Rejoice!

The last time all y’all (see, I am becoming a Nova Scotian) came by to chat, I was lamenting the fact that I hadn’t been able to convert my two jedi in training over to the dark side completely.  While they loved video games, superheroes and general geekiness, I hadn’t been able to get them to try a sit down role-playing game with me.  That is no longer a bar to their conversion!

When my fantastic partner and I were in Fredericton to watch the amazing spoken word artist / storyteller / poet / shaman / inspiration Shayne Koyzcan (and that’s a whole other story – that man is awe inspiring) we stopped into a little store called The Geek Chic Boutique. Yeah, the name alone was enough to bring me in, and their selection was interesting enough that childlike squees fluttered about the store faster than I could contain them. We passed over the Star Wars t-shirts, the mad scientist kits, Minecraft figures, Pokemon plushies (which were adorable) and the assorted coffee mugs, Doctor Who equipment and Deadpool wallets, because we found a little game called Adventure Maximus. It was designed by a gamer who wanted to find a way to play with his kids too – to bring them into the fold as it were.  So I could relate, in a big way.

Reading over the rules when we got it open, I was a bit dubious at first, and the kids were confused when we started, but once they got rolling, we had a blast. The padawan gloried over the chance to become Kronk, a hulking minotaur thug with a bad attitude and a penchant for fried pork.  The youngling was pleased as punch to pretend to be a scaled dragonkin priest, breathing fire and smiting his enemies (and allies) with equal zeal.  Even their mother joined in, with her morose goblin warrior.

We’ve had a tonne of fun playing this streamlined and very easy to understand game.  It’s whimsical enough to appeal to the seven year old youngling, interesting enough to keep his ten year old brother entertained, and simple enough that you can play through a whole adventure in an hour or two.  They fight, they dance, they loot, they laugh.  And they let me be the Adventure Master.

Lead and They Might Follow

Until you have uttered the phrase “take that out of your mouth” one hundred times, until you have memorized (and hum in your sleep) the theme song from at least three children’s shows and until you realize you are watching Sponge Bob Squarepants with no children in the room, you will not really understand what I’m talking about here… I hope you read on anyway.

Being a father is the single most rewarding, demanding, painful, thankless, seemingly hopeless and awesome task I have ever undertaken.  My two little Jedi have consistently challenged me, driven me to new heights of frustration (“Stop hitting your brother with dirty underwear!!!”), enraged me to the point where “dad needs some alone time” (as noted by the Padawan last night, and reminded me of the awe that the world once inspired in me. I can’t remember being as excited as my boys are about the new discoveries they make, about the new things they learn – though I am sure I once was.  What I can remember, and it’s easy because it happens daily, is how excited I get watching them have fun, watching them become young men.  Those moments of sheer joy are when our ‘parental batteries’ recharge, oftentimes to overflowing – like Iron Man hit with Thor’s lightning.

Which brings me to my point – my boys are geeks.  They denied it last night when we were discussing it at the dinner table, but when asked to name blasters from Star Wars, they were able to identify several by model number, and held opinions on which one is best for which type of battle.  When questioned about Minecraft, they can go on for hours about the types of buildings they can make, how to use redstone and how to best defeat the deadly creepers. They let me join them in this geekery (though I earned my geek card decades ago) and I revel in the fact that they are so proud of it, and are so happy when I join in – the Youngling was telling all his classmates about how he and I joined together to “defeat an Enderman with only stone swords!” His classmates were suitably impressed.

Both continue to profess their desire to become engineers, the elder to build robots which he can use to take over the world and cleanse it of the humans causing all the problems (the dark side is strong in this one) and the younger to build cars and planes that fly and don’t cause pollution (which he admittedly copied from his brother) or maybe a doctor (possibly one that moonlights as an exotic dancer… yeah, he’s complicated).  We live in a time where their desires to be professional YouTubers (another stated goal for both of them) may actually be a career option. In each of them, their love of technology is helping to guide them on their respective paths.

Both are learning to love reading, with the Padawan leaning toward robots and science fiction graphic novels, and the Youngling digging deep into spooky ‘Goosebumps’ books and stories about haunted houses. I keep hoping they will share my passion for high fantasy, and while both love the Hobbit movies (to my chagrin – damn you Peter Jackson!!!) and the Harry Potter movies, neither is interested in the real treat that is a high fantasy novel… but I wait patiently for them.

