Somehow I found myself playing Alternate Reality Games a few years back. From these came a trip to San Fransisco, and a job as an online feature writer for ARGN. Consequently I fell away from the games and was wrapped up in different but similar online media, until I find myself here today. In this way the fictitious world I once lived in has affected my life in a significant concrete way.
Recently I watched "The Game" starring Michael Douglas and Sean Penn, not an altogether bad movie - at times a stretch, but it was fantastic in the way that Alternate Reality Games can force you out of the comfort of natural life and I understand why this is a must-see for anyone in the ARG community. Michael Douglas watches from the street corner as one pay phone rings down the street, then down a set of concrete steps and then behind him; this tool was used in ARG "the Beast". Douglas walks into his home which has been vandalized and I think of Walter Benjamin on Aura, when the framed photo of your late grandmother is burned to ash more than the photo is destroyed - and I saw the need for a live event on the Alternate Reality experience, heard the black helicopters around the arts arena in San Francisco, the people fantasizing "Are they blinking morse at us? Which direction did they come from, and what does that mean?" We were in truth being fucked with. Our brains were absorbing this false reality through a real medium, which forced us into a separate world than the wedding party across the lawn.
I drove down 14th street blasting metal and was content that I would occasionally elicit responses from passersby - why else would I blast music with my window down? Then I realized the reality of the man drinking a beer and walking his dog was being so altered by my metal that it was unfair. And this my friends is democracy.
But I'm leaving the topic, because the game does not stop where "the game" stops. Michael Douglas says it several times "This is a Game" in direct opposition of the Alternate Reality Gamer's creed "This is not a Game." It is very phenomenological, an Alternate Reality Game earns its name by creating a new reality for you to live in, and should you be able to divide "the game" from real life, it does not in fact create a new reality, only a new fiction to play in.
There is a game we all play separate from anything we suppose is a "game", and it is defined by rules and elements. Parker Brothers even made a board game, "The Game of Life," and it is crammed in some hidden drawer of all our parents houses, because the real game is much more fascinating. There are no save points, no new characters to play from - just this one shell we live in and the real decisions we make.
Recently there has been a growth of Good and Evil video games. Black and White, Fable, Bully, Bioshock, Grand Theft Auto - all these games rate your character on a scale of good and evil thus changing the outcome of the game; they are imitating real life. When you beat women with baseball bats, they call the police, and when you fight with your sword you're bound to get cut, I hope you can live with the scars.
This is the goal of the game of life as I see it: learning to live with your scars. I have one right on my chest and it exhibits a fantastic aura. I was shot with a paintball gun from no more than 10 feet away - the paintball shot at 220 feet per second leaving a crescent shaped hole in my chest full of neon pink paint. Seeing the scar would give one the impression I played a lot of paintball, but this is not true. I am in no sense hardcore about paintball, yet this scar is a constant reminder that for a time I let the game take over my life, I lived for paint and pain and running to cover in the woods and rushing the other team from behind to splatter them dead, tactics and plans and more pain. But this is not the only thing I mean when I say scars.
Every decision leaves a mark; had I not become a fan of ARGs I would not be in the place I am today, and this is my scar, my one save point is now, the world is an oyster - all that shit.
In the Republic Plato defines Justice as the harmony between man and his place in the system, that he should never long for another place, and this seems to be in conjunction with human nature - in the summer I wish for snow, when I have a good thing I just want more of it and more often etc. and what does this have to do with my scars? The real scar is my life right up to this point reflecting my place in the system and my choices for new scars are my projection into the future. Should I project outside of reality (to dream) I am unjust in the eyes of a Platonian system, especially if I don't have the means to complete my goals.
The Game: Reaching for our dreams, striving for happiness, doing something fulfilling, being complete. Do we not all play this game?
and finally...
15 years ago
6 comments:
Projecting outside of reality isn't necessarily unjust (according to Plato) since dreams are still a part of the system and sometimes experiencing this alternate reality allows one to come into accord with the system (and perhaps to better attain one's goals). There's a though nugget for you.
Also, I really miss when we were all playing the same ARG - that's when it really becomes an alternate reality, when all of your friends are also involved and you talk about it all the time!
Reality is for those that can't handle drugs. Nice to see more frequent posts.
I've been thinking about the anonymous comment that was left here... I don't think you're right. Many would flip this around and say drugs are for those who can't handle reality, but I don't think that's true either. For that matter, what do you mean drugs? Do you mean something experiential that leaves you with a different perspective than other people? Because that's life. Nobody sees the world through your eyes, and even using drugs with other people won't make you see the same, it will only make things similar, and that's not any different than another hobby.
Suppose that Drugs and Chess are analogous. They both require a certain kind of mind, and fanatics of both think there is a right way to do it, a right move to begin the game, though mostly they are just a little full of themselves. They will rave how fantastic it is, and be shunned by i assume an almost equal portion of the population.
Now think about alcohol. This is a collective popular existence, analogous to drugs, that transforms our lives even if we do not experience being drunk. Different than our previous analogy since one could live their life not being affected by drugs in the slightest, or chess for that matter.
Reality and drugs do not have a parallel or perpendicular connection, more like a sine wave (good god stop talking about math), they affect each other like the new Harry Potter movie affects fans in other aspects of life.
Also, no need to be anonymous, Anonymous. Come out and play.
No matter how careful you are with words, you are never careful enough, I think. Words are drugs, and books are very powerful drugs, some of which you probably don't want to fuck with. People are drugs, computer programs are drugs. Everything is drug, or pharmakon...*that's* an important word, I think. Math words are good, dude, I love math words! But they're pretty strong, too, I suppose.
Anyway, I think its interesting you brought up justice. We are fucking obsessed with justice in this culture, and that has a lot to do, I think, with the Judeo-Christian-Muslim tradition that has governed us for so long--it is obsessed with ethics and justice and, definitely, punishment. (There's more than that, of course but the hundreds of pages of Leviticus speak loudly.) I think it's REALLY interesting that Plato involves harmony with his conception of justice...that's something perhaps we can use...
I really like Plato. My question is, though, do you want to live in a Republic, even a perfect one? Plato forbade the existence of poets in his Republic, because they are inherent troublemakers, they test and break boundaries. Republics--and all systems--are about creating boundaries and establishing control. And that's when you need some strong drugs. :)
for example, why are LSD, psilocybin and cannabis (to name but a few) schedule I drugs in the United States? (A Schedule I drug being defined as a drug that has no medicinal value whatsoever and a high potential for "addiction" and "abuse". Is there a rash of psilocybin abuse in this country I'm not aware of? Is it even possible to be addicted to it?) Point is, science and facts are not determining the makeup of the system, the system determines itself to achieve certain goals. Partnership for a Drug-Free America. Ugh (shudder).
Druuuggzzzz..... Mmmmmm......
Post a Comment