Video Games, Chess and Monopoly

Recently I've heard many questions regarding the violence in video games today and whether or not it is connected with the violence we see in the world today. This is probably due to the highly anticipated release of Grand Theft Auto IV (GTA IV) which was yesterday. While I'm not into this particular game it is true that the most popular video games do include killing. But why is this? Why do people enjoy all the killing? Does our society have some major repressed urges to go on a shooting rampage or something? Should we be worried about the kids and what affects these games are having on their brains?

Not being a psychologist I first have to say that I don't know. There may be some validity to these concerns. However, for me, the reason I play these games has nothing to do with the violence.

Consider a game like chess. The object here is to outsmart and kill your opponent. I see little difference to this game compared to the violent shooters I play other than the visual element. And maybe that is enough, I don't know. But I do know that what goes on in my head is very similar whether I'm playing a game of chess or a game of Call of Duty 4. I want to win and my brain is frantically trying to outsmart my opponent in order to kill him. There are no sick twisted thoughts going through my head about actually killing someone when I'm playing these games. It's a just a competition.

That being said, for those who think that shooting games are linked to the increase in school shootings or the gun violence in the world I'd like to purpose that another game, a much older game, be put on the chopping block for putting terrible images and thoughts in people's heads. It is a game responsible for a lot more deaths than shooting games. It's called Monopoly.

Monopoly, the game where you try to take everybody else’s money and make them go bankrupt. What are we teaching kids with this game? The goal is to make as much money as possible while taking as much money as you can from your friends around the table. For decades this game has been producing people who worship money and will do anything to have it. It's no wonder we have the outrageous poverty that exists in the world today. We've been teaching our children that money is a game and that those who don't have enough (or any) must just be bad players at the game. In the mean time people are starving to death while others fly in fancy jets from their houses on the west coast to their houses on the east coast. Let's blame monopoly for world poverty!

Clearly I realize the absurdity of the above paragraph. However, all I wish to say is this. Video games are no more responsible for the violence in the world today than monopoly is responsible for world poverty.

Be the Solution

Tonight I was out with a friend of mine enjoying the city and each other’s conversation. We talked about the problems in the world such as poverty, hatred, individualism, consumerism, and the list could go on and on. After our time in the city we got on the bus to go home and while we waited for it to take off from the terminal I had an enlightening moment.

While we were sitting talking two girls got on the bus and began to explain to the bus driver that they only had one ticket. It was clear that the bus driver was not about to give someone a free ride and the girls started to get upset. Just as this was happening, in my mind I was thinking, wow, I wonder how this situation is going to play out. It was like I was watching this unfold before as though it were a movie. I might as well have had a bag of popcorn in my hand. When the drama was ready to climax I leaned over to my friend without taking my eyes off the action and began to say, “Oh man, this is gonna be….” and before I could finish my sentence my buddy was already half way up the isle of the bus on his way to paying for this girls ticket. The instance I saw him get up I was angry with myself for not seeing this as an opportunity to show some generosity and love as quickly as he had. There was almost no hesitation, he saw a problem and he saw how he could solve it. After being upset with myself I then had to laugh because taking action was the furthest thought from my mind.

Don’t get me wrong, I would have been perfectly willing to pay for this girl’s ticket. The issue here is that taking action was the furthest thing from my mind. I was not about to take action, I was a spectator. It was like I was watching a sporting event. I wasn’t about to run out onto the field and make the play, that wasn’t my role. But as soon as my friend got up I realized that this is my role. I’m not a spectator in life, I’m a player!

I started to wonder how often I miss opportunities to show love because of this spectator mentality. I know that I love other people, but the truth is that we cannot love others from afar. Love doesn’t just sit back and watch, love acts. I want to be someone who acts, the way my friend did tonight.

As an attempt at this I have decided to latch onto this phrase for the next little while; Be the solution. I’m not going to look for the solution, or wait for the solution to appear. I want to be the solution. I want to be a player in the lives of others, not a spectator. I don’t want to wait to get invited into the game of life, because the truth is that I’m already in the game.

