Is this activity of any use? I’m really not sure it’s being read. And if it’s being read, is it of value? And, value to whom?
All I get out of it is a toilet paper roll of random musings. At least they are all captured in one place. I does discharge that self-imposed need to discharge nervous energy. (I just typoed gry. What were those three words — hungry, angry, and ?)
See I am crazy.
Does this advance my thought that each individual has a duty to publish? To share their own particular data – information – knowledge – wisdom. When I do the alumni obits, I always ask “what have we lost”. Each individual has a unique value. Maybe that’s why I’m pro life. Maybe that baby is going to cure cancer, advance human thinking, or just make people laugh.
(I can see the groans on your faces! He’s going to tell the Wally Crowther Cave story again! Arghh! Run. He is “in a twisty maze of passageways, all alike” in his sick mind. Now he’s going to tell that story again. Run! Ahhh! Too late. Not fast enough!)
When I was at AT&T I found adventure. Not out on the plains of Africa, not in the dangerous streets of manhattan, not on a mountain. I found it at the end of a teletype terminal. I dragged it everywhere there was a phone line. I was hooked. Colossal Cave Adventure was the first known interactive fiction game, created by Will Crowther originally, to simulate his cave exploring experiences. I played Adventure so often that sometimes I would fall asleep at the computer, not go to class, or ignore everything. I made maps. And shared them with my fellow geeks. Meeting dwarfs and saying “plugh”. I figured out how to traverse the identical caves. I actually had the path memorized. When I was dropped in the maze randomly. All I need was one object (I always kept the empty bird cage for that purpose) and I could be out of the maze in no more than thirty two steps with the cage. I would find my way out and then go back to get may cage for when it happened again. I enjoyed the world that existed solely in my head and some far off server. Adventure by my keyboard.
Anyway, I became aware of the unknown value of a potential life from a stupid computer game. (No, I was not on drugs! It just came as one of my “insights”. You know, bang your head on the wall long enough and you get the “insight” that maybe it would hurt less if you stopped!)
Early in the game there’s a bird. Fifth or sixth move. And you can do lot’s of things with the bird. Kill it. Eat it. But if you leave it alone, then a few caves later, you’ll find a bird cage. And a few caves later, your progress is blocked by a giant snake. So having nothing much else to do, you go back get the cage, catch the bird, and release it at the snake. The bird drives off the snake and you are free to explore Walter’s world that everyone is raving about.
Now I introduced a number of people to the game. I was amazed at how many smart people for no good reason would kill the bird. It told me something about human nature and life.
(1) Killing things chokes off possibilities. That’s when I became a pro-lifer. Maybe we have aborted the person who will cure cancer, lead us to the stars, or just make us laugh. Look at Hawking advancing the forefront of physics and tell me that it can’t happen. So I formed my opinion, that we ought not be killing people. Before they are born, after they do bad things, because they are deformed, old, sick, or don’t conform to someone’s opinions of what should be.
(2) People do things for no good reason just cause they can. And, they are never aware that they have limited their possibilities. Eliminated a path of great possible reward. Scoped themselves down. Hence I relized that making choices is fraught with hidden risks and I always thought about my choices very very carefully. Choices end to be mutually exclusive. Doing X means you can’t do Y. That makes life tough.
By The Way, I never told any of them what they missed. It was perverse. But those of us who had gotten by the snake formed a sacred oath never to divulge the secret of the snake. It was hysterical to watch people spend literally hours trying to find the now permanently blocked path. Someone once said something about “experience is a hard teach but fools will learn form no other”.
Any way, does this blog matter? It represents a choice. By doing this, I am not doing somethign else. And you now know why choices are so hard for me. I know there is a lot I don’t know but I don’t know what I don’t know. Help me?
Posted by reinkefj 
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