February 7, 2008

The Tower of Conceptual Babel

Back in 1993, I was finishing up my bachelor's degree in English in a state school. Not the fancy-pants University of Texas at Austin - known as UT. But the school we perceived of as the poor cousin, University of Texas at Arlington - known as UTA. It wasn't that the school wasn't as good, but we simply didn't get the press that UT did. We didn't have a football team. We were a commuter school. We weren't in a cool town like Austin, but out in the 'burbs between Dallas and Fort Worth. Our concept of ourselves was based on what others thought of UT ... we were obviously a poor outlying satellite.

Despite our concept of ourselves, we had some cool stuff going for us. One of the other tutors at our writing center told me about this nifty thing she'd discovered. It was called a MUDdog ... you got on one of the dumb terminals over in the computer science lab, logged in, entered a few commands and you were suddenly immersed in this text world. I was unimpressed. I had Zork on the Commodore-64 at home, thank you very much.

This was different, she insisted. Through the campus connection, this text world was populated with real people from around the globe. You could talk with them and interact with them in real time!

I tried it for a lark one Saturday when I didn't have anything else planned. Walked up to campus ... logged in ... and eight hours later I finally looked at my watch.

I've been hooked on various types of online communities ever since.

As someone who is always fascinated by human interactions, as someone who can't help but be an observer as well as a participator ... as a writer ... I am utterly enthralled by the microcosms of society that we set up online.

MUDS, chatrooms, IRC channels, "Web 2.0 sites," blogs, shoutboxes, forums (technically that's fora, but I try to go with the flow).

General public, special interests, moms, dads, writers, non-writers, artists, dog-lovers, cat-lovers, extroverts, introverts, introverts who become extroverts online.

Invariably it happens.

Invariably someone trots out their fervent belief in X. And X might be a product, a method of doing something, a religion, a favourite actor or politician or writer ... or whatever.

And just as invariably, someone else takes a polar opposite view.

Now, things can go a couple of ways at this point. It might be we have a nice, logical, rational discussion about the pros and cons of X. Of course, this is the least likely scenario, but it does happen.

Another option: things get heated. X is vilified. X is extolled. Vilified. Extolled. On and on and on. Neither side listens to the other and you literally get an extremist jihad, crusade, holy war of whatever flavour you wish to call it. Sides are drawn up. The inevitable rhetoric gets trotted out: "you're either for us or against us" ... "there is no middle ground" ... "well you know what I mean."

The option that goes one step beyond that is this: X is vilified and so is "that damn dipshit who said X was good." "You're delusional and anyone who thinks like you is delusional."

It seems that even when we speak the same language, we still live in a tower of babel. We still struggle to make our words understood ... to feel that we are being respected and heard and believed. And often, despite what we are sure is plain language and crystalline logic ... other people fail to get our point ... fail to agree. And obviously, the failure is almost inevitably theirs, as we have been perfectly clear and rational.

Over the last two weeks I have watched as two of the three online communities I participate in had serious melt-downs. Honestly, it's nothing I haven't seen before. Ideas being denigrated, people being denigrated, people feeling sure they were denigrated when they were not ... all because emotions were running high.

Often, it's like watching a bunch of junior high age kids (13-15 or so). Kids that age are still learning the finer social mores and how to converse without pissing people off. They speak plainly and say exactly what they mean ... but often their vocabulary does not include any grey area at all. The idea that words have connotations generally escapes them. The concept that words, despite our best efforts to deny this, words do hurt us. Or at least they frustrate us. (And please note that there are plenty of teens who do get this concept ... and there are plenty who don't learn this concept ever. This is merely a developmental stage and a generalization.)

Online, we add to this type of social group the fact that there is no good way to discern body language and vocal tone ... and often we misinterpret words that were not meant in the ways we see on the screen. And, sometimes, no matter how hard we try to craft those words to elicit in every person who reads them exactly and precisely what we mean ... all that work is simply lost in the babel of pixels and previous experience and the mind of the individual reader.

It is in watching these explosions happen online, where you can see each piece of the misunderstanding beginning to unfold and then to blossom and the fruit to explode, spreading its pollen of dissent over the entire participatory community ... it is watching this microcosm mushroom online that we truly see the babel of concept and idea which in the so-called "real world" leads to fighting and war. It's an amazing and, when put in this light, terrifying event to watch.

It starts so very simply.

And it is played out over and over and over again. As soon as one segment of a community finally "gets" how these things get started ... when a few people suddenly realize that they ways in which they phrase things matter AND that they become more capable of trying to take the other side's ideas as something to respect despite disagreeing (and perhaps disagreeing vehemently) ... as soon as this happens, another group comes along who has not yet learned these concepts ... and the battles begin anew.