Scot Baio is pretty messed up...me too

If you’re into reality television I have to recommend you check out Scot Baio is 46 and Pregnant. Unlike other reality shows that feel like you’re watching scripted television (such as The Hills which is closer to an episode of The OC than is it to reality) Scot Baio is 46 and Pregnant couldn’t be more authentic.

The show is based on the formerly successful television actor Scot Baio and follows his life which includes recently having gotten his girlfriend pregnant and asking her to marry him. When you begin to watch the show you will probably think that Scot is an ass and overall a loser at life. This is perhaps a fair assessment. He shows lots of undesirable character traits and fails at a lot of things he tries. Even the title of the show seems to big a dig at his character and feels like it could be amended to read, Scot Baio is 46 and Pregnant…what a loser. At first glance one cannot help but conclude that he is going to make a terrible husband and an even worse father.

However, when you really get into the show and watch a couple of episodes your perception of him will change. At least mine did. I quickly began to see that he isn’t a selfish ass but is a scared man who is just trying to figure this life out. Sure he didn’t plan to a have a baby, but he’s trying to make it work. He didn’t want to get married either, but he’s willing to give that a shot too. He is just trying to do the right thing even though he’s not exactly sure what that might be. Sure he has his problems, but he is facing them head on. What’s more, he is sharing them via his show.

A lot of people probably tune into this show and instantly judge Scot, seeing all of his problems and how messed up he is they conclude that he’s a loser. That’s what I did when I first turned it on. But soon I began to identify with him. Who of us hasn’t struggled with a decision? Who of us hasn’t failed? Who hasn’t been scared and confused and wanted to just curl up in the fetal position and cry? I soon found myself having a “me too” moment while watching the show. “Me too”, I have problems just like Scot. “Me too” I’m insecure. “Me too” I’m scared. “Me too” I’m confused. I realized that I wasn’t watching a unique human being who was messed up worse than the rest of us. I was watching a messed up human being just like the rest of us.

This is what the world needs to see. No more perfect people with the perfect life who have everything going their way. No more, “I have all the answers, don’t you wish you were like me.” No more I’m rich and famous come and look at my crib and expensive cars. Instead we need to see something real. Something that evokes the response of “me too” from within us. The feeling that I am not the only one struggling. The feeling that I am not the only one who is messed up on the inside. The feeling that I am not alone in this world. This is the feeling that we all desperately want to have.

“Me too” is when human relationship is at its best. Only when we let down the barricades that we hide our problems behind can we then have true human interaction.

Recently a friend of mine shared with me a struggle he had faced a few years ago with pornography that had rotted him to the core. He said that eventually he reached a point where he couldn’t bear the inner shame and disgust that he felt about himself anymore and he told a friend about his habit. He told them thinking that this person would probably be disgusted and utterly appalled at what he had been doing. Still, he had to tell somebody, he couldn’t face his shame alone anymore. When he told the person he said that the experience was amazing. Instead of being ostracized he experienced the love and grace of a true friend who simply replied, “me too man, me too.” It was in that moment that he experienced release. He no longer had to bear the problem alone.

Too often we bear our burdens alone and in secret because of shame and embarrassment when a loving, forgiving friend is just a phone call away. Fearful of being the only one who is struggling, the only one with a problem, the only one who doesn’t have it all together we choose to stay silent and maintain the shiny exterior of a person who has it all together. By doing this we miss out on the power of hearing those two powerful words, “me too.”

It seems that the world today wants us to pretend that everything is okay. And yet within us we know that everything is not okay. We are hurting, we are stressed, we are confused, we are lonely, we are scared. We are anything but okay. If only we could share with each other what is going on inside we would discover that we are not alone in our struggles. We are not the only one who isn’t okay. In doing this we would get to hear those two words I think we all are longing for, “me too”.

Remember the Lonely

Every couple of weeks I get a reminder of one of the lowest moments of my life. It comes in the form of an email asking me to rejoin an online dating service. I could just label it as junk mail, but I never do. Allow me to explain.

