Looping the Hen

It's Real in Its Own Way Honey

Waking up two weekends ago, I did my morning Saturday ritual: put on the coffee, check Ebay, walk around like a zombie, and feed Gruffleen. Gruff-who? That's what my lovely girlfriend (two months today!) asked me, right before she hit me with another WDYGU moment. Gruffleen is of course my Neopet, and this time the question was more 'Don't you want to spend time in the real world?'

Which of course to the tens of millions of us whose lives are spent on cellphones, working on laptops, listening to their Ipods, or watching 24 and Survivor, is beside the point. The two worlds are fused to a great extent, and inseparable. However, I thought it especially interesting as I regularly work out, run, spend time with friends, among other 'live' activities which will soon include skydiving and travelling. She felt that feeding a computerized pet was crazy, or something. I guess she has never had a Nintendog or even a pet rock.

I also thought this ironic coming from a woman who spends more time watching 24 and reading fantasy novels in a month than I do playing Neopets in a year. Escapism is escapism, no matter which poison, be it hemlock, arsenic or poisonous lollypops, one chooses. Heck, it is even big business, which several of my posts here about selling online currency supports.

So who here thinks the real world is better? Even us nerds and geeks would probably attest the real world is pretty cool, and no one I know is addicted to virtual anything. However, I would contend that our fusion of reality and 'unreality' is better than a limited existence in the corporeal world. Online I can entertain myself, learn, read, write, earn money, buy groceries, sell real world commodities, buy virtual world commodities, fight orcs, cast spells, fly enormous starships, and literally limitless other things. I would suggest access to extraordinary things is more readily available in the ether of the Internet.

Jumping out of a plane will be great, but for a 5-minute experience I will spend 8 hours driving and 2 hours training. Yes, I think it's worth it, but those type of events certaintly don't fall into place all the time, or even much of the time. And yes, I also value the 'everyday' experiences of walks in the parks, supper at the dinner table, and kissing my Honey. However, at this point, I would have a hard time giving up either aspect of my life, and I suspect much of America, Japan, and Europe feels the same.