It is the curse of our relatively short life spans and our frequent procreation and our different rates of learning and comprehending - as a race we seem compelled to play this scenario out over and over and over again.

Whether it's the mud-slinging of an American presidential "season" ... whether it's "your tree's leaves are falling in MY yard" ... or "your people are creating problems" ... or "your actions are eroding the atmosphere" ... "we don't want your sort here" ... "you don't believe as we do."

We bag and tag and categorize each other out of existence so that we don't have to listen to the conceptual babel and weigh all sides.

And even when we have learned the lessons and we try to stay calm and rational ... there is always human frailty, exhaustion ... and a point when someone else's rhetoric finally crosses a line beyond which we feel a moral imperative to call them on it because to not call them on that particular phrasing or concept is to allow an intolerable situation to thrive.

It doesn't ever end. And it feels like "we" never learn.

But whether the babel is language based or conceptually based, it is a constant of human existence. We are locked into our own skulls with wiring and operating systems only somewhat compatible with the others around us.

Our lives are never-ending attempts to connect and to forever try to understand and be understood in the face of failures and partial compatibilities.

Our strength lies in our stubborn certainty that we can finally find the right cord for connection and the right version of the operating system to achieve a true and deep melding.

I'm reminded of a book I never really liked, but I adored one single line. (Bret Easton Ellis' Less Than Zero)

"People are afraid to merge on freeways in Los Angeles." Though that sentence shouldn't bother me, it stays in my mind for an uncomfortably long time. Nothing else seems to matter.

We are individuals afraid to merge ... and yet seeking to be understood so fully that we do merge ... which frightens us more and makes the need to be understood more fervent and powerful.

People are afraid to merge. To lose some aspect of their true selves? Fear that to understand all is to dislike? To find out some idea we might have about that person is false?

People are afraid to merge so we build these towers and walls to protect our thoughts and minds and feelings ... our individuality.

And then we wonder why others do not see things our way, not realizing that the bricks and stones and concrete of our towers and bunkers are simply not transparent. They don't just protect us and shield us, but they blind us to where others are.

Even our most fervently held beliefs are simply stones in the wall, often preventing us from understanding someone else. And when someone doesn't understand us when we think they should ... so often we begin casting our stones at them, trying to bury them in our beliefs - sometimes without even realizing we're doing it. Of course, this only makes us build our own walls thicker and higher ...

... and people are afraid to merge.

Posted by Red Monkey at 5:51 AM | Comments (12) | Blog | Never Underestimate the Power of Human Stupidity | Struggles | Stumble

February 6, 2008

Fade to Black

So the official report is in. Accidental overdose of 6 different prescription drugs. It's not so much that it was an overdose as it was a lethal combination. Xanax, Oxycontin, Ibuprofen, Valium, Restoril, Unisom ... none taken to excess ... just a bad combination of several drugs.

All of this brings up the death of River some 15 years earlier. The cases may not be parallel ... but to someone who only knew them and appreciated their work in film ... it feels much the same. Life taken too early, too clumsily. Someone with whom I identified despite the fact that I do not subscribe to the Cult of the Celebrity.

Posted by Red Monkey at 6:02 PM | Comments (1) | Struggles | Stumble

January 29, 2008

Dreaming ...

It is a well known fact to anyone who knows me at all well, that I hate winter with a fiery passion. That, in fact, I proclaimed in CCD (think Catholic Sunday School) loudly and frequently that hell was not hot, but cold. Naturally, the parents who'd volunteered to teach were scandalized but hardly knew what to do with a child who simply out-logic'd them about the issue. (Well, we say "left out in the cold" when someone leaves us ... or "turns a cold shoulder," right? And if hell is the absence of God ... then God has given those in hell the cold shoulder and therefore, OBVIOUSLY, hell is cold. These poor volunteer teachers just kind of blinked at me and ignored the issue all together.)

Come to think of it, this is the way most adults tended to deal with me. Anyway.

I talked in an earlier post this month about when I first moved to Arlington and began attending Butler Elementary. There was one area we used to stage our Pretend games of Hardy Boys ... Nancy Drew when Tracy got upset and put her foot down about us playing at being boys. Sometimes Star Wars and sometimes we just made stuff up. There was a tree that was our front door ... another that helped delineate the "rooms" of our "house." Another that I climbed incessantly despite the fact that tree climbing was expressly forbidden. (And it's a measure of how invisible I felt ... and possibly how much the teachers knew what "being in trouble" meant to me ... that they sometimes walked right underneath the tree I was in and never said a word ... despite the little ratty tattle-tales.)