For nearly my entire life up until about two years ago I was single. Not entirely single, certainly there were flings here and there, but still I felt very single. And with being single comes the inevitable struggle with loneliness. When I went away to university this was intensified as I no longer had my best friends to curb this loneliness. Instead I found myself spending a lot of time alone, and the feeling of loneliness soon became unbearable. At my lowest point I snapped one night. Crying and short of breath I couldn’t handle the thought of being alone any more. It is the worst feeling I have ever felt.

Movies often try to portray this moment of loneliness in romance films as the main character is profoundly lonely just before meeting their true love. This attempt doesn’t even come close to what it feels like to be single though. It is a terrible burden that cannot be explained, only experienced, and I was experiencing it. It was very real, and it sucked.

At my lowest point I sunk to searching online dating services. I spent a few hours searching online profiles and trying to contact people in hopes of ending my loneliness. I also joined a few of these sites in hopes that I would get noticed. Even in the midst of it, I felt so pathetic. And yet this is what I had sunk to. I would do anything not to be alone anymore.

Perhaps the worst part of this feeling was the seeming ignorance of my state to everyone else around me. Nobody saw it. And if they did, they didn’t want to deal with it. No one ever wants to take on someone else’s problems. And so, the lonely are left to deal with their loneliness, alone.

I said earlier that every couple of weeks I get an email from one of the sites I had joined that night when I was at my lowest and was desperately crying out for any companionship. This email used to come as an embarrassment. A ‘rubbing it in’ if you will of how low I once stooped. I don’t see this email the same way anymore. Now, it comes as a potent reminder of the horrible loneliness that I went through. Every time I see that email I am forced to ask myself if there are people around me that I know are lonely and am intentionally neglecting. If there are, this email is slap in the face, followed by a “How dare you!”

I could easily just label this email as “junk” and never have to be reminded of it again. But I don’t think I’ll ever be able to do that. I don’t ever want to forget how I felt that night. I don’t ever want to forget that there are people, every night, who feel that way.

What should We Do with Old People?

As I watch my parents struggling to take care of their aging parents the question, "What is the point?" often creeps into my head. It is impossible not to notice the similarities between the care that these aging people require and the care that an infant requires. People in our society pay big bucks to have their parents kept alive in homes where they're wheeled everywhere and show little sign of consciousness. But why do we pay for this? Are we repaying them for the care they showed us when we were infants? If so it doesn't make much sense. When we were infants we were full of potential, we were in training to be something, somebody, someday. But the elderly have seemingly no potential, they have already been, they are no longer contributing to society, and keeping them alive any longer just seems like a waste of money.

This is probably the reason why we use the word burden when we talk about our elders. They are a burden because there will be no payoff for prolonging their life. Notice you will never hear the word burden used when someone speaks of their child. No, a child is a blessing despite requiring the same type of care that the elderly do. So then why do we take care of them? With the amount of money that it costs there must be something within us that urges us to do this.

As I said before I'm sure many people reason that they should take care of their parents as a sort of repayment for the care that they received from their parents when they were children. This reasoning is severely problematic however as it misses the real issue here.

Love.

Our parents cared for us out of their love for us, not to begin some system of retribution that they could profit off of later in life. To cheapen their love by likening it to some sort of payment plan just shows how muddled our conception of love has become. If we think that our parents took care of us expecting repayment in the future then do we also take care of our kids so that they will one day take care of us? Do we love our kids so they will love us back? Do we love others so that they will love us back? Oh what a sad picture of love this is. One that is based on selfishness in its need for reciprocation and on guilt in feeling that it needs to be re-payed.

I think that our aging parents may be our last chance to understand love if we haven't gotten it yet. We have kids, spend 20 years pouring into them awaiting retirement when it can be all about us, finally. Then, not long after, we are presented with a new challenge, our aging parents that need us. Unlike our children however they are difficult to love. People say there is nothing like the love they feel when they look into their child's eyes, but have you ever heard this said of a crippled old man?

