Yesterday I screamed "I hate my job!" I was frustrated by all the friction involved in making a video game. Syntax errors, setting up testing loops, fumbling with basic math. But I think this frustration is masking a deeper, more troubling emotion.
I feel a moral dissonance in what I'm doing. I'm not convinced that video games are good for our humanity. I'm becoming suspicious of any medium that demands so much of our senses. I guess I'm mostly thinking of video-related media like video games, movies, TV, internet videos. When I engage, I feel a surrender of my being. I relinquish my vision, my hearing, my thinking to the author. I live in their world. And for some reason, I consent to this power exchange freely, and I pay for it with my most precious resource, time. I don't know the author. I don't know if they will respect me. I don't know what marks they will leave on me. I don't know if they will care for me afterward. Yet I let them in. I let them soil my water.
In my home, when I look out the window, all I see are constructed shapes. Buildings, lights, airplanes. There is nothing natural. Even the little trees I see are artificially placed, ornamentally groomed. We've imprisoned nature, the nature out there, and the nature within us. I don't want to be here any longer. I just want to sit amongst the real trees. I want to trade the white noise wooshing of cold steel cars for the gentle comfort of Mother's breath. I sobbed after writing that.
Sitting here at my computer, staring down a tunnel excavated over decades, of a lifetime ... I thought I was digging to the glory of purpose. Of a world contribution, however small, but a contribution nonetheless. I was so focused on digging, I never stopped to look around. The dankness. Shadows. Coal - the burial site of dead plants from millions of years ago. I'm in nature's cemetary, and the eerie mist is hydrogen sulfide and carbon monoxide. Is my fate to die here, decompose, and become just another piece of this tunnel?
I'm paralyzed by these thoughts.
Everyday, I sit in front of my computer, wondering if my best work, my proudest achievements, is actually poison.