While it is natural to be alarmist about things that are foreign to us, I'd like to shed some light on what may have motivated our two protagonists to enter a virtual life. They temporarily abandoned what we'd like to think of as "real" life for one reason, job dissatisfaction, which is a form of identity loss. I would argue the distinction is not about what is real, but what is flesh life and not flesh life; ALL life lived is real.
When we define ourselves by what we do for money, we lose a self-concept very quickly. As a result, these two got lost in a world that allowed them some control over who and what they wanted to be. Eventually they emerged from a purely imagined existence into a goal-oriented existence. First, however, they had to play out the fantasy of what to do next before actually doing it. As the story's end reveals, we are capable of weaning ourselves off of the fantasy life, yet others become addicted to it as they don't really like who they are and fantasy allows a detachment from the self. Our protagonists learned a good lesson by engaging in a comparative study: What is “me”? and What is NOT “me”?
The comparative experiment, when done consciously, will tell us the right way and wrong way to conduct life, as well as who we are and who we are not. Just like religious fanaticism, drug addiction, workaholism or any other form of unilateral obsession in our life, we do not discover the power to live until we find the power to create who we are. That power to create must be in our own hands or we’ve given it over to someone or something else. This is what is frightening, not the entertainment of a game. All life lived as a game, with regard for the self and the other players, is a life without suffering.
Review of A Disturbance in the Force
Sondra Sneed
Posted on December 05, 2004 at 02:35 PM
While it is natural to be alarmist about things that are foreign to us, I'd like to shed some light on what may have motivated our two protagonists to enter a virtual life. They temporarily abandoned what we'd like to think of as "real" life for one reason, job dissatisfaction, which is a form of identity loss. I would argue the distinction is not about what is real, but what is flesh life and not flesh life; ALL life lived is real.
When we define ourselves by what we do for money, we lose a self-concept very quickly. As a result, these two got lost in a world that allowed them some control over who and what they wanted to be. Eventually they emerged from a purely imagined existence into a goal-oriented existence. First, however, they had to play out the fantasy of what to do next before actually doing it. As the story's end reveals, we are capable of weaning ourselves off of the fantasy life, yet others become addicted to it as they don't really like who they are and fantasy allows a detachment from the self. Our protagonists learned a good lesson by engaging in a comparative study: What is “me”? and What is NOT “me”?
The comparative experiment, when done consciously, will tell us the right way and wrong way to conduct life, as well as who we are and who we are not. Just like religious fanaticism, drug addiction, workaholism or any other form of unilateral obsession in our life, we do not discover the power to live until we find the power to create who we are. That power to create must be in our own hands or we’ve given it over to someone or something else. This is what is frightening, not the entertainment of a game. All life lived as a game, with regard for the self and the other players, is a life without suffering.