When asked if he would like to play a roleplaying game with me last night, the Padawan declined – it didn’t sound like fun to him.  I was saddened a bit, the final indoctrination into my geek realm can’t happen until he rolls some polyhedral dice and knows the agony of the critical failure and the ecstasy of rolling a natural twenty.  I want to share that passion with him, but it seems I will have to wait a bit longer yet. 

Above all I’m glad that ‘geek’ no longer has negative connotations, or at least not as negative as they once were.  Where an interest or passion for computers, science fiction or fantasy used to be a one way ticket to social pariah status, it can now be a badge of honor.  And my Jedi in training are many kinds of geeks: video game geeks, technology geeks, superhero geeks, Nerf geeks, Roughrider football geeks, judo geeks and Star Wars geeks.  They are my geeks.

Where Will It Take Us?

A long time ago I suggested that we all Try Having a Little Fun Sometime, that we can all make something fun simply by making a game out of it – that you can take the ordinary and everyday tasks of your life, add a little zest, a dash of whimsy, a half an ounce of excitement and whammo!, you have a game again rather than a boring task to complete.

I acquired an iPhone a while ago, much to my personal glee.  I am officially an Apple fan, with five apple products in the house now – though I blame my father for at least three and maybe four of them, he’s a bad influence.  The iPhone is far more portable than my iPad, and I love that it is now my defacto camera for random shots, my phone, bus route checker and music player.  One of the apps that I grabbed, and one that I had been eagerly awaiting, is Zombies, Run!  This app is exactly what I was thinking of when I wrote that old post – a little bit of fun that encourages us to get out and do something sort of humdrum again.  The premise is pretty straightforward, you run while listening to your music, and it tells you a story as you do – a story which you are a part of as 'Runner Five'.  It’s a blast. I’ve had it for two days and have already put an extra 7.5 kms onto my sneakers.  Now that doesn’t seem like much at all to most runners, but for me those are huge numbers – I would have spent that hour and a half sitting on my butt watching movies and eating chips.  Instead I was out running (well, walking mostly, but at a fast pace, with occasional bursts of panicked speed) and enjoying it.  Maybe it was the thought of leveling up (which you do, sort of), maybe the thought of increasing the size of my virtual zombie free base, maybe just the idea that I was actually playing a zombie game.  But the why doesn’t really matter – the fact remains that I was out getting some great exercise in fresh air, and I was loving it.  And I hate running, always have.  But I had a blast two days in a row, and I am looking forward to my run tomorrow.

My enjoyment of this app, and by extension my iPhone, demonstrates something that I have been spending a lot of time thinking about lately – the role of technology in making our lives better.  I am not just talking about the fleeting enjoyment of life that games and the like can bring – though computer games are a blast.  I am talking about the way in which technology has improved the lives of millions of people (some more than others of course) through connecting people across vast distances.  The way that the blind can see (sure, its rudimentary now, but it won’t be long until we have visual prosthetics) though technology.  The way that the deaf can participate fully in a conversation with a group of people via an iPad app.  The way that we can communicate (often badly) in ways that we have never had access to before, and the way that we can connect with each other in ways that were unheard of a decade ago.

The internet has changed the way we relate to each other as people.  It brings out the worst in people sometimes, but it unites people in a way that nothing else ever has.  The success of some recent upheavals in the Middle East have been largely credited to the average citizen’s ability to communicate quickly and easily through things like Facebook and using smart phones.  The Occupy movement was (is?) largely possible due to its members ability to stay connected with each other.  The mis-steps (probably too light a word, but I am not here to rant about that today) of law enforcement officers is coming to light, and being proven, because of smart phone cameras.  If Google has its way (and it usually does) we’ll soon be able to let the cars do the driving, which will save millions of lives – 93% of all accidents are directly attributable to human error.  Medical technologies are moving faster than we can track them.  A NASA scientist has patented a carbon nanotube containing a tiny pharmacy with the capability to detect when and what is needed and administer the appropriate substance – all in a device no larger than a pencil lead whose insertion into the human body will be a ten minute procedure at your doctor’s office.  3D printers are already “printing” human organs, and the development of techno-organic materials the human body is capable of using without any chance of rejection is proceeding at an incredible pace.  This will one day eliminate the need for a donor for many (all?) organs for those who need this life saving surgery.

But none of that is why I came here tonight.  No, tonight I came here to tell you that the phrase “I shit my pants and run away” (a phrase my group of friends here in Halifax loves to remember for reasons which are too lengthy to go into here) has taken on a new meaning.  Tonight, running along a deserted stretch of Nova Scotia highway and playing Zombies, Run! I got a hell of a cardio work out.  Not directly because of the running, but rather on account of the game itself, and its collusion with Mother Nature.

