Over-thinking

I'll take a brief departure from my usual material to give you a glimpse inside my mind.  I'm the kind of guy that over-thinks small things.  If you're ever trying to have a conversation, and I seem distant, chances are I'm just thinking about something really stupid.  This week's blog is an example of the stupid stuff I think about.  Listen to this song:

You've probably heard this song.  I heard it again, as I have many times, while driving home at night from a friends' house.  I got stuck on the lyrics of the chorus:

It's only in my dreams

That I can Change the worldI would be the sunlight in your universeYou would think my love was really something goodBaby, if i could change the world

So the question for me became, why is it only in his dreams?  There's basically two options here:

• The artist's love is not good enough.  The artist has the rapt attention of his intended lover, but he's just not quite good enough of a man.  Perhaps he's inattentive, or he doesn't have the means to provide for her, or maybe he's got demons he needs to work out.  Regardless, he wishes his love were good enough to satisfy his lover, but it isn't.  This is supported by the second verse of the song;

If I could be king, even for a day
I'd take you as my queen
I'd have it no other way
And our love would rule
this kingdom we have made
Til' then i'll be a fool
Wishing for the day

The imagery of him being a king highlights the idea that he needs something else in order to get his way.  He needs an outside source of empowerment, and once that happens, he can finally satisfy the woman he would make queen.  Until then, he becomes a fool.  He doesn't become lonely, he just becomes a fool.

• The artist has the love he needs, but he doesn't have the girl yet.  He knows he could get the job done if he just had the chance, but the girl either doesn't know him, or more likely, doesn't think of him "that way."  I've grown up surrounded by emotional boyhood songs lamenting these dreaded fates.  This theory is supported by the first verse;

If I could reach the stars
Pull one down for you
Shine it on my heart
So you could see the truth
That this love I have inside
Is everything it seems
But for now I find
It's only in my dreams

In this alternate reality, we see the artist going to great lengths just to get the right attention drawn on him.  The star he reaches up and pulls down is a source bright enough to illuminate the love hidden in his heart, which apparently she hasn't yet been able to see.  It would be undeniable; she'd have to finally see how much better she could have it with him.

What does this song say about love, furthermore?  This artist has the potential to be anything, and he chooses to be sunlight.  Don't get me wrong, I like sunlight; it lets me see outside my window, it gives me Vitamin D, and it saves us all energy since we don't have to turn the lights on.  That said, it's something I take for granted.   I'm not really thankful for sunlight, but rather, I just assume it will always be there.  Is this what the artist thinks that love is?  One would have to presume so.  Since this is the case, we get a bleak picture of the artist.  He is so desperate for his lover that even being taken for granted would be a huge upgrade over his situation.

Is there a right answer?  Probably not; I think it's a mix of both.  The artist is probably a good friend of the subject, who burns passionately for her but is also unable to get the courage to actually put that passion into action.  Thus, we're left with actually a pretty sad image of a man who is literally wishing upon a star for love to fall into his lap.  All we can hope is that this song is actually sung to the woman in question, and not simply lamented into the nothingness of space.

I wonder if I'm the only one who spends way too much time thinking of nonsense like this.

Talking is Disruptive

When I was a kid, I talked a lot. My mom tells stories about what a great baby I was; I was fat and slept all the time. I never cried, even when I got my first hair cut. That said, it didn't last long. The moment I was able to talk, I didn't stop. Even now its fairly obvious that storytelling is one of my great passions, and I'm more able to practice it in appropriate places (like a blog.) It wasn't so at the age of four. I pretty much only had my family to talk to, and talk I did. The funny thing was that I didn't really have anything to talk about. When you're four years old and you want to tell stories, its a rather rough spot to be in, since you don't actually have stories. I hadn't lived at all to tell stories from experience, so I did a few things.

1) I recounted comics I had read. I pored over my brother's tomes of Calvin and Hobbes comics, since they seemed relatively well received by the whole family, and I could just tell Watterson's stories without the advantage of art. Too many of my conversations would begin with "Did you read the Calvin and Hobbes where..." and obviously my sister hadn't read it, and would get frustrated as it just wasn't funny to hear from a four year old's mouth. I still have this problem I think, but in this day of age I can just google the thing I want to hear and annoy people with visual aid. This unique experience lead me to a few scant successes here and there, when my tale would get a raucous reception, which spurred me to the next step.

2) I developed schticks. Once I had stumbled upon things that made people laugh, I stuck with them. The one that sticks in my mind was my Sean Connery impression. I actually had little idea who Connery was when I was 8, but the Celebrity Jeopardy sketch with Darrell Hammond impersonating him was silly enough, and I really just impersonated the impersonation. Regardless, I was decent enough at it that my whole family enjoyed it. I reveled in it for a while, until I noticed that it suddenly became the only thing that was funny. Whenever I had worn out my welcome telling bad stories, someone would suggest I do Connery, as a way to redeem myself and end on a good note. Unfortunately it got to the point that it was all I did, and I got bitter whenever people asked me for it, since I felt like it was all anyone ever wanted to hear. This lead on.

