An Adult in the Room

“You know that place between sleep and awake, that place where you still remember dreaming? That’s where I’ll always love you. That’s where I’ll be waiting.”
J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

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An Adult in the Room

I believe the origins of “think happy thoughts” are from the children’s play Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie. One wonder’s if it is the first play written to entertain children. I mean, a child should be seen but not heard. Why hear their laughter?

Game players, or I suppose “gamers”, are not the adults in the room. They still have a bit of kid in them at any age. The adults in the room are pressing for their career and re-organizing their shoe closet in tears at midnight.

Now and then an adult will show up on our raid, guild or dungeon. This is usually because they are forced into the role, they’d rather not call for civility or behavior. This brief adult might shut us up and shame us for five seconds. Hopefully they won’t lose their glee in taming that pet.

I love all the goofy stuff. We type “grats” for any achievement, the adult in us might thing that it is dumb — but happily we reject that and go for the good feelings. I’ll admit it right here, today; I have held learning that last point of an achievement in my bags until the next day when a lot more players are on!

We are playing a game, often with our own made-up rules. How great is that? Lets get serious about raiding (not a chance!). We have to win this next battle ground (not really).

My one caution: if you ever find yourself trying to translate the cost of an item by comparing it to the cost of tokens and “real life” money, reject it! No, I didn’t pay 300 dollars for a mount, I pay 15 dollars a month to play a game. Its about the price of one trip to the movies on the weekend.

Zero guilt, full time fun. No shame in playing World of Warcraft, however you choose to play.