| Imagine a bunch of geezers sitting around a table, playing a big version of Monopoly, pushing little plastic dolls around a Monopoly board. Except this Monopoly game never ends. These guys keep this same game going for hours each day, for weeks, months, years. You say: Monopoly’s fun and all, but don’t you want to, you know, get on with other things? “I can’t stop now,” they answer. “Look at all this monopoly money I’ve made! Oh man! I’m so awesome! I’m just about a monopoly millionaire!” Sometimes they play all night long, eyes bloodshot, rolling the dice over and over and over again, just to make their pile of monopoly money somewhat bigger than it was before. Other times they spend hours pushing their little plastic dolls over the same squares on the monopoly board, over and over and over again, until the dice rolls just right and--“Holy crap! Woo Hoo! Now I get to paint a new belt onto my plastic doll! And the best part is, this new painted on belt will be just a little more purple!” So what, you say. “So what? *Snort!* You total n00b! EVERYONE knows that a slightly more purple belt painted on your little plastic doll is very significant and awesome! It’s a significant life achievement. I’ve even got a shiny little card here that says ‘Achievement!’ Oooh... I like shiny!” They get fat and smelly and cranky, piling up their little stacks of monopoly money, gloating to each other about the colors painted on their dolls, ignoring their friends, their families, the world around them, their own lives. If you saw this happening, would you have any respect for these people? I’m so glad I quit “playing” this extreme time waster. I deleted my characters and gave away all my stuff. Was it hard to just throw/give away what I’d worked so hard to get? It was about as hard as throwing away a really big stack of cheaply printed Monopoly money. |