Thursday 30 November 2006

Pic of the day: Even my alien Sims are less alien than I...

Sims, humans and me

My Sims don't usually have TV, and I usually don't even think about this. It is simply too far removed from my reality. This time I noticed because one of the sorority girls came home with one she had gotten for free. (They seem to get a suspicious amount of furniture for free... I hope this is some kind of voluntary donation. Never having been in a Greek House myself, I would not know.)

I think it is right to say that I hate TV, in principle. The damage this contraption has done to some of my friends, and to society as a whole, is hard to forgive. One can forgive a human for the sake of religion, but to forgive a piece of furniture comes harder. Especially one that eats away at the very part of us that makes us human, the mind itself. Yes, I hate TV. But not with the consuming hate that is described by one Bhaktivedanta sage, who taught that those who hated Krishna would surely be saved, because they thought about him every waking hour. That is a fascinating concept, which I will cheerfully ignore today. My hate for TV is not like that. In fact, I forget it utterly for weeks on end, until someone talks about this or that program, or my Sims bring a TV home, or I consider buying a computer only to find that it comes with a TV tuner.

And yet, even with that similarity to me, the Sims are more like other people than I am, sometimes.

***

Most notably, my Sims are hopelessly romantic. Or perhaps I am on their behalf? In the years I have had The Sims 2, I think I have never managed to let a Sim go through life alone and die alone and childless. I explicitly tried even this year once, but a daughter of one of my other Sim families thwarted my attempt and seduced my "make an example" Sim. Oh, I don't preserve the genes of every Sim I play. Some of them are just too grouchy, and if they don't particularly wish for kids, I am happy to let them die from old age without any offspring. But they still live their lives in a mutually dependent, intimate relationship with someone, and there are usually children in the family at some point. A niece, a step-child or even an adoptee.

Perhaps it is because their lives are so brief, only a few days of our time, at most around 80 of theirs. For everything to end so soon, to be lost like the rings in water from a single raindrop on the ocean... it just doesn't seem right. Strangely enough, although my time is roughly the same as their in a cosmic perspective, I don't feel the same way about myself. While it would be difficult to achieve a family of more than 1 for myself, it is more important that I do not even wish for it. There are no lonely night in which I cry myself to sleep. Or rather, being a man, drink myself to sleep; but it is the same thing at heart.

Even before they get hitched, the Sims are social creatures. Even the most shy of them will go into despair after a few days alone at most. The less than extreme Sims can barely hold it through a day before they have to call someone and talk for a couple hours to feel OK again. In contrast, I don't mind a week off work alone in my fortress of solitude. I've tried chat rooms on the Internet, and some were OK for a while, when there were people I respected. But for the most part they were just a distraction from more interesting things. Even when I play a multiplayer game online, like City of Heroes, I play alone most of the time, and rarely talk much even in a team. I guess most of what people say doesn't interest me much. To put it jokingly, I habitually create more interesting characters (to me) than God does.

I am not a misanthrope as such. I like people and am generally polite and friendly unless they act beyond hope of human reform. I just don't need them. And I also much prefer that they don't need me. (But it is OK if they read my journal...)

***

Without comparison, the Sim aspiration I identify with the most is Knowledge. Knowledge Sims frequently have wishes to improve a skill, or learn to make a new type of food, or get a badge in some business related proficiency (if you have the Open for Business expansion.) I am a bit like this myself, and especially in the past. But as time passes, just learning does not seem to satisfy me anymore. I need to understand. There is more knowledge than anyone could assimilate in a thousand years. In fact, more knowledge is added faster than even the greatest genius could learn it all. But insight and understanding and wisdom are still in short supply.

I know you can't expect that from an artificial intelligence. They are not able to seek meaning. But I would like to expect it from my fellow humans, or at least the most intelligent of them. It does happen also from time to time, but it is so rare. And even then, many (most?) of them latch on to weird things, or dig into their trenches to defend some favorite theory which may well be true but not all that important. Often you find them basically defending their own status like any other pack animal. Who among them have felt the ecstacy of a sudden flash of insight, when the pieces come together in a whole? Who knows the surge of creation, which drives them to forget food and sleep while bringing something new into the world?

But at least I sometimes feel the urge to buy a new computer or some such. At least that is a reasonably human trait. Or Simian, I guess.