Dance Against Materialism

Now that we’re back in the undisclosed location that is our actual home, I figured I’d write another entry.

We have a tradition when we visit my wife’s family for Christmas and summer break. This tradition involves my going into her brother’s room and playing his computer games so that I’ll never have to buy them. Sadly, he has decided to actualize his potentiality by getting his own apartment, taking his computer with him. Since it would have been morally wrong not to continue the tradition despite a minor obstacle, I decided to switch to the family’s Super Nintendo.

Since I have never owned my own Nintendo, the whole fine motor skill development thing posed a bit of a problem for me, such as in the “Jurassic Park” game, where I kept accidentally jumping into the dinosaur’s mouth. Happily, I discovered “Final Fantasy: Mystical Quest,” which was turn-based (rather than real time), so I didn’t have to be coordinated. My carefully formulated strategy was to sit there, click on the “A” button when the “battle” option showed up, then click on it again when the “hit” option showed up. Eventually, when I realized I was about to die, I’d just have my character return to town, where he could take a nap, and then wake up, miraculously good as new!

Now, I expected that by playing on an antediluvian game system, I would rediscover the simpler pleasures in life—I would be reminded that all you really need to be happy is a computer with an 8-bit microprocessor and CGA graphics, that there is a priceless childlike joy that can be satiated by something as simple as Super Mario Brothers 1. And 2. And 3. And Super Mario Kart. And Super Mario World. But what this game taught me that even after I had lowered my expectations for childlike happiness, I was still missing the excitement that ought to come simply with getting up in the morning. Now, I cannot count the number of times that I have gotten out of bed in the morning without doing a dance of joy. So imagine my surprise when, after my character goes to sleep after suffering some rather debilitating head injuries … he jumps out of the bed and starts to celebrate by dancing around! (I’m not making this up.) And this is not the only occasion for which he dances. For instance, when he is meeting a complete stranger who agrees to join him on his quest, he does his little dance again. Now, I cannot count the number of friends I have for whom I have never done a dance of joy over their befriending me. I bet you can’t either. What kind of world do we live in that encourages you to dance when you win the lottery but considers you insane to dance over a new friend?

The game is indeed aptly named: it is indeed a fantasy world, where people are satisfied with a good night’s sleep and with a new companion to help them slay the dangerous Minty-Minty. It is indeed a “mystical quest” because it seeks for something beyond the material world—beyond the materialistic world—for its gratification. The game reminds us that what matters in life is not possessions like a Nintendo Gamecube or Sega Genesis, but the people around us. What matters in life is not something to keep us entertained but something to put us to sleep, like a bed, or perhaps a blog entry. What matters most is that you invent a dance in my honor and compose canticles about how great I am. That’s what friendship—and the simpler pleasures of life—is all about.