Whether I can post this

[Evil Sadistic Bastard]

I want to submit a few essays I have writtten to a magazine for publication. Could I post them here and garner feedback?

[Kuja]

I guees I don't see why not...

[Mr Bean]

Hmmm




Hmmmm

Nope can't think of a reason why not

[Evil Sadistic Bastard]

THe first one comes tomorrow. I'm hoping for some constructive criticism. Thanks.

[Kuja]

*nods* I'll try to be as fair as possible.

[Mr Bean]

I will stain the ground red with your blood and the cries and laminations of your people shall be legnodary!

[Evil Sadistic Bastard]

“Fun is serious business.” Discuss.

I wonder if anybody still remembers their early childhood, where laughter was commonplace and stress non-existent, where entertainment could be derived from the simplest of things. If you are unable to recall such a time, I would forgive you. Times have changed, and the pursuit of recreation has become a form of stress in its own way.

“Fun is serious business.” That term is quite accurate in light of today’s forms of entertainment. No longer do we play “Police and Thieves” or “Catching” or even “Hide and Seek”. Indeed, because we have “outgrown” such things, we shop for clothes, we purchase apartments and maintain them for leisure, we purchase expensive components for home theatre systems (again for recreation) and, in one of the more ironic twists of fate we have generated for ourselves, we throw ourselves out of perfectly good airplanes (skydiving, which is quite a stressful activity in its own right) as a form of entertainment! All of these activities require much planning and expenditure of resources and energy, which makes for quite a serious enterprise, in my point of view.

I also highlight the phenomenon of such places as Toys’R’Us and the accretion of its outlets which have built up throughout shopping centers the world over. That by itself should be an indicator of how seriously the toy industry takes itself. No longer are they restricted to one store, even a large one. Now, they must metastasize all over the world in order to peddle products proficiently, lest sales suffer. And God forbid that should ever happen. A similar trend exists with most major toy companies, which seem to churn out a new product line every few weeks to milk more profit from the public.

Young and old have both been affected by the pandemic of “serious fun”. Adults, as mentioned earlier, are driven to buy and keep material goods because societal norms prohibit the more “childish” forms of entertainment, such as the aforementioned “Hide and Seek”. They devise ever more complex ways to keep themselves entertained, and further to the point, more efficient ways to get entertained. Being that most adults get a grand total of three weeks of vacation, it as logical (and quite practical) to want to make all these days count. But some people simply go too far in this fanatical zeal for “recreation”. Case in point: My mother, an aunt and I once went to China for a vacation. This would gave been a perfectly normal trip… except that our itinerary consisted of shuttling back and forth between famous landmark, none of which elicited any emotional response from me, save that of boredom. It could have been because I am violently opposed to simply looking at scenery (two thirds of every day of every year my life, I have been looking at scenery). But what I really disliked was the insistence of my aunt on rushing off to some new place right after we had reached the current destination. After about two days pf this, I was exhausted, and I was about to tell my mother, “I need a vacation from this vacation.” But I could not, because they were already on their way to the next landmark.

It is not just adults who are affected by this pandemic. The youth of today are as bad, if not even worse than adults. Most adults have work, so most of their time spent being serious is involved in work. Some children however, are crazed disciples of the computer, often spending up to fourteen hours at a stretch on their games. I have been guilty of such things in the past, and I can tell you in all honesty that once you begin playing, your awareness of the outside world ends. There is no hunger, thirst heat, cold or even air. There is only the screen, and the images it deigns to bestow upon you. It is like a waking dream, in that respect. I wish I could dedicate myself to my studies in a similar fashion, but until my textbooks start talking about guns, knives, robots and laser beams that will be impossible.

