Ride the Tiger

[Occhidiangela]

A Jefferson Starship (or Airplane?) lyric:

Black wants out of the street
Yellow wants the country
Red wants the country back
White wants out of this world.
Note: In the 25 or so years since that song came out, the stereotypes have changed slightly, but the theme remains. Travel to Mars? *sings* "Fly me to the moon . . ." OK, I'll stop, not in the shower at the moment.

That lyric came to me while I read a short article by Rayburn Odom in Computer Games Magazine, July 2004. ( Their Site, though I read a paper copy) Game Addicts Anonymous comments on a the slightly tired topic of addiction to electronic games. What he did not explore in sufficient depth, space limits I suppose, is a root motivator of immersion into fantasy lands: escape, a contributor to indulging in compulsive behavior. His question is, or was, how far will escape go as games become increasingly "real?" How much more appealing will the next three generations of PC 3D games be than the current load? I wonder if he knows how many hours are lost every day by people playing Minesweeper?) He asserts that PC games are in their infancy, and that in 10 to 20 years game addiction will compete with alcohol addiction as a societal ill. Bottom line: Gaming addiction is a problem that we should not ignore. I wonder if his mom had trouble with his dad's golf habit. ;)

Escape is not a new societal phenomenon, via movies or TV and the allegedly healthier escape, reading. IN excessive escapist reading, as in wandering into alcohol or heroin induced oblivion, one lets go of control and floats on the story, the show, or the buzz. No carpal tunnel syndrome there, but a key difference in those escapes, versus these pernicious computer games, are lack of person to person interaction, a modest shortcoming of SP only games, and the absent creative, problem solving process. The escaping action is not the same, in that one is an escape from and the other an escape to with the key ingredient being the level of control an activity or hobby affords the escapee. (I realize that the alcoholism tie in is tenuous, since alcohol or smack can be used in conjunction with any number of escapes or hobbies. However, since that is the comparison he used, I feel bound to retain that linkage in this critique. The creative process of writing is undertaken by the author, which can be another addictive behavior!)

Escape is the theme, but escape from what?

From the mundane. That is not by itself bad, for any leisure activity is a form of evening out the life's strains, challenges and frustrations. Up to a certain point, it is healthy to even out the strain. Of interest to the author, and for most of us who frequent this forum, is finding the threshold where a hobby becomes a false refuge from life. Many of us "here" know times when we've crossed that line, and what it takes to come back from the artificial structure and control that an addictive hobby affords us.

"Hi, I'm Occhi, and I'm a Legit Diablo II forum addict." (My post count is evidence that is hard to ignore!)

Forum participation fits into this genre of hobby, or creative escape, of the on line sort, due to its harnessing creative impulse, be it in crafting screen shots or a well worded flame.

Take a look at a RL hobby, to distance the conversation from the allure of the filtered human interaction that the PC and fiberoptic network affords. Consider golf, and then table top Dungeons and Dragons.

In golf, you enter an artificial environment, the course. (The Map? The Room?) You have in your hands tools. You control to a certain extent how the game progresses. There are hazards a plenty, and rewards for both excellence and luck. You can play it solo, which can be very relaxing, but playing it with friends or other people adds a beautiful social flavor, a frequently enriching human interaction (coop). Playing in its original form (PvP) for a wager large or small, adds a completely different flavor and enjoyment. The let down from leaving the course and returning back to life varies, particularly if the comeraderie transitions to the 19th hole and goes on for hours. "Don't you people have homes?" asks Judge Smails of country club memebers playing cards in Caddyshack.

Golf at its best combines a test of skill with a human leisure and social setting that promotes friendships and person to person interaction, outside the context of jobs, challenges and general stress. Yet it costs time and money to indulge in, time and money that can be chosen for golf, or for any number of other activities. (Painting the garage door?)

Likewise Dungeons and Dragons tabletop, which cost me quite a few study hours in college, and cannot have helped my grades; a situation similar to Mr Odom's complaint that he hurt his grades with too much PC gaming. I made friendships in that milieu that last to this day. I stood for two of my friends at their weddings, my D & D bubbas. That hobbie led to an exploration into medeival and ancient history that lasts into this day, as well as into . . . the addictive world of Diablo, Diablo II, and Starcraft! Full circle, eh?

