Schizophrenia in the Age of Technology

Two decades ago, if I had to take a side in the eternal war between the techies and the New Age equivalent of the Luddites, I would have been hard pressed to go against one of my heroes, J.R.R. Tolkien.  HE detested technology and felt that industrialisation was the kiss of death to the imagination, the Beauty of Nature and almost everything that was magical in the world.  Apart from a lifelong long of cinema, I would have been inclined to agree...

Enter the age of the Personal Computer and a drastic shift in my lifestyle.  When Freya was four years old, we both became involved with computers.   I began to search for games for her to play as I learned how to navigate the tricky waters of the internet.  I then became involved with games myself.

When I was involved with the doll business, I became one of the earliest users of Ebay.  In those days, 'the playing field was equal' and an individual had as much power as any large business.  Later, the big businesses took over and 'Power Sellers' drove out the small individual buyer and seller.  In any case, I never was talented where money was concerned.  My gift was human relationships and ultimately, I could not value money over people.  I therefore lost money constantly as, when the doll market crashed, I allowed my customers who had made special orders that I had filled for them to bow out of their contracts.  At the same time, I basically had been coerced into accepting double shipments by big influential doll firms.  A sudden realisation by people that the concept of 'dolls for investment' had a fundamental flaw in that these items took up SPACE and had to be STORED somewhere for decades possibly before their value would increase made my former customers into rivals as they dumped their collections on Ebay.  The combination of all these factors spelt financial ruin for me.  Becoming physically disabled did not help either.  I no longer was able to ship items instantly which is what the later users of Ebay demanded.

I suppose I was naive and a Romantic in some ways.  Once upon a time, there were 'gentlamen's businesses.'  Publishing was one of these and I rather thought that doll businesses would be another.  At the beginning, that was indeed the case.  I dealt mainly with fellow doll lovers and I gave them the best prices that I could and put dolls aside for them.  They made regular small payments and were not charged anything in addition to the actual price of the doll.  

There no longer are any 'gentlemen's businesses' if there ever were.   The book publishers who attempted to run family businesses basically sold them or went bakrupt long ago.  The big manufacturers of dolls and toys are ruthless for the most part.

To me, every doll and every plush toy had a soul.  After all, books like 'Velveteen Rabbit' were an intrinsic part of my childhood psyche and the dolls I took to Nepal with me as a child were my only confidantes and the guardians of my emotional sanity during a bitterly lonely time when I lived with people who appeared to want to excise everything that meant anything to me from my life. 

I love the Animist philosophy and subscribe to it to some extent.  One of the things that drew me to Harvest Moon was the underlying Animist philosophy in those games wherein the land itself possessed a spirit and guardians in the form of the Harvest Goddess and the Harvest Sprites.  It is not only Japan either.  One of my favourite writers as a child was Ovid and I loved the 'Metamorphoses'.  In those tales, almost every flower, tree and Spring had a soul.  Perhaps people could argue that natural substances such as rocks and trees are quite different from manmade objects such as dolls, but I disagree.  I am not certain that dolls and toys possess souls from the moment that the manufacturing process is completed, unless they are handmade.   I believe rather than their owners plant the seed of a soul within them and the more time and love that is given to a doll or toy, the more that spirit or soul will grow and flourish.

In any case, what does this have to do with Luddites???  The sort of games I love are akin to my love of history, books, cinema and the objects of childhood imagination.  They create worlds wherein one can live an existence that is unencumbered by fear or strife.  On the whole, I prefer games that are set in a universe with very little technology.  The irony there, of course is that the game itself could not exist without the sophisticated technology that created the platform and all other elements apart from the concept.

When then do I play a game like Family Farm, wherein machines play an almost pivotal role?  I do not like the Machines for the most part, although whimsical contraptions such as the Carving Machine that carves pine cones and eggs into decorative objects is much more satisfying to me than the Sausage Maker.

I think that the reason I like Family Farm so much is because of the old-fashioned quality of the graphics and the characters who inhabit the game.  The Crops and Trees are very beautiful.  Some of the Animals are more attractive than others and the Animal Habitats cannot be considered Machines really.    The Kitchen, Workshop and Dessert Shop offer crafting and cooking options, so they are not really Machines either.  There is much in the game, therefore, that is not involved with Machines.

Nonetheless, if you wish to complete the various Quests, you must have all the Machines and use them regularly.  Like most of the Farming Simulation Games online, you can play the game without performing the Quests but you will progress much faster if you do complete them and you may obtain valuable rewards that otherwise might not be available.

The entire time I have been playing Family Farm, I have looked forward to the day when my level of expeirence would be high enough to 'unlock' Pink Roses as a Crop.  I finally attained that goal last night, to my delight and some surprise, as i had not been paying attention to my Experience Points at all.  On the basis of 'a watched pot never boils', I had deemed it wiser not to involve myself with XP and indeed, I believe the game made me happier when I did not pay attention to those details.

While planting my first Pink Roses and looking at all the Machines cluttering up my beautiful Farm in Family Farm, I realised how technology had induced a sort of schizophrenia in me.  I rely heavily on my laptop, on portable gaming systems and on calbe television.  Moreso now that I am disabled than I ever did when I had unfettered physical mobility. 

When I went on a cruise and was at sea for almost a month, the internet connection was so expensive and so slow that I had no ability to play any online games or even to search for information about Ports.  The most I could do was to access emails about the status of my Puttikins and to respond briefly to those.

By the time I returned, I had been 'broken' of the habit of playing the games and I actually questioned whether or not I wished to return to my virtual farming routines.

Unfortunately, there are not that many activities one can pursue in the dead of night or even during the day if pain levels are really high.  Reading or any intellectual focus is out of the question. 

I argued a case in court once about the nature of chronic severe pain and its relationship to intelligence and education levels.  There is a prejudice against individuals who are disabled but who have high intelligence and who are educated with advanced skills in any intellectual occupation.  It is thought,  erroneously that somehow intelligence, education and skills somehow will dominate the pain and transcend it.  Well, sadly, this is NOT the case. 

With respect to an uneducated individual with little education who is physically disabled, his/her inability to work or make money will be acknowledged instantly.   With respect to an educated, intelligent individual with the SAME disability or one that is even more severe, there is a presumption that somehow that individual will be clever enough to overcome the disability or thwart it in order to make money. 

INTELLIGENCE AND EDUCATION HAVE NOTHING WHATSOEVER TO DO WITH PAIN.  NOTHING.  There is no way to create an equation where Education + Intelligence > Severe Chronic Pain.  Full stop.

Again, a digression but the fact of the matter is that my natural Luddite prospensities are defeated by my love of games and the ability to access libraries on the internet without having to find transporation and overcome current pain levels.   Google has changed our lives, even though I continue to maintain that an internet search for information is only as good as the information that can be accessed on the internet.  Thanks to many tireless individuals who have spent decades uploading the texts of classics as well as out-of-print great, good and mediocre books, that pool of infomration becomes larger and larger.  Thanks to many misguided or mischievous individuals who have spent decades uploading erroneous texts and false information to the internet, one is as likely to catch a monster or mutant in the net as valid facts... so caveat emptor must apply to the student of knowledge and wisdom as much as to any individual on a shopping expedition.