Sunnyday 21 April 2002

Pic of the day: Have you ever wanted to be a wizard when it rains?

Who are we today?

I consider myself a fairly well integrated person. I have basically the same values and attitudes and behavior, regardless of whether you see me at work or at home or with friends. I will even say the same things to your face as behind your back, which is fairly rare for a human. I am not frequently plagued by mood swings, though I tend to be more cheerful in the morning and fearful in the evening. This is no mystery, though. It is a fairly common condition. I have noticed that the first dreams in the night are often scary and unpleasant, while the last ones in the morning are often joyful and optimistic. This mood self-repair is pretty much standard in non-depressed people.

I have my unresolved inner conflicts; but again, that is pretty much the human condition. The spirit fights against the flesh and the flesh against the spirit, and so it has been for millenia now. We take different sides and come to different compromises, if at all. But the basic human condition is the same. I approach it in a fairly rational manner, not by bingeing and purging.

I have a pretty clear view of my own sexuality too, not that it matters much since I don't have sex ever. This is mostly a loss for the poor children who are never born with my superior genes. But that's how it goes. Luck of the draw etc. It has certainly very little to do with my decision to roleplay a mature female character in Dark Age of Camelot.

***

I read an article about Internet game addiction today. Among the highlights was the psychologists who wanted to study the phenomenon and got hooked on Diablo II. (He got over it by deleting the game from his harddisk and giving away the CD.) And then there was this girl who was concerned because her live-in boyfriend had chosen to play an elf girl in EverQuest.

What's the problem with that? (If anything, I consider it more of a problem that she had a live-in boyfriend in the first place. That's pretty much an invitation to premarital hanky-panky and outright sin!) But just because the guy is roleplaying a female, that doesn't mean he is considering a sex change operation. And just because he's playing an elf, that doesn't mean he is opting for ear enlargement surgery. (Now that would make for some interesting spam...)

And contrary to what some of you may have heard, we roleplayers are not likely to grab implements of grievous bodily harm and descend to the subway to hunt orcs. Nor do we attempt to summon demons for fun and profit, or sacrifice small creatures to long forgotten false gods with hard to pronounce names. To top it all, the only study I have seen on the matter concluded that role players were significantly less likely to commit suicide than the average for their age group.

That seems about right to me. Role players get to try out ideas that others don't. They get to try on for size roles and actions and responsibilities that would not be so easily tried in the real world. Of course the environment is somewhat distorted, but it should still be possible to learn something from it.

***

As I have mentioned before, I subscribe roughly to the Jungian view of the psyche. Where Freud neatly divided it into the SuperEgo, the Ego and the Id, Jung has a more complex theory. In fact, it is called the complex theory, but for another reason. There seems to be work units in the mind, feelings and memories and attitudes that stick together. These "complexes" can be small and short-lived, or they can be nearly equal to the main personality in power and, well, complexity.

The complexes are the characters in our dreams and in our myths. They are the stereotypes we apply to others and often to ourselves. They are our tools, but they also have some power over us. Especially when we are not aware of them.

I consider role playing a way to tease out these complexes. To dig deeper into the psyche and find out what is going on there. Besides, it is great fun. Kind of like dreaming while awake. And unlike TV and movies, you dream your own dream, not someone else's. That's bound to be a good thing, right?