In the final days of 2011 - a year of trouble of turmoil - take a breath, stop, and allow David Attenborough to remind you just how wonderful our world is.
It turns out money can buy happiness after all, but most of us are doing it wrong.
Last Tuesday I watched a soldier meticulously search the school bags of 11 primary school children. For the kids, this is part of their daily routine and they waited with patience and good humour. The soldier and her partner were generally polite towards the school children. Once all the bags were checked and scanned, the children had passed through a metal detector, and their identification papers were checked, they were allowed to continue to their homes.
In Western culture death is often feared. The industry of denying the aging process and the proclivity of the baby boomer generation to 'spend the inheritance' and live like it's 1999 is using up the earth's resources at an alarming rate.
There is a new world, a gold rush of epic proportions. Millions of people from around our world are leaving their daily lives behind in search of fame, glory and treasure. Training is provided on arrival and no prior experience is needed, anyone can go and claim their stake in this new frontier. To enter this world we must remake ourselves to interact with the environment, form an avatar so that we can interact with this land. This personal incarnation is an opportunity to choose our gender, our race, and the skills for the professions we will have to contribute to this new world, the name by which we will be known.
I have been there, I have seen this new world, its rich rewards, it life threatening challenges. In this world I am known as Magertom. A Goblin Mage, I have journeyed the length and breadth of Azeroth, I have stepped through the portal across the Twisting Nether to Outland, I have thwarted the evil plans of the Arthas the Lichking in the frozen wastes of Northrend and now I struggle with 15 million other expatriates from our world against the worst cataclysm Azeroth has ever known.
Sounds exciting doesn’t it, like the script of a block buster movie or an idea for a hit new TV series or novel. It is more than any of these, it is virtually a new world, a new frontier, a game of epic proportions. But is it just a game? Jane McGonigal, Ph.D, the director of Game research and development at the institute for the future asks the question in her book Reality is Broken, what is it that inspires millions of people around the world to spend up to 20 hours a week over coming obstacles and challenges in a world that does not really exist and what might be possible if these same people were to apply the same engery to solving real world problems? What is it about this game that attracts such energy, activity and commitment?
Perhaps you are a gamer and want to join this conversation, or maybe you are concerned about a friend or a relative who has disappeared into virtual worlds. Maybe this is the first you have heard of this surging cultural phenomenon. Regardless, the question for us all remains how will we respond? Will we embrace, reject or ignore this new emerging culture?
Rev Will Nicholas is an avid gamer who enjoys both the emersion of MMOs and the epic win of a table top board game. If you want to know more about this emerging conversation you may contact him via the new Facebook group Uniting Gamers.
