Phoenix Rising

I am taking a break from specifically blogging about my journey today as I’m feeling a little fragile. As I still wanted to blog, I thought I would post my thoughts on technology and gaming. I am 46 years old and have been gaming since I was about 4 years old. I started out on Spectrum ZX back in the 80s. Although I didn’t really get into console gaming until the late 90s, except for a lot of time spent on the original Gameboy. I can still hear my favourite tune on Tetris! Gaming has provided me with an outlet throughout my struggles and it’s a popular hobby within my system. In 2016 when I wasn’t at the front very often one of my Alters, Luke bought the VR headset for the PlayStation 4. It’s a testament to how little I was at the front that my first true experience of PSVR was in late 2020 and I was hooked! So hooked that I ended up purchasing the Oculus Quest 2 VR headset. There have been problems entering the world of VR. Firstly, there’s the headset, the Quest is much heavier then the PSVR and I instantly was aware of the sensory issues this was challenging my system with. Other Alters feel uneasy with the weight of the unit strapped to our head and covering our eyes so I’ve had to spend months trying to make it more comfortable. The second issue is with the rapid advancement of technology and my own feelings towards this. I have been hooked on the idea of VR for many years. Watching the Lawnmower Man movie in 1992 deepened my interest in experiencing it. The rush of stepping into VR 28 years after watching that movie was incredible. My first amazing experience and still my favourite VR game is Wipeout which I first played on the original PlayStation. Twenty years after first racing around great tracks at high speed to an awesome soundtrack and now I’m sitting in the cockpit of my ship in VR, my tummy even flips when I barrel roll off ramps. After my first few forays into VR, I became concerned. There’s a whole world to venture out into why do I want to experience it in VR? At that time at the end of 2020, I was still quite deep in an eating disorder and had quite severe anxiety about leaving the house. As awful as the pandemic was, for me and my system at that time it was the perfect reason not to have to navigate the world outside our front door. Things have shifted significantly since then and it is nice to be back out in the world. I have relaxed my judgement on myself about spending a couple of hours adventuring through a good game or spending an hour every so often in VR. I think I mentioned in a previous post that I seem to have a skill of dual thinking when gaming. The combination of traversing a world in a good game is coupled with lots of thinking and processing and this seems to work for me and my system in a healthy and healing way. Gaming has also helped with my problem-solving skills which helps me a lot, and it’s a nice hobby. This morning I spent some time in my quest VR headset as well as playing my favourite rhythm game Synth Riders I spent a while watching some VR tv. One of the programs was a VR mock up video of a BBC interview with Arthur C. Clarke back in 1964. He was talking about the future of technology, and he suggested that by 2000 we would be able to communicate with anyone in the world. He thought that the biological way of life would come to an end and digital life would take over. I took the headset off and contemplated his words for a while. In some ways I feel lucky to have experienced life before the birth of the internet, social media and the incessant use of mobile phones. I love technology, I think it can be really helpful and gaming has gotten me and my system through some tough moments, but I still enjoy putting my feet in the earth and feeling the breeze on my skin.

In the words of Arthur C. Clarke…”The future is so endlessly fascinating, because try as we can we will never out guess it!”

You can view the whole interview with Arthur C. Clark on YouTube the Title is, 1964: Arthur C Clarke predicts the future / Horizon / Past Predictions.