2001-05-20 - 1:01 a.m.
#62: No Need for a Digital Life
Note to self: Well, my grandmother got on a plane and went off to her new home in Melbourne today. Wasn't exactly unhappy to see her go and all. O.o I mean, it's nothing wrong with her per se, it's just that I seem to have trouble with closeness stemming from being someones relative. I mean, it's like being introduced to a complete stranger and told, "This is your grand uncle" or some other blood connected relationship, and then being expected to have an immediate rapport with that person. I just can't work that way.... No matter how much of your genetic code is similar to theirs, a stranger is still a stranger. And my grandmother.... Well, I was never really close to her since she lived at first a town and an island away, then a hamlet and a continent away. I just don't think it's possible to have an understanding relationship since we've "met" each other at this point. I dunno. Relatives are strange people. And I'm one of them. By blood, of course.
I spend too much time on the computer.
There, I said it. It's been said to me time and time again by my parents, my parents parents, friends of my parents, my parents brothers and sisters, my parents brothers and sisters children.... But of course, I didn't believe it until I thought of it myself. O.o Not quite the amazing epiphany since the fact has been repeated to me many times, but the realisation still demands I pay attention to it. Give it some thought and work things out, you know? Quite frankly, I don't really like where this is leading me, since it might just change my lifestyle.... Which I don't really think is that cool, anyway. Hmmmm. Okay, let's go for it.
Too many activities I engage in involve my computer in some way. In MOST ways. I first bought my computer for the sole purpose of getting Microsoft Word because my Year 9 teacher was a big enough bastard to INSIST that our essays be written and printed using some form of computer. Yes, one of the unofficial requirements for that class was "get a computer". It may not seem like a big deal these days, but back then.... It was 1993. It was a time when my school still had BBCs in their computer room (singular) and students were forced to draw circles and other geometric shapes on amber displays. It was a time before PCs became a viable and serious option for gaming. It was a time when Nintendo was still the console king. It was a time when I still had an AMIGA, and I was damn proud of that machine too. It couldn't do word processing because I broke Workbench years ago (and I didn't have a printer besides), but damn did it have cool games and music. *sighs* Turrican.... Chris Huelsbeck.... Where are ye now? So all in all, it was a damn scary time for those of you raised on pampered modern gaming and big gorgeous 3D graphics. Anyway, getting sidetracked here....
So, my parents and I went out and got me a 386DX40 with 4MB RAM and a 130MB hard drive. Didn't really understand what any of that meant, but it didn't really matter at the time. All having a computer meant to me, when I first got it, was that I wasn't going to fail my English lessons in high school. And that was a good thing for an aspiring student like myself. O.o But over time, I understood what those little details meant, and got into a whole side of gaming I never knew existed outside of an Amiga. I played RPGs. And adventure games. And got thoroughly hooked. Secret of Monkey Island, Star Control 2, Wizardry 7: Crusaders of the Dark Savant, Day of the Tentacle, Sam and Max: Hit the Road.... And the list goes on. Anyway, all this goodness forced me to upgrade my computer with such wondrous and unusual devices as a *gasp* soundcard and *shock horror* a CD-ROM drive to get the full experience from some of those said games. I'm still kinda proud of myself of having been able to do the installation all by lonesome. Even if I did have trouble with slotting the soundcard in. Aheh.
My obsession with computers back then stemmed from two passions/requirements of it: getting word processing work done, and playing games on it. That took a lot of my free time, and probably affected my schoolwork as well.... But I had a lot of interests apart from my computer and pursued them with the same level of interest. Besides, in later years my computer started to splutter at some of the more system spec requirement heavy games.... It couldn't even run Doom properly! Not even with a boot disk. So my passion for PC gaming declined to the point where I just WISHED for games rather than actually play them.
And then we got the internet. And a brand spanking new computer. It was a Cyrix, couldn't do floating point calculations for SHITE; but at the time it didn't matter, it was BETTER than my 386 and that was what counted. Oh, and we moved to New Zealand, but why go over all the niggling little details, eh? ^_^
So my PC become my source of gaming goodness once again, along with far better word processing capabilities (Word 95 was soooooooo much better than Word 3.11. Hell, ANYTHING was better than Word 3.11 and the Windows it rode in on). But it became more than that as well. The internet suddenly gave it super cosmic powers to grant me all of my desires at the push of a "search Web" button. I could combine the pleasures of anime and reading into a whole by reading fanfics available freely at large story sites. I could download music of anime/gaming tunes: first in midi, then modular music, then finally mp3s from Napster. I could chat online, I could talk to people halfway around the world in real time and they could answer BACK. I could watch anime movies and TV series on my computer, downloading them either online or getting them off someone else who had done the same.
The computer and the internet suddenly became my distraction. Everything revolved around the gifts it could bestow and the EASE with which they were bestowed upon me. Why would I need to go out and buy or borrow a book from the livrary when I could just as easily rely on the internet to provide me with similar entertainment involving anime characters and situations? Why would I want to listen to my music on a seperate CD player when my mp3 collection is larger and more convenient to sort.... And there is a default CD player on my computer anyway? Why would I want to go out and look for strangers to talk to when I could just as easily do it online.... And possibly brush them off more easily as well? Why would I want to watch anime on TV on VCR tapes when I have a digital form that can be skipped to any section of the track I want instead of fastforwarding and rewinding? See? Why go to all the trouble of going OUT and fulfilling my past times that way when I can do it all on the computer? About the only thing that doesn't get fulfilled by the computer is my need to eat, sleep, errrrrr.... defecate and.... double errrrrrr.... procreate. And on the last count it doesn't do too bad a job of satisfying it, either. With a little help from my "handy" friend, if you know what I mean. uhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuh. Okay, enough of that LITTLE detail. *winces*
This revelation stems somewhat from my having gotten the third of the Harry Potter book series. Several nights ago, I was up reading in bed the last couple of pages of the book, having read it on an on/off basis during the day, and was glad to have this quiet time to myself to be absorbed into it. As I finished the book, I suddenly realised several things: One, it was very late in the evenings, and I wasn't at my computer. I always like to be on my computer in the late evening. Just to do.... stuff. Anything online. Or maybe play a quick game. You know, just mess around the computer with no distinct purpose in mind. And two, my computer wasn't on at ALL. It wasn't CD burning anything, nor was it downloading something huge that I'd decided to leave on as an overnight download. And that despite all of that, I was still having fun. Sure, I had to pay 17 dollars for the book, but still.... Having fun without being on the computer? By myself? (AAC don't count none. Sorry guys. ^_^) Wowee. Cool.
So.... I can have fun.... And not be on the computer at the same time. Sounds obvious, doesn't it? But like I said before, it's not a massive epiphany, it's just something I had to discover for myself. I still have to wean myself off this.... addiction, in any case. In fact, I'm not sure if I can. Maybe I can redirect it somehow.... Still, buying myself a big thick book to read in bed is probably a good start. The Collins Australian Pocket Dictionary-- No, wait. Hold on. Ah, here it is. The Collected Short Stories of Roald Dahl. Saw it in the airport Dymocks bookshop as we were sending grandma off. Decided off the cuff I was going to get it, since the man just has such a way with the English language, doncha know? ^_^ Mmmmm..... Short stories of the macabre. Just OVERFLOWING with goodness. And then, maybe I could give some thought to getting a job soon. O.o Nah, best to take things one step at a time. RIGHT. ^_^
