I've been spending a fair amount of time playing games lately (0h h1, Spider Solitaire, Mahjong, 2048) and I got to wondering about why I am doing this. I looked at a couple of articles, and then I came across this line:
Why are gamers so obsessed? Because playing gives people a sense of purpose, and winning them makes them feel heroic.... and I realized that our perfect American lives are killing us and our only relief is found in playing. Hardly any jobs are what you might consider fulfilling, and heroism is only found when something very bad is happening, and since we have gone to great lengths to make our world safe, bad things seldom happen and so opportunities for heroism are few and far between. That's why the news is all bad, all the time. The good stuff is boring, and our lives are already horribly boring. I'm going to inch out on a limb and say that Islamic Jihadists are grasping life and death with both hands. Their actions may get them killed, but meanwhile they have a chance at real life.
I have heard reports from some soldiers that they never felt so alive as when they are in combat. Boosting corporate profits pales in comparison.
2 comments:
I wonder if, similarly, the popularity of superhero movies has something to do with this; getting to vicariously experience something where what someone does really MATTERS.
I have a job that arguably is less "meaningless" than being a corporate paper-pusher and an awful lot of the time I feel like what I'm doing is spitting into the wind.
As I recall, you are a teacher of sorts. Schools and teachers are how we perpetuate and advance our civilization, for some definitions of those words. It may not be life or death, but it is arguably much more important. Unless you are a follower of that Indian devil, Kali.
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