But this place ... this place was for dreaming and the photo does not even begin to do it justice.

If you click through, a desktop wallpaper version will pop up ... 1680x1260.

That rock, that's flat to the ground, mostly buried ... yeah, over there on the bottom, kind of to the right. We used to sit on that and look down into that little "valley" below us and just dream. We were always quiet and serious there. Some places just ask that of you and even grade-schoolers can sense it. Later, when recess was a little less about games of Let's Pretend and a little more ... for me, anyway ... trying to figure out life, the universe and everything, I can remember laying on my back, watching the sky ... trying to find a way to watch the sky and my little valley at the same time ... and, of course, solve all the issues in the universe. All in a 30 minute recess.

For me, the small pathway entrance into the woods represented so many different things. And that clearing you had to pass to get to it. Completely exposed ... except because it was a "valley" ... the teachers couldn't see us if we went down there.

I know my love of that spot drove most of our teachers crazy. It was at the very, very edge of our "safe" playground area. Going down to that valley, or worse, into the woods, was strictly forbidden. The kind of forbidden that kids hate because you can feel the adults' fear behind the edict ... when they are honestly scared that "bad things" will happen to any child who disobeys. It's a very different feel from the arbitrary, we're-imposing-order-upon-you kinds of rules.

And, to be honest, the entire time I went to Butler, at least once a year there were reports of "flashers" in raincoats just waiting to show off for some kid. And, there was a creek which ran through the narrow strip of woods ... home to the ever-lovely cottonmouths (water moccasins).

For me, the woods represented something else completely. Some flashes of a special place. Tinged with hints of fear. Coloured with a need to explore and discover and learn. A need to know and put an end to something that I couldn't name ... and at the same time I was terrified that I was not ready to know what answers the woods might hold, what they might unlock.

Our teachers took small groups through the woods on science expeditions from time to time. And I could see where the older kids ... the neighborhood kids had set up BMX bike ramps and obstacles. A rope swing to get across the creek.

The magic of the woods danced on the unknown edges during these excursions, as if the mere presence of adults ... of a gaggle of other children ... forced the things I needed further away into the undergrowth ... dancing up the vines into the treetops ... lurking in the gaping wounds of some of the tree trunks.

A couple of times, when I was near the end of elementary school ... when I had started junior high and was playing one summer, I went into the woods alone, hoping to unlock this thing that kept teasing me. Nothing bad ever happened. I saw a couple of other kids, playing. No adults. No snakes.

And no answers to my mystery, either.

Despite the fact that the woods taunted me from my recess perch ... when I was finally able to explore them, I was left with one conclusion:

These were the wrong woods.

Beautiful and interesting in their own right. Mysterious and captivating.

But these woods were not, after all, my woods.

And my woods ... Balcones Woods ... back in Austin ... those had been torn down.

I would have to find my answers another way.

Posted by Red Monkey at 5:23 AM | Comments (5) | Storytelling: She was, of course, supposed to be sleeping. | Struggles | Vacations and Photos | Stumble

January 16, 2008

It

In high school, I wrote my first complete novel. I'd been attempting novels since the sixth grade, but I had this amazing dream early in my senior year of high school and spun it into a novel. It turned out to be a horror novel, which surprised me. I'd never read any horror books and thought they were probably all lame - scandalous elitism (hush, cabal) from someone who loved science fiction and fantasy books. So, I decided to read Stephen King to see how I stacked up. I found Carrie interesting and appalling both. It was interesting enough ... too short ... definitely a writer's "early" work ... and great googly moogly, but I could write that well. Sheesh, if that was the bar for getting published ....

And then I read Stephen King's It. I was hooked on Stevie-Boy for life at that point. My friend Andy dragged me to go see Stand By Me. Again, I was mesmerized. Stevie-Boy and I thought a heck of a lot alike.

What hooked me the most was his ability to write characters and to understand them so very well that not only do you get deep insight into many of them, but the interplay between characters, particularly in "The Body" and It, is almost to be one of the gang. What was particularly poignant for me was a line near the end of chapter 32 of "The Body" novella in the Different Seasons collection:

Friends come in and out of your life like busboys in a restaurant, did you ever notice that?

We moved so often when I was little, friends were hard to come by for me and they were precious. So while I understood that you lost friends and made new ones when you moved, I was searching for stability in my friends ... and I didn't understand how they could move in and out of each others' lives and mine so "easily."