Nevertheless we are faced with a choice. Whether or not we will look after our parents is not the choice. The choice is whether our care will be offered out of love, or out of repayment and guilt. Make no mistake about it, this will be a challenge. This love will not be the easy, good feeling love that is rewarded by reciprocation, feels good, and comes easy. No this love will hurt. It will test all the other things we love. It will be expensive, time consuming, and emotionally and physically draining. But this is the love that we desperately need to learn. The love that is sacrificial, the love that hurts, the love that cries, the love that will empty every selfish thought from our being. This is the love we need to prevent us from falling into our self absorbed bubbles.

May we cherish the elderly among us and the opportunity to learn the type of love that they offer us upon their exiting of this increasingly individualized world.

We need to give this love far more than the elderly need to receive it.

What are You Training For?

Today my systematic theology professor who just turned 64 announced to the class that he has decided not to retire but will continue to teach and serve in our school community. Then he told us how a few days ago he biked from the 401 to the lake and back, a distance of about 14kms. People often ask him, he said, "What on earth are you training for?" His response, "I'm going to be the next middle-weight champion of the world!"

I have no idea what he meant by this, but he uttered those words with enough conviction to make me believe it. At 64, I hope I am able to do the same.

Family Pets

Names from left to right - Glory, Pine, Poe (the donkey), Deets (behind Poe), Princess, and Duncan


This is my Dog Sheffie. He is awesome.

Hidden Mercy in Academics

Have you ever expressed a small frustration to someone and had it turn into a giant discussion that takes several turns and unearths feelings you never imagined could be involved? This happend to me yesterday when I displayed some anger regarding professors who grant extensions while penalizing anyone else who hands a paper in late.

Why does the person who asks for an extension and hands the paper in a week late not get penalized while the person who doesn't ask does? Some would answer that it is pretty simple, it's because they asked. I quickly realized that this wasn't the source of my frustration. After a pause I asked, "How does the student know to ask for an extension?" All professors hand out a syllabus at the beginning of the year stating the rules of the course, all of them stating the penalization for late papers. 99% percent of these syllabi also include the phrase that says no exceptions to late papers will be permitted without a doctors note verifying an illness. After reading this, why would anyone ask for an extension? The rules of the game have been stated. And yet some people, in what I consider a bit of a sneaky move, decide to ask the professor for an extension. What's worse, a seeminlgy growing amount of professors actually break the rules of the class written in the syllabus and grant them an extension.

It is here in the discussion that three curve balls were thrown at me. One, "Doesn't the professor have the right to decide how to run his course?" To this I say sure he does, and he lays out how the course will run in the syallbus. I do not believe he has the right to break these rules in secret in a closed door conversation with a student. Second curve ball, "Doesn't the professor have the right to show mercy?" Of course, but why does he show mercy to one student and not the other? Why is this mercy hidden? Why is there a syllabus that is handed out that says mercy will not be granted? It is not enough of a defence to say that the student who didn't ask for an extension is at fault for not asking, because they had no reason to ask. The question of extensions had already been addressed in the syllabus.

The last curve ball thrown at me was in relation to the mercy that we receive from God. "Don't we have to ask for this mercy in order to receive it?" I was asked. Of course. But only after it has been offered and made clear to us who we can ask for this mercy from. If God had given us a Bible that said, "You shall receive no mercy from me. You are all damned, don't come crying to me about it," would we be at fault for not asking for mercy anyway? Hells no. If God operated by different rules and by a different standard than the covenants (promises) he made with us then he would not be a god worth worshipping or following. Inconsistency like this would leave us better off creating another god.

The higher you go in academics the more you realize that it is a competition. And a competition that has different rules for everybody involved is not one that I or anybody else would want to compete in. If you were playing any other game in which in the middle of the game the rules were changed for the opposing team you would be furious. I now realize that this hidden mercy that is granted in secret, against the stated rules, infuriates me in the same way.