The lyric registered because PC game addiction, which I will confine to multi player environments and still be on reasonably firm ground, is a continuation the D & D addiction that preceded it. D & D received some very bad press for its alleged influence in encouraging evil, delusion, and amateur spelunking. But as a hobby, it harnesses our creative side, our imaginative side, by design anyway, and boosted interest in, among other things, arts and crafts and Rennaisance Festivals. Yet that hobby has not received quite the acceptance as the "he's out tinkering with that old car" hobby has. "Lost in the creative urge" would be the theme common to those two disparate pursuits.

Has the promotion of arrested adolescence that D & D was charged with, the escape from life that PC games seems to offer with an added filter, enabling personal interaction sans face to face contact, really in competition with alcoholism or recreational drugs as society's next major problem?

I'd suggest not, since alcoholism or drug abuse (and escapist reading) as escapes are a letting go, whereas creative hobbies are an empowering, a small attempt to do something over which we can exercise a measure of control. A measure, a wee dram, of personal power, and the escape into, the immersion into, the creative setting. Similar to but different from carpentry or gardening, stamp collecting, putting together stained glass, model building, et al.

Is the desire to escape, as the lyric suggests, "out of this world" and into such realms as Earth and Beyond, Eve, SWG, Civ 3, Moo, Azeroth, Sanctuary, or other make believe worlds a manifestation of cultural restlessness? Is this tapping into a slash and burn, conquer and move on spirit inherent in the primal American culture that eventually spawned Hollywood, as well both Dungeons and Dragons and the PC games that followed it? The active escapes into "other worlds" seem to echo the old "They don't like us here, let's try over there." The Hollywood escape, and escapist reading, is a new version of transporting oneself, on the wings of song or story, into the world of imagination and legend, an escape as old as mankind.

"White wants out of this world?" (The narrow model of the "mainstream" European based 'American' culture as "white" cannot of course reflect the immense diversity of PC gamers all over the world. Lineage, anyone?) Is the great escape from the world into an imaginary environment the next great societal problem?

I think not. When a hobby, such as fishing, becomes a passion, a passion that competes severely with the mundane occupation so many modern folks undertake to pay the bills, one loses oneself in the hobby. One escapes into the experience of angling for hours in hopes of a good fight with a bass or tickling a trout, of catching that perfect wave, or in the creative process of woodworking or painting. See also staging the next raid in Evercrack with your online buddies.

It's an escape into something, not necessarily from something, and it harnesses the active, creative process, rather than the passive escape into an altered state. That people waste time is a product of varied factors, which Mr Odom acknowledges by quoting T.S. Eliot's "Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time." I'd take it a step further and suggest that "waste" of time is in the eyes of the beholder, to include my own dear Mrs Occhi! (Fear the Frumious Frying Pan of Spousal Vengeance, my Friends! :lol: )

Is there a point at which a hobby, any hobby, becomes an obsession, an unhealthy drain on one's time and resources, both spiritual and physical? Yes, and in the case of those with jobs and families, prioritization and time management are part of life's little puzzle to piece together.

Are PC games any worse than the hundreds of other hobbies, or time sinks, that already exist?

Not hardly. The problem, if there is one, is the susceptibility anyone has to compulsive behaviour (I number golfing, smoking, forum participation, and PC gaming among my versions of that flaw) and the level of self discipline and ability to prioritize and budget one's time that one develops as one matures.

Mr Odom has seen the light, having learned a bitter lesson while at college, and wishes to warn his compatriots of the dangers of the rocky waste he has just crossed, knowing that others will take a similar journey. The "problem" he postulates is no older than the habit of active, creative hobbies that sing the siren's song to us as we sail the mundane seas of our daily lives.

Sing
Sing
Sing to the sky!

Or was that just my dog, barking at the moon, or warning me of a tiger? :D

[Taem]

EDIT - I must start off saying that I am so tired as I re-read this that I can't even comprehend what I just read the second after I read it, so I post this in the hopes that there is some useful context in here somewhere. I'll come back in the morning to see how much of a fool I made of myself:

It seems that what I hear you saying is ALL hobbies could be considered addictive, is this correct? I see you going to great lengths to justify the concept of escapism, and we all do it to some degree or another, however people who are really addicted to SOMETHING do need help. Long-term, it seems to me that compulsive behavior stems from the desires of something, rather they be good or bad. This compulsive behavior becomes a problem when we fixate on it, and when trying to change our behavior we only end up focusing on our problem more in the process, spiraling us further down into addiction. MOST people are capable enough to see this cycle occurring, but others fall into the cycle all too easy, some stuck in a cycle consisting more cycles. So my response to your topic is, how do you stop fixating on a compulsive behavior?