A fast breakdown for those who haven't read the blog long:
born in Amarillo, Texas; moved to Houston, another place in Houston; Albuquerque, New Mexico; Oklahoma City; Carmel, Indiana; Austin, Texas. Then I started kindergarten in Pillow Elementary. Second grade at St. Louis Catholic School. Began third grade back at Pillow, but after the first six weeks of the year, we moved to Arlington, Texas. Out of six possible semesters of junior high, I had 3 at Nichols and 3 at Shackelford. High school was blissfully the same all three years.

Despite having both a mother and a father, a "stable" family unit ... my life was anything but stable. I was always waiting for the next time I would have to move on. I was terrified to make friends and too lonely to not make them.

I can remember the first weeks of third grade at my third new school in as many years vividly. Being introduced to Carrie Thompson, who was to be my "official" friend and show me around the school ... show me the ropes, as it were. We became good acquaintances ... she came over to my house and I went to hers, but we didn't seem to have a great deal in common. And then I stumbled into Tracy and Jill. We seemed to hit it off well at first. Recess games were fun. We hung together in Language Arts class. But, unbeknownst to me, Tracy and I had some similar family issues which made us both bull-headed in different ways. For Tracy, it was a need - and this is totally my interpretation and may not be at all how she sees things - but it seems to me she had a need to be in charge and to not let anyone truly outshine her. I don't think she wanted to be noticed any more than I did, really. But she was determined not to be at the bottom, either.

So for the first week or two that the three of us were friends, Tracy ran our schoolwork with a fist more iron than that of the teacher. Third grade in the 70s consisted of mimeographed purple worksheets. Half the time, the sheets were still damp from the machine and sadly lacking a grape smell that might have made the purple colouring tolerable. Tracy would tell us what number to work to. Maybe to number ten. Then you would stop and wait for the others to catch up. That way, we could all be twinkies and turn our papers in at the same time. I soon learned it was so Tracy wouldn't be the last one to turn in her worksheet, but that we could all three turn them in together.

Our school was "Open Concept" which was, in general, an utterly hellish educational experiment of the 70s and 80s:

Years before the recognition of Attention Deficit Disorder issues, Butler Elementary began as an "open concept" school, with grades one through six in one large "room" of the building. Each grade level was "divided" by rolling bookcases about five feet high and more of these bookcases were used to lightly subdivide each "classroom" within a grade level. Teachers' desks were in a cluster in the center of the grade level area.

I struggled at the beginning of that year. I was put in the second high language arts and math classes at first, despite the fact that at my old school, I was much further ahead in both subjects. When I was finally bumped up, to the "high" classes, they were still behind where I had been at Pillow. So it didn't take long at all before I tired of waiting for Tracy to catch up on the worksheets. And the day I did, despite how much I wanted to make BFF with Tracy and Jill, was the day that I inadvertently started a war.

I remember clearly working on the purple inked paper. Looking over to see where Jill was. And then looking over to see how far behind Tracy was. There was just no way. I couldn't pull out a book and read until I was finished with my worksheets. And I just couldn't sit there and wait for Tracy to catch up any longer. I continued working on the worksheet. When Jill reached the requisite number, she turned to look at my worksheet. The look on her face ... panic. Alarm. And that probably should have been a warning to me as to how Tracy would react. Jill looked over at Tracy's worksheet. Back at mine. I remember her hesitating. Shrugging her shoulders. And continuing her own work.

When Tracy finally got to the stopping point, she looked at Jill's paper. Shocked and betrayed. Looked over at mine. The look of terror and anger both overwhelmed me. I hadn't expected this. I didn't mean for it to be a big deal. I just couldn't wait any more.

Tracy, however, saw it as my attempt to usurp her power. She burst into tears and told the teacher that I had called her a name or some such nonsense. I was shocked. The look of loathing on her face. And from that moment on, the war was on. For the rest of third grade and fourth grade, we did remain friends ... and even added new people to our little group. But from that point on, Tracy was diligent about remaining in charge and largely held that group of four together through high school.

And partly because I didn't see the point in "being in charge" of my friends ... and partly because I was terrified to even attempt to make other friends, I tried not to fight her. Even when she got ticked off and "hired" boys to come beat me up during recess. (Oddly enough, the closest one ever came to beating me up was a boy who fought like a girl, all cat scratches and no good solid roundhouses.) She would always tell me that she didn't do it, but invariably when I asked the boy why in the hell he was attacking me, he'd always say, "Tracy asked me to."

By fifth grade, I had no friends to speak of. Tracy had finally gotten furious with me for something I can't recall and commanded everyone in our group to stop having anything to do with me. For my part, I was tired of fighting with her and I simply stopped even trying to hang out with the others in our group. It was simply no longer worth it. I eventually did make other friends, but it wasn't until ninth grade that I had really close friends again.

