is curiosity.

Before we're ready for curiosity, though, there's a step that must happen first: acknowledge the ending. For many of us, that means to grieve -- something we aren't great at doing in American culture. We are a people of action, quickly moving to anger if we're in our feelings or solutioning if we're not. Grief looks like we're stuck, not doing anything. In fact it is hard work.

I made this game to echo Adam Zagajewski's Try to Praise the Mutilated World. It's come to be known as the "9/11 poem." Zagajewski actually penned it well before that previous "everything is different now" moment. Against the horrors of our "mutilated world," the poet juxtaposes small details of everyday beauty - wild strawberries, a fluttering curtain, a single feather. I wanted the player of this game to remember such tangible evidence of what once was, and to memorialize them. I hope I succeeded.