The first in a series of discussions about games with Gods
It was a great hike. The wind was far too powerful to keep going on the open trail. My hood wouldn’t stay put and I don’t like when my hair gets pushed around. The trees were helping a little. So, I found myself making the difficult way back to Prometheus. It had been four weeks since we first met. Aside from the, I talk to a gods thing, the strangest occurrence of today’s visit was that I finding him standing up. He wasn’t chained, there was no eagle gnawing at his side. He just stood straight and tall. Staring up at the clouds with a ever so slight smile.
“I’m confused. I thought…”
“Right. I should be chained up is really like a good camp fire story.”
“Well that seems a little dramatic?” I could never do that one eyebrow up move.
“What did I tell you?”
“So far lot of things.”
“You’re grouchy.” “Well, it’s cold, it’s Sunday, the wind is particularly annoying.”
“Is that all? Let’s do something about it then.” He briefly closed his eyes without turning away from me.
The wind stopped and the air grew quiet. Even the clouds stopped to listen to what he was about to say. I don’t know how often this happens to you, but when you some ominous feeling coming over you, it’s usually because something profound is going to be revealed or lightning will strike or the monster rears it’s ugly mug or you get “that phone call.” At least, that’s what the movies tell me. But I don’t talk with gods much so I felt this would be a particularly interesting moment. I wasn’t cold. My hair now sat quietly on my head and Prometheus winked.
“Better? Can you concentrate now?” “Thanks.”
“So, what did I tell you?”
“You mean about over dramatic deities?” “Yep.”
“That you all are avid gamers. Which I find really weird.” “Well, gamers is a fairly contemporary title. But we do love games.”
“I get it. Except for the dramatic part.”
“Let’s take a very broad example. I stole something important once. A very very long time ago.” “Fire…creativity….”
“Right right. And for stealing I get punished. Just like all the little kids on the planet. They learn from parents, they learn lessons the more they make mistakes. Being changed to a rock and having your liver eaten every day is pretty serious don’t you think?”
“So, the moral is an antic, a gag?” “No, it’s not a joke. It’s dramatic because we learn from real things.” “But my parents didn’t chain me to a rock when I stole from Wal-mart.” “Hey, if we felt like playing the karma card, I have a feeling Wal-mart had it coming. What I mean to tell you is that we play games with you. We make the seemingly mundane important through a much more interesting story. This is why we, the dramatic deities, love your games so much.”
“Because we fake shoot people for more than a billion life times worth of hours?” “Seriously, a billion life times?”
“That was just one game, and I’m fairly certain it was much longer.”
“Ok. To answer your question, though. In a sense, yes.” “You’ll need to justify that one a little more for the press back home.”
He walked around his blood stained rock. The smell had dissipated thankfully. The air was perfectly still and I didn’t want to move a muscle. I looked up at the sun quickly, bringing my hand above my brow and as I looked back down, Prometheus was squatting atop his rock in a purple hoodie and jeans, hands in his pockets, smiling at the ground.
“You don’t really want to shoot real people. Shooting fake people makes more sense. Everyone knows that. Everyone knows you don’t hurt people unless you are already fucked in the head. We like when humans play these games, any game, because you are turning real life into a lesson that real life can’t always provide.” “So, can I say god made me do it?” “Oh, sarcasm is my favorite form of wit.”
“Ok, I get it. I do. But how could real life teach me a lesson about shooting people. I’m pretty sure I’d get arrested for trying.”
“Don’t be so literal. All you over reasonable people are so literal. It was nice when you just believed in us and we played you like marionettes.” “That’s comforting.”
He swiped his hand through the air, brushing my comment away.
“Of course, games aren’t telling you to be ok with shooting people. Playing is much more fundamental than that. If stories make us learn through reading and imagination, games add their own ethos with interaction that can deepen the experience.”
“I don’t think shooting my friends with virtual guns is a deep experience.”
