Playing God

For those of you who have had an insatiable desire to play God but have been frustrated by your lack of omnipotence, your prayers have been answered with the recent release of the droolingly anticipated Sims 2.

For those of you who haven't the slightest idea what I'm talking about, I'm referring to a computer game wherein you, as the player, essentially are given the power to create a family from scratch, right down to determining their DNA. Then you get to watch them grow, live, and die. You can fulfill their dreams (which of course you probably have to define for them first), or you can crush their hopes and deny their desires at every turn. You can lead them into the morally murky territory of extreme living, or you can make sure they have the goody-two-shoes-white-picket-fence-3.5 kids-and-a-dog life. The possibilities are endless!

And so, of course, are the ironies.

I read a couple of reviews of the game online. One person wrote,

I love the fact that interpersonal relations is much more advanced, and I love the fact that they grow up, learn, live, love, and die. makes you want to accomplish as much as you can in the time you have.

The same person wrote that they spent "80% of [their] freshman year of college playing the original sims." Hmmm.

Naturally I am hardly one to point a finger at people for wasting valuable time on this planet. I write a blog, after all, AND I usually do it when I have something else that I'm supposed to be doing. Like right now. (Never mind what I'm supposed to be doing, the point is I'm not doing it.)

I'm more interested in the philosophical implications of a game where players finally get to "live" the dream of Bruce Almighty. Sims 2 bolsters, or rather caters to, our need to feel like we have some sort of control over our lives. Oh, we have control over some things, of course. I am in control over what clothes I decide to put on in the morning, or whether or not I will eat ice cream for breakfast. I think. But the deeper things lie beyond our reach. (Personally, I've found that there is nothing like unrequited love for shattering the illusion of control into a million jagged pieces, but maybe that's just me.)

So actually I can kind of understand why a game like Sims 2 would be attractive, because we have our Sims to live the lives we wish we could live for ourselves. And on some level, the popularity of the game suggests that it's a way of expressing our collective disappointment with a God who, let's face it, seems at times to block our dreams, manipulate our existence, and let us down when we need Him most, at least according to our perspective on this side of the supernatural divide.

I'm not saying this is true. But perspective, while it isn't truth in itself (as I said in an earlier post), is a powerful force for all that.

Right now, for instance, I am perceiving that 1) I am tired of thinking, 2) it's a nice day outside, 3) I have work to do that isn't getting done the longer I write this. And so all my perceptions added together lead me to the truth that I need to post this and be done with it, or I will be sorry later.

Until next time, then...