Surreal Entrepreneur

I’ve been researching games lately. The second life culture is fascinating, and also it is so incredibly advanced that people are actually “living” via these virtual spaces. I would like to argue that this type of diversion from reality is not the first outcropping of people devoting themselves to something to separate themselves from their own lives.

I was washing my newly purchased car. It was bought to get me from A to B, but also to relay a message about my image, and even satisfy some of my urges to go fast. As I was spending time on the details of the car, making sure it shined, I realized that we all live in a second life game. We all choose something that is completely unproductive to sink our teeth into and escape reality. People that sit behind a computer screen for hours at a time are no different then those that bury themselves in work, or watch TV endlessly, or read books all the time.

Well, maybe gamers are different. Maybe these people who we label outcasts, that create a virtual representation of themselves, are actually ahead of the curve when it comes to truly living. I’m talking about community. A gamer knows that the main goal is to become better, level up, gain experience, but he or she also understands that without the community of other gamers there to work with, or even against, there would be no point to playing.

Society works along these same lines, I believe that you will find the people that are more secluded away from society with other distractions are usually the ones that deny themselves the ability to truly connect with other people. These are the people that have signed out of the social world, and started playing offline. Now, what is the point, the point of this entry is the same point of life, live it with people.

I heard an interesting point concerning this thought and biblical teachings. Adam was in paradise, walked with God in the cool of the day, and had everything he could ever imagine, except for community. God is, in himself, community. He gave Adam another person to be with to fulfill an innate desire to be with someone, and this was all before sin entered into the human condition. I believe that I am made to love people, and I desire to be loved, the symptom is my purchase of a nice car and the guilty feeling after pizza because I think these things affect my ability to share love.

Find the distractions in your life that keep you away from being able to share yourself with people. Root out the material possessions, bad habits, or personal stubbornness that interferes with your necessity to be a part of a community. Reach out to someone and share some of that time you were saving for the next episode that you won’t even remember tomorrow. No matter your religion, belief system, or lack thereof, you desire the satisfaction that only relationships with another person can give you.