And perhaps this is why Stephen King's "The Body" and It speak so poignantly to me. Both books revolve around the concept of friendship, of doing anything for your friends and of knowing them well enough to know their weaknesses not so much to exploit them (although teasing is, of course, perfectly acceptable), but to keep them out of trouble and to protect them from others.

Gordie and Chris from "The Body," knew that their families were ... let's say not supportive. Chris' family was outright abusive and the surrounding community simply abused Chris further. Gordie's family ignored him. The boys became family for each other. Teddy's family was also extremely abusive and Vern's was a little harder to read (or I don't remember it as well). Certainly Vern's older brother was not going to win any good brother awards .... But, despite the fact that the four boys were something of a family to each other, Vern and Teddy slipped away ... "like busboys in a restaurant." Chris and Gordie continued to be family to each other.

In It, there is a larger group of children and a definite set of enemies for them to fight. (One supernatural and one set was "mundane.") And again, the children bind together in an exceedingly strong family for the duration of the crisis. (The slipping apart has more to do with the supernatural plotline, so I'll skip that.)

I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was 12 - Jesus, did you?

Those friends for me didn't come until later, until I was 14 or 15 or so. And that was largely my own fault as I had simply never learned to be human enough to truly let potential friends in. Even still, I found it difficult to let my friends know just how important they were.

And, I suppose, that ruminating on all of this is why I have been trying so hard to hook back up with the people I knew in high school (and some of them even longer than that). It is partly a reality check on my memories (do you remember when we did ...) - but it's largely because to me, my close friends were like family to me then and I've always hated that we let that connection slip away. On my end it was simple fear that I had imagined that connection and that they meant far more to me than I to them. On their ends?

I've no idea.

I love that I've reconnected with some of them. One of them is even from Tracy's little group, although she wasn't part of the fighting from third grade, and, in fact, was friendly with me all throughout school and even college. I'm proud of her like I'm proud of my buddy, Andy. Like I would be proud of siblings. There is still that family connection to me.

I know now that a portion of this is that we do have families of choice as well as families of origin ... and that this is especially true when there was significant childhood trauma involving the family of origin. But I don't know how to express what I'm thinking and feeling at this moment ... just trying to explain what those old friends meant and still mean. I'd hoped by this point in the post, I'd be able to say something meaningful ... but because we do think so much alike, instead I'm left with one last quote from Stephen King's "The Body":

The most important things are the hardest things to say. They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them - words shrink things that seemed limitless...

Posted by Red Monkey at 6:46 AM | Comments (2) | Storytelling: She was, of course, supposed to be sleeping. | Struggles | Stumble

December 10, 2007

WTF is WRONG with People?

So here's the deal:

I'm pissed off. Like seriously pissed off.

I have a friend who has not had the world's easiest life. Dealt a crap hand in terms of parents. Neighbors who knew and did nothing. Left home before finishing high school ... and yet still finished high school. Had to work to support herself. Did so. Did good, valuable and helpful work ... but day care teachers don't make a whole lot. If I'm remembering correctly, she was working two jobs when we met. A nursery school during the day and a drop-in day care in the evenings.

This is someone I admire a hell of a lot. She kept trying to pull ahead to do everything she needed to do to take care of herself and be independent. Took classes at the junior college as she could afford it.

But when I say dealt a crap hand in terms of parents ... I kind of understated that. A LOT. Which created some issues. Which to be perfectly honest, she tried her best to deal with. And she was doing the work that needed to be done. But, as they say, shit happens. Better described, various health problems happened.

And, despite there being real health issues, the doctors apparently decided she was just another hysterical female. The blew off things that they should have pursued. Hospital stays finally cost her her jobs. And the shit continued to happen. And she continued fighting and trying to do everything possible to stay independent and together.

Finally, she was getting dizzy and falling. Back issues. The docs kept putting things off. She wasn't a priority. She could wait.

She tripped in her living room and fell. Not down a flight of stairs or anything. Just fell.

Blew out three vertebrae. Paralyzed. Stuck in a nursing home.

Now to be perfectly honest, I'm pissed off enough about all of that. I wanna holler that little kid plea, "It's not fair!" And it's not fair, but it's life. That's the way this shit goes, I guess.

But what has me really hot now is that she's dependent on the nursing home. Despite all these years of trying to make sure she stayed independent. And they are NOT taking care of her; they're making it as difficult as possible for her to do much of anything.

