I don’t often mention it here, but I do play video games, including World of Warcraft. I’m not sure why I remain reticent to mention it, save that I still have a sense of the video games = geek stereotype rapidly vanishing in the 21st century, Old habits, I guess, trying to be cool and fit in with the poetry community. Eh. So, if I am reticent and have some foolish notions of both my "coolness" and the reactions of the people I sometimes communicate with via this medium, why in the world do I mention it now?
This will ramble a bit, but I promise, there is a point. Or, at least, I intend a point, Together we can explore whether I get to it.
Just before I wrote this post, I intended to tweet: "Need motivation. Anyone know where I can buy it?" However, twitter was down at the time so I reached for another outlet for a rare moment of… I can’t really call it creativity. Perhaps an attempt to open doors of communication with the other internet dwellers and further the Conversation. Reshuffle and explore connections. Or not.
As to the tweet: I have hardly any motivation these days. Visitors to this blog (at least those not looking for a quote from Across the Universe) may have noticed I don’t update frequently, and many of the posts are but snippets, rather than meaningful content. In theory this is a poetry blog. I haven’t written anything this year that wasn’t for class, and since the end of the semester I have not written a line of verse. It isn’t writers block. I just have no desire to write. No motivation.
World of Warcraft is far cry from older video games. It is not just a game, but also a complex web of social interactions. I’m pretty good at the game part, and as with most social interactions, I’m not the among the easiest to handle or get to know. But there comes a point in the game where the two have to co-exist. No further content can be explored without other people and the complex web of personalities that ensue (this ignores the identity issues inherent in the system, but perhaps another time I can go into that).
And on top of the social aspect, there are continuing changes in the rules that require changes in the social aspect that then feed back into the rules. It’s an interrelated relationship that is has continual feedback and adjustments from both sides. One of those changes prompted a blogger going by Rohan to write an article about "Being on The Path." Setting aside, for these purposes, that some of the language is jargon, here’s a snippet:
The key is the concept of "Being On The Path" for endgame content. In nutshell, the number of people who reach the highest point of endgame is less important than the number of people who are working towards–and feel that they one day could achieve–that point.
In World of Warcraft, there are definable goals. Easily definable goals. And Rohan, in his post, was making the point that a change in the rules was going to completely remove a certain set of goals from the realm of possibility for most players. His view, one that I am in agreement with, is that is a bad thing, and is going to have a ripple effect of consequences due to the heavily social nature of the game.
I think most things fall into this kind of view, be it career, hobby, etc. We find goals, perhaps not so easily definable as in video games, and we can work toward them. We can "Be on the Path" toward the thing we value. Particularly as artists the end goal, be it art as career, or as immortality, we know the likelihood of success is minimal. So few people can accomplish their end in these arenas, and yet we continue striving because we believe we can do it. The chance, however small, is there.
I wonder if that is the key to motivation. Working for that chance to succeed.
But all paths have a beginning and an ending and a someway in-between them. Since we are drifting in the realm of concept, the beginning is always where we are, the path and the end moving around the fixed axis of our universe (ourselves). I suppose the question I want to send out to the ether is what do you do when you cannot see an end? What do you do when no goals exist for you that you believe are obtainable? When there is beginning and end and they exist in separate universes and no way to bridge that gap.