Why am I here? Not the site, not my job (despite wondering about that one all day long). But ME, why am I here? (avoiding religious answers)….I know the mechanics of it, (EWW…bad mental image of my parents...) but I find myself asking some odd questions….where would I be if I never met my wife….the one who gave me the inspiration to pick my major, get this job, stop playing UO for 17-20 hours a day….odds are I would have dropped out of college early and joined one of the services…or maybe I would have eventually graduated with my electrical engineering degree… or maybe one of the other 6 majors I had….but I look at the person I became and can’t see any possibility that would have worked out…maybe I could have met someone here though this site….but I would have never found this site if I didn’t graduate as an accountant, get this job and had been 3 weeks ahead on my work to surf the internet for a clan of older gamers….But maybe I meet someone in the real world, someone who isn’t a gamer….then I have to quit gaming, or worse yet, beg for permission to game…that thought really scares me.
But really, WHY?...as I mentioned a long time ago, my father was pushing us that we need “Purpose” in our lives…”A purpose that can only be had by having children”…now I get the whole “biological clock” argument, but in the end, the only reason we can formulate to have a kid is to prove that we can raise a kid that doesn’t turn out to be an uncontrollable monster (like half (15) of my cousins’ kids) or an unthinking robot (like the other half(12)). In my opinion the world has become a place that is so focused on “saving our children” that there is no room for a child to grow into anything resembling a human being…at least we grew up knowing that there were monsters in the world….as well as heroes, and depending on what we did, we could be either or neither…that choice doesn’t exist anymore. Now you have the kids who think they are invincible and will get a million dollar a year job and marry Ms America because that’s who they will be….and the kids who think the world is out to get them and will never leave mom’s side.
Ok, there may be a benefit to each…but tons of down sides. Mr Optimist…(I am working with a kid like this now) he plans on dropping out of high school, getting an apartment, and getting a job working for Geek Squad for $21k a year(including overtime….he figures he’ll be a millionaire in 7 years and retire. I showed him ALL of the math…he says I don’t understand(um…$21k X 7 = 147k not counting taxes, food, rent what’s to not understand? And Geek Squad doesn’t take dropouts)….now, I would normally say “he’ll change his mind, and never go through with it” but he has already hired an Emancipation lawyer…The Pessimists of the group will go through life trusting no one, never leave mom’s side, and we will have an entire generation of 40yr old virgins (I know 8 who fit into this category because it’s what mom wants).
I look back at my age group(20-30), we were raised being told how special we are, we can be anything when we grow up, don’t talk to strangers, be the bigger person, and there are people who are going to succeed and people who will fail…I was recently told that my wife and I are in a position where we are better off than 90% of my generation. We have some money in the bank, a new house and a new car….and jobs that don’t have too high of a risk of layoffs…now we still feel that money is tight, a lot of what we threw into equity has dissolved but we aren’t about to foreclose….then I look at the people around me, many are fearful of losing everything…I even heard someone say “if I lose my job my wife said she has no reason to stay with me” (this couple also has separate bank accounts due to trust issues despite being married for 20-some years) that made me almost feel guilty for having a trusting/loving wife who will, and has, stuck with me through the worst…but guilt can easily be replaced with pride. I had mentioned to another co worker that my wife was going to a bachelorette(sp?) party in the near future…his response was that I had better insist that I go along with her to make sure she doesn’t cheat on me…the thought had never entered my mind…he’s insisting that if I don’t keep a short leash she’ll leave me for the first boy-toy that comes along…now I’m no looker (and I have put on a ton of weight since we met) but my only worry was “how am I going to fall asleep in an empty bed that weekend?” it made me feel bad that everyone’s first thought is that she’ll leave me the first chance she gets, because that’s what they think of younger couples….well, we may have got engaged after only 2 months, but we were engaged for 6 years, living together for 5 of the 6, and have been married for over 2 years…I have never suspected her, I have never questioned her, I trust her….is that such a rare thing in the modern world the I would be questioned about it? But its not just me, she has no problem when I game with other women, when I have other women on my friends list, or when I talk with the women I work with. She knows I’m helplessly in love with her, and she trusts me….but still, if I do something she doesn’t like or she does something I don’t like, we will be sure to talk about it…reach an understanding, and move on…..its not a fight, there is rarely any yelling…(unless out of frustration) it’s just us.
The more I think about it, the more I understand why I was told we are better off than the rest of our generation….I guess happiness is a rare thing…every time you turn on the TV someone is screaming about not trusting anyone, there are criminals everywhere, and even the little old lady down the street is trying to con you out of everything you have…not to mention entire shows devoted to showing off the people who have caught their significant other cheating with another man/woman…or both (eww…trannies…another bad image) …it breeds suspicion, it leeks into your mind and tries to corrupt you…but look at gamers….the plots of our games still embody the search for true love, fighting through armies of monsters just to hold your loved one again….nowhere in those stories do you later find out that your true love was leaving you for their long lost transsexual fraternal twin and your brother in a kinky 4-some with a midget. (watch day-time TV for an hour, you’re guaranteed to see 3 of these cases)
Wow that was a long one…and was all over the place….I’ll stop here before I have to start dividing it up into chapters.
Auto out-
Comments
Submitted by J-Cat on Tue, 02/03/2009 - 17:08
Submitted by ATC_1982 on Tue, 02/03/2009 - 09:01
Submitted by char on Tue, 02/03/2009 - 09:16