And the last straw for me is this:
She was using a transfer board to get from her bed to her wheelchair. Fell. Broke her tibia.

I found out last night that the doctors didn't even bother to set the leg. It's still swollen. She may be in a wheelchair, but she's paralyzed - and still has feeling in her legs - and the leg still freaking hurts. They put a short boot on her and called it done. Last night a nurse told her the only way to set the leg was through surgery ... and with a pulmonary embolism, dead spots on the lungs ... surgery is not really an option.

But I just can't believe that this is the best care. I just can't believe that just putting a short boot on someone and calling it good enough is standard care in this situation.

I'm tired of people treating people like crap. Why can't they just do their damn jobs? If you're in a profession to HELP people, then freaking HELP THEM. What the hell is with this ignoring them or thinking that crappy care is "good enough" for those people? I mean really. Why do people have to be like that? It's not that hard to do what's right, especially when it's your job. Why do so many people have to take this "easy" out of just being lazy?

WTF is wrong with people anyway?

Posted by Red Monkey at 9:58 PM | Comments (6) | Never Underestimate the Power of Human Stupidity | Struggles | Stumble

December 4, 2007

The Violence Cop-Out

I am sick and tired of hearing people claim that violent video games and violent music and violent movies cause more and more violence.

What a simplistic way of looking at the world.

The real truth is that how we choose to deal with and process these media can create more violence ... or more peace.

I'll be honest. I haven't played a video game formally labeled violent since my C-64 with the original Castle Wolfenstein games, 50 Mission Crush (oh, how I miss that one) and a G.I. Joe game. But, even in the Tony Hawk games I adore, there is still violence. The cops often try to knock the skaters down and in the latest game you can now skate-check (knock down a pedestrian). There's other "mild" violence along the same lines.

Does this make the game violent? Certainly that portion is. But does it make the game players violent?

When I am frustrated in my Tony Hawk games, I have a tendency to smash the skater into a wall. Violent? Well, it is pixel violence. But for me, at least, this is a safe release of aggression. It hurts no one. My little pixel skater may look bloodied for a moment, but no being feels the pain.

I would never do the same thing to a person. That is a harmful release of tension and frustration.

And this is the real dilemma.

Do we consciously choose our paths? Do we think?

As adults with children or with children in our sometimes care, do we think?

Our children at age 7, 10 and some even at 15 cannot fully process through these distinctions I've made. It is up to us to limit their playing time and to discuss with them what they see and play on the screen. The real threat to our children is not so much the video game where they might get the idea to push a friend off their skateboard and down a hill -- kids have been doing that or its equivalent for decades. Pushing each other out of trees, down basement steps, holding each other under water, beating the crap out of each other -- learning the physical consequences and limitations and not always with good results.

The real threat is what it has always been: adult passivity and assumption that discussion will go unheeded or is not necessary.

If I let my 10 year old play a wrestling video game, I personally want to:

1. limit the time the kid can play


2. discuss appropriate behaviour (these activities stay in the game only)


3. discuss the emotional impact the game has (feeling hyper or invincible after the game has been turned off, etc)

If the kid doesn't want to agree to this preliminary contract, we're not getting the game. Period. I don't care if every kid in the school from kindergarten on up has the thing. We won't have it.

Chances are, unless my 10 year old is really mature, I don't really want the kid playing a wrestling game. Kids at that age tend to be very physically experimental ... and kinda clumsy. They wrestle on their own enough as it is. If the game is one that I think might be okay, then I'm going to rent it and play it at night after the kid goes to bed. Test it out. See what's in it. Google the game and look at the forums which discuss the gameplay -- NOT simply trust what the news media reports about it.

That takes a lot of time. A lot of involvement and time. In a life already filled with so many demands on our time ... work ... our partner ... the kids' school ... the kids' activities ... enrichment time with the kids ... date time with our partners ... keeping the house fit ... there's not necessarily a lot of time to go investigating every fad video game (or movie or music). It's easy to use the rating system and say no. Or to use the rating system and assume that your values and the values of the rating system are the same. It's easy to get tired of the kids nagging about a game and they're so contained whilst playing.

And that's the cop-out. Allowing ourselves to get so tired that we are just glad the kids are out of our hair for a while and not wanting to look too closely at what they're doing. It's easy to get that tired. And when we get that tired, we get apathetic or at least lose the "umph" behind our drive.

I have a friend who belongs to a very peaceful, non-violent faith. And he's raising his kids in the U.S., which at times seems to be completely counter to his beliefs. He got the LEGO Star Wars video game for his kids. After all, there are no people in the game, just LEGO mini-figs. There's no real violence, just LEGO bricks coming apart when hit with a light saber or bolts from the vehicles.

