“Slow down” and “enjoy life” is the constant message you’ll hear from the Pandaren folk in World of Warcraft. The oddball conspiracy theorists (including that personality quirk inside of my head) might be quick to point out that this is some Illuminati/government/elistists tactic to pacify the gaming masses. Or is it a reflection upon how the gamers and society as a whole need to look upon themselves and the last few decades and really re-examine ourselves?
My belief is that the message is not intentionally profound and just a subtle jab at the fast consuming appetite of gamers. However, at the same time, the demand of consumption is an overarching theme with the increase in access to information. Our lives currently have been sped up hundreds of times over as well as our stresses. But I don’t believe the quality of our lives have matched the death march we have entered.
A friend of mine recently told me that “her life couldn’t get much worse.” At first, because of various issues in moving to the states, I felt that something major happened like she got fired, divorced, kicked out of her home, etc. Then she revealed me that her pride was hurt because of how she had to start from scratch. I honestly wanted to troll her because I was outraged. When I looked at the past few months and 2012 for my life, I felt that things couldn’t get much worse. Mom having her stroke, switching jobs to a high pressured situation, uncle and grandmother passing away, numerous points in my life getting out of control and no end in sight for any of these things. And someone else complaining that they had to “start from scratch.”
When I look at places like Fukushima in Japan, I think of all the Japanese people who have no opportunities to escape. These are people who probably never had a thought to leave the country and wanted to spend a peaceful existence working on a farm or other occupations. After the radiation, many people in Fukushima were bullied and even treated like outsiders for something they had absolutely no control over. More than likely their children will feel the effects of the radiation in the coming years not to mention the loss of generations of work. But the saddest thing is that their own people turned a blind eye to them, shrugged their shoulders, gave them the finger and walked away.
I’m certain if they knew well in advance what their fate would be, they would have long gotten the fuck out of that place. If they had a chance to marry a foreigner and live a life elsewhere, simple logic dictates that more than likely they would have made that move to ensure a better life. But most probably don’t have that chance. And that’s from people in those zones. There’s many others in Japan, whom I believe will be effected in years to come. Not to mention how many Japanese lack the language skills and other abilities to potentially live abroad.
So starting from scratch doesn’t really sound that bad by comparison.
That all said, to me the mentality of all this reeks of the fast paced mindset. MTV, The Social Network, billionaire kids, etc. all have blinded us into this dystopian dream that we cannot achieve in trying to become something most of us never were destined to become. Everyone wants to be the rock star on stage with the world cheering at you. But how do you get there? You backstab all the assholes in your way, suck executives’ dicks until you’re purple, snort lines of coke to make your networks and take it in the ass even if you’re not gay. In short, you prostitute yourself for others to get ahead in this world.
In many ways, there’s no way around this method. But should we as a species engage in this death march? Are we moving at such a pace that despite technological advances, we have ignored each other to the point where we can nod at Darwin and say, “He da man?” Is Machiavelli correct in his work The Prince where he believes that fear rather than love should be what drives a kingdom?
My answer is look at yourself deep and hard and everything around you. Do yourself a favor and step outside of your body and mind and survey the world and the direction we’re heading. What’s the purpose of all this? Why are we in this unending dick measurement contest? What do I get out of it?
There will always be someone who will say “yes!” to the above questions. They will eventually rise above all of us and attempt to subjugate us because we helped make him or her and they managed to slither, stab and suck all the way to the top somehow. That’s fine because that’s how things are and more than likely something that won’t ever change due to our simplistic, animal nature.
However, the question I’m posing isn’t directed to those people. I’m focused on you who come here to read my mental meanderings and are hungering for answers in your own lives. The thing is for myself, I’m starting to recognize that you really require a self-loathing personality to become like that. Essentially, the litmus test is whether or not you’re willing to kill your mom. If you cannot go through sacrificing your mom, you’ll never make it. In short, you lack the kill instinct to do whatever it takes to get on top. You lack the cold blooded nature to become successful and be on top and stay on top.
When you come back to earth and start looking around you, look deep inside of yourself and see if you have that mean spirit. You’ll recognize it because you won’t feel anything. It’s complete emptiness. You’ll have no feelings whatsoever and that’s how you know you can survive. You lack the human weakness of guilt and doubt and realize that you really care about the people around you. But you feel confused by everything because of all the mixed messages around you.
This is why you need to stop and seriously reflect on things. Spend some time along in a park, away from everyone and everything. Get back to nature and enter into a forest where the only things around you are the soft whistling of trees, the chirping of birds, the trickling of a pond. Get away from the hecticness of postmodern life and the electronic noise and delve deep into your psyche. You need to in order to conjure up the correct answers for your own life.
“Slow down” isn’t just a message for people who are quick to consume content. It’s a far more vast revelation that we need to re-think our lives. For myself, it’s only when I met incredible tragedy in the past 13 years where I realize what’s most important to me. It’s not about being this rock star on stage. It’s about the things right in front of me and trying to get each moment from those things and turning them into something memorable for myself.
When I was younger, I was blinded by the rock star syndrome. Not exactly being a rock star but the idea of becoming this huge house hold name, being loved for my talents, stories, movies, websites, etc. I would go into these blind paths en route to my dreams. But I had no real plan. I had no idea how to pull any of this off. Also, I had no focus. All I knew was that I wanted the end point not everything in between. In short, I didn’t have what was necessary to make it.
But along the way, I got blindsided by my own fantasy world of super stardom. I had an invisible chip on my shoulder that only I could see and was looking for people to knock it over. However, I didn’t even advertise that chip so there was no one to really challenge me. All I had was this horrible voice in my head guiding my actions without a clear path. In the process, I feel that I messed up. I focused too much on money or lofty goals that were well beyond my reach. For instance, in Japan, I probably missed a lot of great relationship opportunities because I was looking in the wrong direction. Because I wasn’t happy that I wasn’t a superstar, my confidence was shot and I probably made a lot of people miserable around me by being too negative. Also, I spent far too much time on wasteful projects that led to nothing.
What I should have been doing was focusing on the quality of my life. Doing things like learning to cook, improving my Japanese, meeting hot girls, etc. Nope. Gotta become a billionaire. Gotta become the next Mark Zuckerberg. Instead, what did I get? A lot of stress, deaths in my family, no relationships, a belly and just general unhappiness.
That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy myself. But I think I could’ve spent more time on those things rather than trying to blindly build websites without focus or ignoring things around me, I’d probably be in a lot better position now emotionally at the very least.
If I were to bring this all back to Mist of Pandaria, my main thing is that I will enjoy it at my own pace. It’s one of the simple things in my life that I can continue to enjoy. I don’t need to do hard core raiding nor arenas because it’s not about measuring my dick size. I know how big it gets and how it feels when it gets big and that’s the most important thing for me.