Good Morning Foolish America

Every morning millions of people wake up, start the pot of coffee and flick on a mind numbing morning “news” channel to keep them mildly entertained (a state where their brain is actually less active than it was thirty minutes prior while they slept) before they head off to work. These shows offer nothing but snip-its of information that take advantage of the brainwashed Americans materialistic needs. The latest fashions, diets, foods and self help books are all apart of regularly scheduled programming. Programming of their audience that is. The weather will also be thrown in for good measure, that’s all they’re really tuning in for. Something they tell themselves to justify the programming choice. If only they stopped to wonder if the weather was going to have any bearing on what they would spend their day doing. Let’s be honest, if it’s a beautiful day they’re not going to walk to work, they’ll still drive. And it’s not because they’re lazy, oh no they’d walk if they had the time but unfortunately they stayed up late watching a meaningless latenight talk show that they probably can't even remember the details of.

To keep the American from noticing their pathetic morning ritual and continual worship of the glowing box these morning shows will always throw in a heart warming tale that will fool them into thinking the human race is actually getting better as we progress. A story about one person heroically rescuing someone else or a poor person who had nothing and was miserable but through their own will and determination was able to beat the odds and is now happy and wealthy. Oh what a glorious lie! But they believe it. And in doing so believe that the beggar they pass on the street on their lunch break could achieve what the man on the television that morning achieved if only he would pick himself up by his own bootstraps and get a job. This will suffice as a good enough reason for them to keep their change in their pocket. These feel good stories also leave them believing that given the opportunity they too would be a hero. In fact, they practically are a hero, they just need the opportunity. The fact that they couldn’t run fifty meters without having a heart attack or that they’ve spent half their waking life in front of a glowing box wouldn’t stop them, they just lack an opportunity.

The reason I write this blog was not to belittle these pathetic waste of time shows (despite having begun with a bit of a rant). Rather it was to pick on a specific self help book I saw advertised during a programming segment this morning. I realize that having just confessed to have been watching the type of show I loath so much is a bit like the guy who walks into the strip club with disgust and remarks how pathetic a particular gentlemen is by saying, “that guy’s here every week”! Nevertheless I maintain I was watching this show merely to confirm my disgust, whether that’s any consolation I’m not sure. Anyway, the book was about twelve steps to happiness. This caught my attention as I’m always interested in learning how the western world is classifying happiness these days. I expected to hear about money making and spirituality and feeling good about who you are. I was caught off guard however at the two steps revealed during the commerical masquerading as an interview. They sounded nothing at all like what I was expecting. They were Kindness and Forgiveness. Was this the Sermon on the Mount written for a secular audience? For about half a second I actually wanted to praise this book for bringing this wisdom to light. But can these things really be the key to happiness when they have been ripped from a context of obedience to God and put into a context of pragmatism where we do them in order to then receive a reward of happiness? If we forgive and are kind to our enemy surely we are not going to be happy automatically. Forgiving the pedophile down the street is not going to bring you happiness. It’s not cause and effect. Forgiveness does not equal happiness. And in context of forgiving in obedience to God we are still not guaranteed happiness. We are offered joy in our obedience as it brings us one step closer to becoming who we are in relation to the one who created us. And so my pleasure quickly turned to sadness at this cheap counterfeit of Christian principles. I pictured all the gullible buyers of this book following the advice of their morning show anchor who would soon feel just as empty after having forgiven their neighbor as they felt before reading the book. Their change in moral lifestyle would not bring them any closer to finding out who they were. Of course this is assuming they even read the book. Not to say they won’t buy it. Of that I’m sure they’ll do. But every night as it sits on the coffee table they will reach just to the right of it to pick up the television remote control thinking to themselves that they can read it tomorrow or that they’ll just see if there’s something good on first.

I suppose that by not reading the book they are just playing the odds anyway because according to the book we can only control 40% of our happiness. That means that 60% is out of our control. So we could be damned to fail even if we could get a full 12 out of 12 steps right. Why even bother, hand me the remote.

There is no doubt the television is shaping us all. As you read this blog you probably never exchanged the word “they” for “you”. But you probably should. I realize there is plenty of decent programming out there, but I’m sure it’s not on in the morning. So stop wasting your time. Find a book written by an academic and not a salesmen and read a couple pages every morning. You may not feel like a hero, but you'll be a lot closer to becoming one.