But, rather than assume this was fine, he observed his children's behaviour after playing the game. And with a large age range gap between the four, he noticed an increase in how hyper the kids got ... and that their games were becoming a little too rambunctious and violent. The game went away. Perhaps when the youngest is older, that game might come back out ... perhaps not. Maybe it hits the kids' imaginations just right that they can't really leave the hyper after-effects alone.

He was involved. He consciously thought about the game, played it with them, let them play it ... and observed them. Took it away as a test and brought it back. Observed. Decided.

I admire that. So many parents make blanket rules about music or movies or video games based on the scare tactics in the media, based on sound bytes.

But, what they forget is that most of our children in the U.S. don't have the kind of playground they did in the '50s and '60s ... and even the '70s and '80s. Instead, many parents now know that the local woods is a hangout for bad guys (even when it's not). That the playground equipment is dangerous and a kid can break a neck falling off. That BB gun wars can result in shooting someone's eye out. That building a treehouse can result in a busted leg or broken neck. That racing bikes down a hill can lead to road rash or even a car collision and a coma. That straying too far from the apartment can take them into gang territory or bring them to the attention of the building's dealer.

So many children are often left with less territory to explore. Less time to experiment and learn about their physical surroundings. It's no wonder, then, that they don't want to heed our exhortations to go play in the backyard but would rather explore the territory of Gaia or Warcraft. They must feel as if they have no room to explore and grow ... and most kids I know are scared to go more than a couple of blocks on their own. (I'm thinking of kids around the age of 10-12, here.)

Of course they think video games are cool. Look at all the exploration they can do.

If we have to take away their territory, we have to offer something in return or we run the risk of raising children who cannot think on their feet. We run the risk of raising children who are stagnant, rules-bound to an unhealthy extent.

It's a scary thing. But we cannot and we should not, keep our children so wrapped in foam rubber and bubble plastic that they cannot fall. Of course we don't want them to feel the pain of a broken arm or a scraped knee. Of course we want them to understand that if they jump off a friend's two story house, they are NOT going to make it all the way to the next roof. (I saw some idiot teenager try that whilst I was watching G4's Attack of the Show last night.) Of course we prefer they learn this without having to physically feel these things. But sometimes, this is the only way they learn. We don't encourage it, but it happens because they explore.

Of course, this still doesn't quite address the issue most people seem to feel is core: do violent video games breed violent people? Do they desensitize us to violence and thus make us think it's not such a bad thing? Do they create reflexes which might be unconsciously triggered in a stress situation? Do they somehow warp our minds?

For the most part, I think the answer lies in our own personal sense of responsibility. Do we play these games completely mindlessly and ask the game to do the thinking for us?

Or do we reflect on our feelings and behaviours after the game has been turned off?

See, I heard these same arguments back before the surge of violent video games. Only then, people complained about Dungeons and Dragons. That game only attracted malcontents who were going to go physically and emotionally ballistic if the game didn't go their way. It taught kids to be violent. It made them crazy.

I heard many of the same complaints back in the day which are now made of video games. And I still believe that game "violence" whether it is the imaginative discussion of D&D, the board game of Risk or most video games ... can be a healthy violence which is simply a release of tension and frustration, no different from getting angry and clobbering a pillow. It's a safe release in which no one gets hurt.

The question I have avoided until now is the question of the ultra-realistic games. The driving games which are played with a responsive steering wheel controller. The first person shooter games.

Here again, we are talking about maturity and self-reflection.

I have an old PS1 game called Sledstorm. Competitive snowmobiling. Kinda tame in terms of violence, but one thing you try to do in the game is run over the little bunny that darts across your way. You have a choice. It's not a goal of the game. You can miss him. (Believe me, it's easy to miss the little blighter.) But you get 1000 "easy" points if you hit him. It became a mark of precision for me to nail the speedy little bunny - something I would NEVER do in real life.

But, after playing the game one evening, my partner and I drove out to dinner. In the dusk of the evening, a cat dashed out in front of my car, just blocks from our house.

My muscles twitched.

I didn't even jerk the wheel; my partner had no idea. But I did. My muscles twitched. I'd been playing the game for a while and played right up until the moment we left the house. I was still at least partially in game mode and I didn't like that muscle twitch.

So, after that, I always left myself a half hour to decompress after playing that game before I would get behind the wheel. I never had another muscle twitch after playing the game and then driving. That half hour was plenty of time for me to completely mentally leave the game.