“Not exactly. But it does make each of you laugh in your living room. Each of you goes home remembering the conversations of the night and the funny time when you performed the perfect head shot. Did you know you learn sophisticated problem solving and team work? And I said ‘can’. Games, ‘can’, provide an additional ethos of experience that other high arts can. This is why games don’t have to be art. They can just be games.”
“Well, I agree with that. I can’t stand when games try to align themselves or prove themselves worthy by a shallow definition of art. Hell, I know some really dumb guys from college days that call art, ‘art for art’s sake.‘ Drives me nuts.”
“I agree. And they will have a rude awakening someday when they have created nothing. But even still, we, the dramatic deities, tried for a really really long time to make deeper experiences with our bloody rocks and mythic fire. As we went along, it started to just be a game for us. We were needing to entertain ourselves. And it turned out, as we drove ourselves away from your lives, humans were very good at trying to find meaning all alone.”
“Maybe we were doing the proverbial, ‘growing up.’ But we disagree all the time. We don’t seem much more in-tune with one another. Have you seen our presidential elections?” “Oh, you are very right. Games aren’t going to save you. But there is no denying how easily they are found to change you, to make one think, not just about how cool games look, but if they can make you feel powerful. When, at the end, when you’ve won, you have a little more confidence in taking on the world.”
“Well that seems a little much. I don’t think I can take over the world.” “Ok, but you feel accomplished don’t you? Do you feel like something just hit you, yet you may not know what it was?” “Actually with some games, yes. I’ve dreamed in games before, like there was something more to being awake than my job or buying groceries.” “And I will guarantee that you’ve had this experience when you finish a really good book.” “Absolutely. Who hasn’t read Lord of The Rings for cryin’ out loud?”
“And you see, you said it yourself, ‘some games’. Not all games are good ones. Not all books are great ones. And you overly literal folks like to hear the opinions of the very few.”
“We can’t all learn everything about everything for ourselves.” “I’m not asking that. I’m merely pointing out that taking real life into your games is something that has happened since we starting meddling.” “You mean we like when games make us think of real life questions.” “Exactly. You don’t shoot fake people for the sake of shooting people. When you take on the enemy, you make very big decisions on how to do so. The nice part about games is that you get to practice for the real world - you act out, as it were. Some like guns or magic or elves because the story behind their fantasy are lenses into your life.”
“You know what games are not fun. Gratuitous ones.” “They aren’t fun?” “Well, I mean they aren’t remembered. They aren’t thought of as being important. We get moved by the thoughtful ones, right? But our very entitled media will always remember the gratuitous ones. And you know what? Those count for about 1% of games. Did you know that? 1%.”
“I actually didn’t know that. But I can see why it’s frustrating. Can you see why we stopped meddling?”
“Because no one likes to feel out of control?” “Most people don’t. But more importantly, we, in the sky, all discovered how much more meaningful it is for you humans to live out your lives.” “That was very nice of you. But playing games isn’t the answer to it all.” “Oh, I’m sure they’re not. My only real point is that games are important when you allow yourself to notice that real life is played out all the time from when you were a kid to the last breath. If we could give you all more ways to think about your life, to feel important, or even just have some laughs with your friends, then I would steal that fire over and over again.”
Prometheus had me leave quickly. He could hear the calling of his eagle, and I didn’t disagree that I wouldn’t want to see what was soon to happen after he lied back down on this rock - what happens every day because he was a thief. His hoodie melted away, the wind picked up, and I carefully, but quickly, jogged back down into town wondering what his fire was for.
I believe Prometheus didn’t steal fire. He stole something that the gods kept over us. Control. Fire was our ideas and imaginations. Our stories were born out of that tiny flame. So, I’m thankful. Because he would do it again. I think to Prometheus, he was playing a game all along as a young punk kid, pulling that wool over Zeus’s eye.
As I got to the bottom of the trail head, I could have sworn, I heard an echoing chuckle coming down from his rock. I smiled all the way back home.