Speaking of computer games, there is also the phenomenon of the LAN (local area network) shops, or “cybercafes”, as they are also known. While the business of entertainment has always been around since the first circus, the LAN shop is unique in that it makes animals out of its patrons. I am a frequent visitor (not customer; I cannot afford to play there in such places, unlike some others who practically live in the place) to such shops, and the behavior there can reach levels of subhuman. I see eight-year olds tossing around obscenities even those so-called “Ah Bengs” do not use. When people are “killed” in their games (another sign of the times; to get on with our lives, we have to end somebody else’s) they stand up and start abusing their assailants’ parentage in very exact and colourful language. In some cases, this has even led to physical violence between two patrons. I believe one boy in our school was suspended for stabbing someone else with a knife. It is all well and good to play games, even violent ones; after all, when all’s said and done nobody’s gotten hurt, and everybody has at least something good to think about when they go home. But when people start acting out their games, then we have a problem.


At the risk of belaboring you about the head with quasi-relevant topics, I must also talk about trading card games. Ostensibly, they are “collector’s card games”. That is a gross misnomer. Most people collect these cards for their financial value in addition to their gameplay value; a Black Lotus (from Magic: The Gathering) can fetch up to US$400 in sale. Granted, cards like these are mostly out of print, but considering that the average booster pack costs $5, and that there will always be a rare (higher-value) card among them, this has spurred a thriving economy in cards, not unlike a business. Popular places for purveyors of such cards include the Orchard Emerald and Bishan MRT station, among others.

All of this makes me wonder; have we lost track of something? We have all these weird and wonderful ways of pleasuring ourselves, but are we really having fun? To paraphrase Maximus from Gladiator; Are we not entertained? That is a very difficult question to answer. On the one hand, we experience euphoria after we indulge in leisure activities. On the other, we know that this euphoria will fade soon. Pity us then, we foolish humans; too stupid to find the truth and too smart not to know it. We have built up and modernized an enhanced and rendered efficiency unto our entertainment, honing it to a zenith of perfection. But we have lost something very important, and that something is the true spirit of enjoying ourselves. We think we are enjoying ourselves. In reality we are slaves to our pleasures. How else can we explain the man who blows his life savings on a car, the woman who shops until bankrupt, the child whose conscious mind is occupied only by visions of computer games? It is sad. Truly sad.

Yet not all hope is lost. For every youth that is bound to his computer, for every car-freak that exists, many more are content with the simple pleasures of life. And that, I believe, is the true essence of fun. It does not require much in the way of physical props. A book, a friend, much fun and laughter can be had of these things. Fun is what you make of it and nothing can ever change that.

To end, I ask you a simple question. Who has more fun, the man who buys new things everyday and worries about his money running out, or the man who is surrounded by his family and friends, who can talk and laugh and joke with them, and wants for nothing? Think about it. Fun can be had from simple things, and we do not have to be childish to achieve that.

[Evil Sadistic Bastard]

I will stain the ground red with your blood and the cries and laminations of your people shall be legnodary!

[Spellcheck] laminations of your people shall be legnodary - What, the wrapping of my people shall resound throughout the ages? [/spellcheck]

[Evil Sadistic Bastard]

Bump bump bumpity bump

[Kuja]

HMMMM.

Thought-provoking.

[Evil Sadistic Bastard]

*Rams car into thread*

That should be a sufficiently big bump.

[Mr Bean]

Nope can't be bothered, needs a bigger bump before I pay attention

[Asdeed]

Just to play devil's advocate, but was the focus on the evil's of materialism or the simple joys of family?



((PS- I liked it, when's the next one?))

[Evil Sadistic Bastard]

Just to play devil's advocate, but was the focus on the evil's of materialism or the simple joys of family?



((PS- I liked it, when's the next one?))

I thought of it as a comment on society. Even if it was about evil materialism (major issue, though not the focus) or the joys of family (right at the end, used mostly as an example) I wanted to discuss how seriously we take our leisure time, to the point where we expended more effort on "leisure" than on work.

[Evil Sadistic Bastard]

Nope can't be bothered, needs a bigger bump before I pay attention

Ok, *crashes the whole air traffic of North America into the thread*

How do you like them apples?

[Mr Bean]

Sliced not fried ok ok I'll read it soon