Of course, a 10 year old is probably not that self-reflexive and probably doesn't notice that level of cause and effect. So naturally, they don't see the point that adults try to make about why too much video game time can be bad. But we're the adults. That's why we have to be involved and observe and discuss trends with the kids. That's how they're going to learn.

It certainly won't make you the most popular parent. There will be plenty of eye-rolling. That's obligatory and I'd worry if they did not do that. But they will also know that you care. And, if you do it right, they'll know you're listening to them. And that goes a long way, even when they disagree with you.

At any rate, I certainly wouldn't want my "just got a license" teen playing Grand Theft Auto or Need for Speed or Nascar 2007 and then getting behind the wheel. We're gonna have to talk rules and limitations. We're going to have to negotiate some deals.

But what about first person shooter games?

Here I will admit that I am much more torn. Those games are not fun for me. In fact, they're pretty boring and I'm personally kind of appalled with most of them. They have a place, though. I can see hunters really enjoying their "off-season" by playing the hunting games. That seems pretty logical.

But what about the Halo games, the SOCOM even some of the Star Wars battle games?

It's funny. I enjoyed the original Castle Wolfenstein game, which eventually spawned the popularity of the first person shooter game. What I liked about it was the strategy mixed with some early attempts at randomness. Also, those early video games were obviously pixel violence and not realistic at all. When Wolfenstein went "3D," I lost interest. It was too disorienting and sometimes too graphic for me.

That's my personal taste, however. I can see many legitimate reasons for enjoying those games. Just as my bashing my Tony Hawk skater into a wall to "punish" the little pixel darling is simply a safe release of tension or frustration, I would rather come home from a shitty day at work and blow up Nazis in Call of Duty than to let the frustration simmer and perhaps take it out on my family ... even if that was "only" yelling at them unnecessarily.

However, I do think that self-reflection is an even more important requirement of playing the first person shooter games than some of the other genres.

It's certainly not a genre of games I want my 10 year old to play. 15 year old? Probably not, but here we really run into the personality and maturity of the teen. Is this a kid gung-ho to be an officer in the Army? Maybe we should spend some time together playing Call of Duty or Halo 3. After all, I'm not going to watch my 15 year old every single minute of every 24 hour period and if I completely and totally forbid it, the kid will probably go to a friend's house to play.

Which, of course, brings up the ubiquitous argument: "but we can't control our kids when they are not home." Which for some people correlates to: therefore violent video games, music, movies should not be made.

It's true that we can't control our kids when they're not home. But here's the deal, we raise our children as best we can, instilling our values and our experiences as best we can, and as they grow older and we allow them out of our direct supervision more and more, we must trust that our teachings will hold. Yes, a 15 year old who is not allowed to play Halo 3 at home will more than likely play it at a friend's house given the opportunity and peer pressure. Perhaps the kid will resist, perhaps give in.

Playing the game for the three hours whilst over at a friend's house is not going to make your child suddenly violent.

If your kid is at that friend's house every day, unsupervised ... if the kid has no release for the plethora of teen emotions building up ... then, yeah, that kid might get violent. If the kid feels neglected or ignored, chances are pretty good on eventual violence.

But it's not the game causing that. It might act as a catalyst for an already troubled person. But that person has chosen to NOT discuss their feelings. Has chosen to NOT find other outlets. Has chosen to NOT be self-reflective. And, ultimately, has chosen NOT to accept personal responsibility.

And if that's your kid and you have chosen to NOT engage ... then you are also at fault for not helping your child learn how to release tension and frustration in healthy and harmless ways.

Now, there is also the issue of mental illness, and I don't include that in this discussion. That's a whole 'nother ball of wax. I'm talking "garden variety" teenager and parents.

The other issue I'm leaving out of this particular post is when parents are simply and honestly not able to spend enough time supervising their children and teens (having to work multiple jobs, single parents and the like). Again, that's a whole 'nother ball of wax.

Even the first person shooter video games, to a self-reflective and honest person, do not cause us to act violently. We choose violence. We can argue that some of these realistic games hone violent skills ... I think we are reaching a point in video game technology where that is very true.

But it's not the games that cause violence. It's our own choice. Our own frustrations and inability to deal with them. The games and music and movies can be cathartic ... or they can simply cause us to turn in on ourselves and refuse to think. But the choice is ultimately our own.

Can we instill in our children the ability to be self-reflective? to take personal responsibility? to live deliberately?

Or are we too tired to take personal responsibility ourselves and instead grab the nearest scapegoat?

The choice, as always, is our own.

Will you take the red pill ... or the blue?

Posted by Red Monkey at 7:01 AM | Comments (4) | Struggles | Stumble