Skip to main content

Taking Time Out: Platypus Nostalgia


My brother and I were talking the other day and he mentioned that he'd gotten into playing Evony. He said the nice thing about it was that no matter what else was going on in his day, he could spend a few minutes in a world where everything is just for fun. No matter how many times you die or fail you can always get up and try again. That put me in mind of something a family friend said once. He was out on the mission filed at the time and said that the fun of playing a video game was that it offered you thirty minutes of control no matter how out-of-control the rest of your life was.

That got me thinking. What is the proper roll of control in our lives? Our impulse is often to say that seeking control is bad. However, there are types of control that are vital to daily living: self-control, control over vehicles, control over our budgets, control over the materials that we use to do our jobs. Psychologists tell us that when we lose control in one area of our lives, we often seek to make up for it by tightening our control of others. This can lead to the destructive side of control which we rightly castigate. However, can hobbies and pastimes be a way to channel this desire for control down a path where it becomes less harmful or even beneficial? If so, then the above examples hint that video games may not be a waste of time after all.

Labels

Labels:

Comments

Jessica Snell said…
I think hobbies can play a beneficial role in regards to our longing for order. For example, your post made me think about my hobby of crocheting; part of what I love about it is how soothing it is to rhythmically hook the yarn into rows. You do what you're supposed to, and a beautiful pattern results. The predictability (combined with the pleasing results) IS soothing. I don't think it's a bad thing, as long as you channel that desire for order into something productive rather than destructive. And, I suppose, as long as you don't let that taste of control spoil your appetite for dealing with the messier parts of life that are your duty to deal with.

Good stuff to think about, James!
11:14 PM
James said…
I agree. I wonder if there's a hierarchy of hobbies based on the good that they produce. For instance, video games produce nothing, but painting or crocheting produce finished goods that are of aesthetic value. Sports don't result in an external finished product, but they do produce bodily health. On the other hand, something like chess or a video game can produce mental health. I'm not sure how to put those into an order of ranks though.
6:19 PM
Graf Spee said…
I think it depends on what your needing. For me, I know I used video games and miniatures to get away from it all overseas. It provided needed downtime for me when I was really needing it.
9:53 PM
James said…
So rather than a hierarchy of goods, it would be more like taking medicine? Asprin is not "better" than antibiotics unless you're talking about what will cure a headache and what will cure an ear infection.
6:16 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Platypus Reads Part XXVII

Thoughts after reading the "Iliad" to prepare a Greece unit for my students: -Hector is a jerk until he's dead. He even advocates the exposure of Achaean corpses and then has the cheek to turn around and ask Achilles to spare his. He rudely ignores Polydamas' prophecies and fights outside the gate to save his pride knowing full well what it will cost his family and city. After he's dead, he becomes a martyr for the cause. -Agamemnon has several moments of true leadership to balance out his pettiness. In this way, he's a haunting foil to Achilles: the two men are more alike than they want to acknowledge. -We see that Achilles is the better man at the funeral games of Patroclos. His lordliness, tact, and generosity there give us a window into Achilles before his fight with Agamemnon and the death of Patroclos consumed him. -Nestor is a boring, rambling, old man who's better days are far behind him, and yet every Achaean treats him with the upmo...
15 comments
Read more

California's Gods: Strange Platypus(es)

We've noticed lately a strange Californian dialectical twist: there, freeways take the definite article.  In other parts of the country one speaks of I 91 or 45 North.  In California, there's The 5, The 405, The 10.  Each of these freeways has its own quirks, a personality of sorts.  They aren't just stretches of pavement but presences, creatures that necessitate the definite article by their very individuality and uniqueness.  They are the angry gods to be worked, placated, feared, for without them life in California as we know it would cease.  Perhaps that's fitting for a land whose cities are named for saints and angels.  Mary may preside over the new pueblo of our lady of the angels, but the freeways slither like gigantic serpents through the waste places, malevolent spirits not yet trampled under foot.
9 comments
Read more

Seeing Beowulf Through Tolkien: The Platypus Reads Part CXCIX

After spending a few weeks wrestling with Tolkien's interpretation of Beowulf , I found myself sitting down and reading Seamus Heaney's translation of the text during a spare moment.  I came to the place where Beowulf presents Hrothgar with the hilt of the ancient sword that slew Grendel's mother.  Hrothgar looks down at the hilt with its ancient runes and carvings depicting the war between the giants and God and meditates on the fortunes of men.  In a flash of insight, I thought: this is the whole poem! Let me explain.  Tolkien believed that the genuine contribution of the Northern peoples to European culture was the theory of courage.  The Northern heroes, at their best, were men who fought for order against chaos -a battle they knew they were doomed to lose.  If they were true heroes, their souls would join the gods and aid them in the final battle against darkness and its monsters and again go down fighting, spitting in the face of the meaninglessness...
3 comments
Read more