As I crested a slight rise, the game cut in, with my guide yelling out “Damn, where did they come from?  I’ve never seen them move that fast, run, RUN!”.  At that exact moment, a deer jumped out of the brush at the side of the road.  I shit my pants and ran away.

I Remember When...

Once upon a time, a young boy moved to Medicine Hat, Alberta.  He knew no one, had no friends and was joining the class in the middle of the school year, a daunting task for any newcomer.  He’d grown accustomed to this, as he’d done it about six times by now, his step-father was prone to jumping jobs without any thought for the consequences on the family, and especially on his step-son, a chubby and intellectual kid that he never really understood – and I think secretly didn’t like all that much.

The boy meandered his way through the first few weeks of school, not making any friends, sticking to himself and reading alone for the most part.  He was old enough to start showing an interest in girls, but they were a mystery to him yet (he was only ten at the time) and the boys all wanted to play rougher games than he was really interested in.  His teachers liked him, he was quiet and attentive, without really causing any distractions in class (which of course counts for a lot at that age) and smart, but they could see he was very alone, and they did what they could to shield him from some of the inevitable bullying that chubby, smart and quiet kids suffered then, and still suffer today.

But one day, and very much out of the blue, everything changed.  The boy met a classmate, John, who saw the book he was reading (David Eddings’s Pawn of Prophecy if I recall correctly) and asked him if he liked “dragons and stuff.”  The quiet boy smiled and said that he loved them, and that The Hobbit was his favorite book (and remains so to this day).  That day, he made his first friend in this new school, and later that week, he was invited to John’s house to play a game John’s older brother had just received, a game called Dungeons & Dragons.  The moment he saw the cover, bright red with a roaring dragon being faced by a mighty warrior, he was hooked.  They spent a while making their characters (he made a dwarf, because back then, dwarf was a class, not just a race) and then spent the rest of that weekend living the lives of noble heroes, mighty wizards, skulking thieves and ancient races.  It was probably the best weekend of his life at that time.

When his mother found out what he’d been doing all weekend, her joy that her son had made a friend was replaced by concern about this game he’d been playing.  She’d seen a young Tom Hanks in a movie about Dungeons & Dragons and was concerned.  The movie portrayed the game as a brain washing exercise, and suggested that the players could be so caught in the fantasy of it that they would hurt themselves and others.  She called some friends who all told her that it was the devil’s game and that her son should never be allowed to play it.  She instantly forbade playing it.  The boy begged and pleaded with her, using the logic that his family knew would drive him to law school later in life, and finally she accepted a compromise.  She would come and watch a playing of the game and make up her own mind.  It was possibly the first and last time she would ever compromise with this son, and despite all that happened before and after, he would forever remember this one act of generosity on her part.

She visited John’s house later that week and spoke with both John’s parents and his older brother.  All assured her that there was no devil worship involved, and that it was not any sort of cult or brain washing experiment.  So they all sat down (John’s parents both joined in for the evening) and set out to conquer the Keep on the Borderlands.  Half way through the evening, the boy’s mother laughed and dusted the chip crumbs from her shirt front, loudly proclaiming that people could be very stupid about things they didn’t understand, and that D&D was certainly no more than a game.  She left that night chuckling to herself about dwarves and elves. That Christmas there were two cardboard boxes under the tree for the boy – both the shiny red Basic box that had caught his attention, and a brand new one, the bright blue Expert set, complete with The Isle of Dread adventure.

For decades, he’s played these games and dozens of others. For decades they have brought out the best in him, and sometimes the worst as well.  They taught him to act, and in that he found a passion for the stage.  They taught him to communicate in different ways, and in that he found friends and family near and far.  They taught him to examine situations from different angles, to look at things from a multitude of positions and in that he found a passion for the law and for critical thinking.  They have brought him friends and lovers.  They have helped him through dark times in his life, and brightened the good times even more.  They have had a hand in shaping him into the man he is today, and that is no mean feat for a collection of papers and oddly shaped dice.

When my sons come to me with things I don’t understand, or hobbies that I believe are ridiculous, I will hold on to the image of that young boy, and I will remember how he changed when he discovered there are worlds other than the one we walk through every day.  And I will listen to my sons, and I will not close my mind to their dreams and fantasies.  I will do my best to support them in their choices even if, perhaps especially if, I disagree with them.  Because dreams and fantasies make us who we hope to be.  They give us the flying carpets that the regular world denies us.  They let us imagine ourselves better than we are, and then, if we are lucky, the courage to make them a reality.