In all cases of addiction, this "thing" which binds us is fulfilling a need we desire to be fulfilled. For whatever reason it reaches a point where we need it to unwind, relax, feel good about ourselves, feel comfortable, or whatever it does to fill our need. But how does it get to the point where we can no longer turn away from it because it has become such a strong influence in our life/behavior? The only way I can think of, and I often thought this, would be to teach some kind of 'self-awareness' and 'morality' classes to our youths instead of leaving the responsibility of morality to their parents, who in a country where the divorce rate is climbing above 75%, lacks moral integrity. Marriage is the principle concept of respect for one-another, compromise, and unconditional love and if we can't get that right as a country, it says a lot about what we are teaching our children. With most families having both parents working, where does one learn their morals from? Coming off as an only child whose parents both worked and later divorced, I developed my own morals about what was right and wrong. Once I married and had my own children, it took me awhile to see that what I once thought was right was definitely wrong, but I have a relatively open mind about self-awareness. I don't think other people would be so lucky as I have been.

So do I really think lessons in morality and self-awareness could change people to the point that they would find addictions to be a bane? Yes, I do. Do I think there is any other way to curtail addictive behavior in people in general, much less people who have no restraint or urge to stop what their doing? Sure there is, but they won't be nearly as effective. Am I saying we should completely change our school systems now? Nah, eventually everything will come to a head and our moral decay as a society will be our downfall. I will be there watching from the outside, knowing it was meant to be while others will be left scratching their heads.

[Occhidiangela]

Thanks MEAT, for your thoughtful post. Your reply opened up some lines of thought, and pointed to where I gave unfocused treatment to the topic.

The theme I am trying to weave into that tired topic is that of escape, and I wandered down into escape in kind, leaving at the door the originial thought that the song evoked of an alienated, suburban white teenager finding no "fit" in a society increasingly hostile to him, and embarking on any number of journeys or travels to find a more satisfying fit, even if temporarily. Hence, the odd reference to the "they don't like us here, let's go somehwere else." In the process of writing, I lost that thread and went elsewhere. Hmm, re focus.

You touch on the matter of "why the need to escape" and I will only say that much has been written of the industrial age man whose avocation and vocation do not match. It appears that a great number of people do not love their jobs, or their work, so they get their "I feel good" points in hobbies or other past times, which include drugs, alcohol, and any number of other releases from a confining or disappointing daily environment.

What do you equip kids with as they grow up? I'd suggest they be exposed to any number of hobbies, sports, and avocations, as well as to the joy of hard work done well. That way, they can gain some measure of satisfaction in any job, and will have the habit of trying other human activities as broadening influences on their lives. Another thing to do is teach them that life is not fair, that they can find happiness in small doses and be fine, and how to differentiate between a need and a want. We all of us can use advice on prioritization from time to time. "Don't pet the sweaty things." Right? :D

I don't doubt that some of our comrades here on the Lounge got benefit from more than just in game topics. I have had all sorts of enlightenment presented to me, by dozens of contributors here, on topics and ideas that I might not otherwise have been exposed to. Let's hear it for the Lurkers!!! Huzzah!!!
*sings* "Beep Beep little sattelite, tell him I"ll be home tonight!"

How do you prevent addictive behavior? If I knew that, I'd be a millionaire, and a Saint, for I'd be teaching everyone I could reach, including me. Hmmmm, Santa Occhi. Sounds nice, but I doubt it fits with a Rogue's darker side.

It's a thorny question that sociologists, psychologists, phsychiatrists, counsellors, clergymen, spouses and parents continually seek solutions to and answers for, not to mention the concern management has over certain manifestations the phenomenon. I accept a desire to escape as a given, accept a predilection for addictive behavior in some folks as a given (I still smoke, my cousing is a recovering alcoholic, my grandpa was an alcoholic, or a least a heavy drinker) and try to address how addiction to a video game is any worse, if it even is worse, than addictions to substances.

What arrived in the first draft is pointing me in a different direction than I started in. The creative process at work. Escaping from the ennui of what has been a slow day. The brain has been cooking off with all sorts of random synapse firings!

"It's not where you are, it's who you are with that makes the difference."

Occhi