Friday 25 July 2003

Pic of the day: Oh, and let us not forget anger. Supposedly one of the deadly sins (quite literally), but still highly popular among the common people as well as governments around the world. (Screenshot from Morrowind.)

In other sins ...

I hope I did not get any of you in trouble with your employer yesterday, with my picture of Sims without clothes. In all fairness, I can see why it would be unseemly to show pictures of pixel dolls without clothes. It could bring people to think of carnal relations, a state of mind that we call lust. And we all know how just plain wrong that would be!

Strangely, though, we don't all know how just plain wrong it would be to show a picture of a Sim in front of a big house or an exclusive car. I mean, it could tempt the reader to desire money and the things that can be bought for money, a sin known as avarice. All world religions view avarice with some distaste; Christianity and Buddhism abhor it as a highway to suffering and degradation of the soul. Yet somehow it has become part of the American Way of Life, it seems. Advertisements appealing to greed and avarice cover more surface than many highly successful plant species.

Perhaps I should portray my Sims seated in front of those large tables laden with food. It is my impression that women at least for much of their lives have more trouble with their gluttony than their lust; in women's colored weekly magazines you will find gloriously illustrated cakes with complete recipes ... and a few pages away, advertisements for various diets and slimming cures. (In men's magazines, of course, you will find something entirely different.) Temptations of the flesh! And given the size and shape of both men and women in most rich countries, the flesh is weak indeed. And flabby.

Or I could post screen shots from The Sims Superstar, where screaming fans crowd around their idol. That might tempt some of you to seek glory in the eyes of men, which both Jesus and his apostles warned against (not that Buddha or Krishna thought it was a good idea either). If worst comes to worst, ambition might grow into envy, the emotion that murdered Abel and crucified Jesus. That's what happens when the ego runs unchecked, you know.

Perhaps it would be safer to just show you a peaceful, quiet Sim taking a nap on the sofa. But would I really risk tempting you to laziness? Or "sloth" as it is called in religious usage. Sloths are certainly memorable animals, and I guess most of us would be reluctant to spend our lives like that! But just staying in bed for five more minutes is another thing. And slacking a little at work - it is not as if the world depends on us, after all... And then five minutes more...

Speaking of five minutes more ... Games! By and large, the whole idea about my blue journals is to tempt people into playing games. While hardly one of the deadly sins, it can be pretty ugly when people lose control. One game I saw came with a "boss key" ... you press it and the game immediately stops and displays a fake spreadsheet image! I'll leave as an exercise to the reader to find out what's wrong with that, but it hardly counts as walking in the Light, do you think? (In all fairness, my decent track record in this area could mostly be due to the pathetic computers at work ... Let's hope they stay that way!)

***

So you see, there is no end to temptation. There will be more of them the more I write, I am sure of that. But I also try to raise your awareness. An illusion is only dangerous as long as you cannot see through it. In the long run, I sincerely hope I add more to your freedom than to your temptations! That is my goal for sure.

Yet in the end, all I am doing is inviting you to visit my brain. If what you see tempts you or disgusts you, so be it. I will not rearrange it for you, but you are free to come and go as you want to.