Sunday 4 September 2005

Pic of the day: Gaining experience points? In marked contrast to City of Heroes, real life runs slowly on most hardware until the mid-to-late game, at which point it speeds up dramatically. But you still gain experience, even though it takes years.

Life experience

"Life experience is what you have when it is too late to use it in your own life."

I know I said this summer that I would cut down on the green entries. After all, who wants to read about someone else's life? "There is nothing as boring as other people's dreams." And yet here I have spent almost two weeks chronicling my reaction to being without DSL for a while.

Actually I think those were entries well spent. I myself is intrigued by my double reaction. On one hand, I was upset after being cut off from my connection to the world. On the other hand, a part of me enjoyed it. The balance inside me shifted.

***

In a very real way, modern entertainment is like pleasure drugs. There is a series of articles running in the conservative Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten, about young people who get addicted to role playing games. I understand similar articles appeared frequently in American media a few years ago. And a Danish study some months ago showed that action-oriented computer game released more dopamine in the brain than dangerous pleasure drugs such as cocaine. (Dopamine content in certain parts of the brain is considered the unifying symptom of stimulating pleasure drugs. In the past, scientists thought there was a unique pleasure center -- and there seems to be one in rats -- but in humans the effect is more distributed and is mediated by the neurotransmitter dopamine, or so it seems today.)

In a way, being without City of Heroes and my favorite anime series was quite literally like withdrawal from pleasure drugs. (Not that I would know, of course. I just recognize the symptoms.) A mild addiction in my case; I am not easily carried away by anything. Still, an interesting experience. I have sometimes wondered what would happen to me if I grew old and lost for instance my sight. Obviously that would be a lot more dramatic, but I think the direction would be the same: I would escape inward, into the spiritual world. A part of me is always connected there. I don't say this in a boasting way: It is a mystery to me as much as it is to you, but it is an experience I can not deny. Normally there is a kind of balance there, but this time there was a kind of rebound. I have stretched further into shallow entertainment than is entirely natural for me, and when that stretching is removed, I bounce back into what I called "a monastery garden". I mean that as a metaphor, a sense of remoteness from the world of men. Not to mention the world of women. I feel inclined not to ever look twice at a woman again. For a reasonably healthy male, that is pretty dramatic... (Just take my word for it if you are female.) I'm sure the temptations too will bounce back somewhat, however, more's the pity.

Of course, now that my pleasure drug supply is restored, there is the distinct possibility that I might return to how I was two weeks ago. But perhaps not. Because we change over time.

***

Since this spring, I have been eating very little fat and very little snacks in general. I have been exercising lightly but regularly outdoors. The changes to my body are visible and measurable, although gradual and moderate. My weight seems to be still very slowly going down. I can now choose whether to use the third or the fourth hole on the belt I bought new when there were no more holes inward on the old one. Until a week or two ago, only the third hole was appropriate. I may stop this progress now that the (catch a) cold season is upon us, but it has been a change that won't be easily reversed.

I have wondered what would have happened if I had begun this lifestyle years ago, when I was still reasonably young. I suppose I would have grown stronger more easily, providing further motivation. Perhaps I could even have looked good in the eyes of the humans around me; they generally admire a lean and athletic body, even though most of us now live by our wits. But then I remember that I could not have lived this kind of life before. I was not strong enough inside. I am a lazy person by nature, and weak to temptations that harm no one else. When I was young, I was shallow, like almost all young people are. How could we not, when we were so inexperienced? Where would we get our depth, when we had so limited experience? Thousands and thousands of days have passed since, days in which I have had the opportunity to learn from my own life and those I have watched. I have seen the consequences of actions (and inaction) with my own eyes rather than just reading about it. That makes a lot of difference. The strength inside that makes this new lifestyle possible is born of watching the real world. In the real world, a body not used will start to decompose around me. In the real world, an unbalanced diet will make me sick and weak. By simply knowing from experience, acting becomes much easier. It is not a matter of faith anymore, it is a matter of adapting to the real world I live in.

Nor am I the only one who changes like that. I even wrote an entry about it a long time ago, "mid-life health revival. (Ironically, see the boat dimly visible in the illustration picture for that entry? Some months later it fell over its middle-aged owner, killing him on the spot. I am not sure I want to draw the conclusion from that.) Suffice it to say, among the people I see in my daily life, some have become quite health-conscious in their later years. And some certainly don't seem that way. I guess we all have different priorities, and draw different lessons from life.

I write these green entries so you can draw your own lessons from my life. They may not be the same as mine. That's OK.