3) I stopped telling stories. I still talked, but it was mostly to myself. This was the period when I became a lot more introspective and secluded (read: depressed.) I started to wonder why I didn't have any stories to tell, and it was because I wasn't making any. I was stuck inside the high-school Simple Plan/Blink 182/Etc. mindset of "Why doesn't anyone invite me to anything?" The reality was that I was shutting myself down in order to pity myself. It was a terrible cycle of self inflicted, Godless deprecation, but it was the product of a mindset that wanted experience without experiencing it. God pulled me out of it, and it still evolved.

4) I lived. Its a going concern, but I began doing things which begat the telling of stories. I tried new things; I began playing Dungeons and Dragons; I auditioned for a play; I got a job. I was better at some things than others, but fortunately they had all produced stories. They also allowed me to meet people who had their own stories, and I could learn what they did that let them have such great stories. I'll always remember the ride home in Coach T's car with Joe and Jamil where we did nothing but tell stories of our families and laugh for two hours. Since God has taken over my life, I've begun relying more on the unpredictable, and I've started to become a more tale-worthy man. Obviously I'm not ready for the Autobiography (it'll be short, "First I sucked, then God fixed it") but I feel like I'm getting closer.

Go try something new today. Even if you totally stink, at least you'll get a good story out of it.

The Split

In recent years, gaming has legitimized itself in society. What used to be a weekend distraction for children has now become a lifestyle for perfectly sane adults. As technology crept forward so did gamers' preferences. I believe at the beginning of this console generation a great split occurred as gamers decided what they want out of games--a lifestyle or a distraction.

It's no secret that gaming has become more expensive with time. As gamers have demanded more quality from the developers, the technology required to both create and use such quality has also skyrocketed. With the release of the Playstation3, gamers saw a $600 price tag staring at them if they wanted every feature they've been clamoring for. While this price tag has dropped over time, so has the total functionality of the machine. The XBox360 by Microsoft has only kept its price lower by putting out a product with slightly lower maximum output. The XBox360 originally was a superior product to the Playstation3; probably because as much as gamers claimed they could notice the difference between 1080i and 1080p, they couldn't.

With the prospect of a gaming investment staring at the face of gamers, suddenly they had to decide whether or not it was worth it to start budgeting for video games. The majority of gamers also were coming to a point when there money was their own--the crop of young children during the Nintendo era had suddenly become a harvest of young professionals. These were men and women with their own money to spend, and could theoretically buy as many games as they desired. The question then is, how much do they really care? Are games at this point something to live for, or something that happens to happen while living?

I'm willing to put myself out there and say that most gamers actually made a conscious decision as to what type of gamer they were. Industry veterans might recognize the gamer type-buzzwords that were floated around a lot a few years: Hardcore, Core, Casual, etc. In a society and age when people struggled to individualize themselves, gaming certainly played its part. Just as people decided if they were the marriage type, or the workaholic type, or the political type, so did they decide whether they were the gaming type. Those that did now find themselves probably playing, ironically, one game a ton (World of Warcraft, Street Fighter IV, Modern Warfare 2, etc.) and others to completion. These gamers often maintain a shelf display of accomplishments (now in virtual form thanks to the onset of Achievements and Trophies.) The rest mostly play the games they're given, or find their systems collecting dust either under the DVD player or in the closet next to the rest of the party items.

The question then, is how does the industry move forward? Is it possible for one giant to create a platform facilitating of both cultures? Can one of these groups put forth enough actual buying power to legitimize catering to them? The serious gamers may not play too many games overall, or may buy their games used only to sell them back. The casual gamer may only buy the best games out there so as to insure their gaming time is well spent. With the advent of information being so robustly available to the common man, is it even worth publishing a game that isn't the highest quality?

My theory is that in the next 5 years the trend of gaming company consolidation will probably continue. Studios which can't afford to publicize their game to the masses, or polish it to a crisp will find themselves bought out by larger companies. Games intended for the serious gamer will continue to grow in quality and price, and the trend of fewer games per player will continue. Furthermore, the casual gamer will drift more towards smaller titles and digital distribution. Instant satisfaction and impulse buys will be provided by the $15, 6 hour title complete with a story to tell later.

Then again, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the idea of self-assigning gamer type is a fashion which has gone the way of the CD collection and the long winded blog post. Perhaps gamers don't even care what they're called, and just want something to keep them occupied until the next big occupation comes. Thoughts?