Imagine no Possessions... (except an iPad)

My kids are completely addicted to Minecraft.  They can hardly start a sentence without the phrase, "In Minecraft".  What? Yours too?  But I have to say, this completely defies my expectations of what kinds of video games boys would want to play.  So I've been trying to get an understanding of this phenomenon through a combination of deep contemplation and annoying my children with incessant questions.

Minecraft is a a video game in which you build things from different types of virtual blocks.   There are different modes of play, but my kids seem to prefer the "creative mode" where you just build things.  There is no shooting, no racing, no discovering hidden secrets, no need for other people really (unless you want them).  There's also no winning and no dying. There isn't even much of an objective, aside from one you decide upon yourself.  My 11 year old son built a replica of his grandparent's house, for example.  He and his brother also built houses for each other, which is probably a natural response to having to share a room in their real house.

So why is this so much fun?  I mean what's so satisfying about building virtual structures for hours and hours?  

I asked my 7 year old son.

He said that you can build whatever you want, and nothing costs money!  In fact, there is no money!

Ok, so now I'm interested.  And I must admit, I love the idea of building my ideal house without having to buy the land or the materials, or having to hire people, or get plans approved by the city….    sounds pretty great actually.

My 11 year old also talks about the game giving him a sense of freedom.  Freedom from parents?  From school?  Freedom from physics?  I also think it gives him a taste of Independence, in a world all his own ----  A world he created and controls.

He also talks about making things perfect.

There's something intensely satisfying about perfecting one's environment.  Making things around us just so.  But building a house is so bound up in thoughts of money, that we forget how basic our need is for not just shelter, but also aesthetic and functional pleasures.  And building a house is also not just about impressing the neighbors.  It's about perfectly accommodating your needs and exerting control over your surroundings.

When I was a kid, I loved playing Monopoly (of course).  So I'm wondering, is Minecraft the anti-Monopoly?  I mean maybe I'm reading a lot into this, but I'm starting to wonder whether we are now discovering, through the Minecraft experience, that buying and developing property and then trying to use it to bankrupt our opponents (read: friends), is just ever so slightly less satisfying psychologically than something simple, like building your ideal house for free.  

In Monopoly you win by buying more and more expensive property, so that the other players eventually can no longer afford to rent.  I always loved those little red hotels, but I have to say, it's not that much fun to see your kid in tears across the table from you because you took all his money and he lost.  Most of us probably don't just want to make money in order to find ways to make others miserable.  So I say go ahead, let your child play endless hours of Minecraft; enable his addiction.  Because it might be better to raise a person who doesn't care that much about beating others, but is in touch with that deep inner yearning to live in a perfect house.

Better Than Nothing

Won't it be great to stop working forever one day?  You know, retire.  Spend your time laying around eating bonbons, and looking forward to your next nap.  On a yacht. Off an island somewhere.  Without a care in the world…

Sounds great, right?  I mean you worked hard, you sacrificed, you saved, and one day you will have earned the right to do absolutely nothing.

There's an Infinity commercial which ran all last year where a couple in a bookstore say, "How about a vacation in Bora Bora?"  After which they both stop and ponder the reality of that vacation, and say, "definitely not Bora Bora".  It's a pretty stupid commercial, and it doesn't at all dissuade me from wanting to go to Bora Bora, but the point is that sometimes, when you really think about what you thought you wanted, you realize you might not really want that.   Sure, for a while it would be great to just lay around on that yacht day after day, with nothing to do but eat, and play endless rounds of Words with Friends, but after a while, your image of infinite bliss might fade to one of boredom and possibly sunburn.  I mean maybe after you'd read a couple hundred books and maybe painted some pictures of the ocean, or learned to play the Ukulele, you might start to feel something was missing.  

And maybe all that solitude wouldn't be so great either.  Maybe you'd start missing people, all alone on that yacht with all those coconuts looking at you all day and waiting for you to do something.  Maybe you'd call your friends back home and invite them to come visit you, but they'd say, wow, I'd love to, but I work, or hang out with my grand kids or run the women's club at my synagogue.  And maybe after a few hundred naps, you'd start feeling sad, and a little aimless, and maybe you'd start cooking or making knickknacks just to fill the void.   And then maybe you'd start a little business of some kind….  Maybe making abstract coconut sculptures to sell to the tourists… or making coconut oil concoctions (because coconut oil is very fashionable).  And maybe people would buy them, and say they're wonderful, and you'd feel validated and appreciated.   And you'd meet new and interesting people who respected your coconut ingenuity and came to write articles about your "second act", and didn't think of you as old. And sure, fulfilling all those orders would sometimes be stressful, but also exhilarating!  

And maybe you'd take the profits from your business and start a foundation to research and develop new medicinal uses for coconuts, and you'd hire all the people on the island to help, and you'd feel really good about doing something that helped people.  And you'd discover that you were good at all kinds of things you had never even tried before, like marketing your foundation on the internet and writing research grant proposals.

Rush University recently published a study showing that having a purpose in life in the later years was associated with a "30% slower rate of cognitive decline" relative to those who didn't have one.  There are also studies showing that pursuing goals is very important to staying young and healthy both physically and mentally. So apparently doing nothing isn't healthy, and a good retirement plan isn't just about saving enough money.   

So maybe at some point you'd just sell the yacht, because the whole doing nothing thing is pretty boring, and you'd think about that Irving Berlin song,  "After you get what you want you don't want it", and you'd realize that what you wanted wasn't really to do nothing, but to have the freedom to choose what things you do.  And you can tell yourself that in the midst of all that nothingness, you finally found yourself, and it turns out that all in all, you're a person who thrives when NOT doing nothing.