How Minecraft has crafted our minds
Her small, five year old body is perched precariously at the edge of a white bookshelf. She crosses her arms and lets her heels lean back till her toes are at a 45 degree angle. The rest of her follows and she's falling.
The soft, entrancing notes of the Minecraft theme song are playing in the background; it's a happy-go-lucky, get-lost-in-time sort of tune, inducing a sense of lukewarm bathing that is neither exciting or dull. It just makes you semi-satisfied and you feel you don't need to go any further in life. This is all you'll ever need. Despite my beliefs that the Minecraft theme song is a conspiracy to make people play a Sisyphean video game, that is not the reason that I am writing this post. Forgive my tangent.
But alas, it's not much of a tangent after all. For isn't this what our culture, the culture beneath the glamour, Superbowl commercials, and Oscar awards, demands of us? A sub-level of consciousness, lost to anything behind us and complacent to anything in front of us? People floating their lives away in a lukewarm bathtub and no one daring to turn on the cold water, no one wondering what it's like to pull the plug, or at least explore the wonder of making bubbles?
Everyone here, we're all sitting on the couch next to the bookshelf and no one is daring to climb up, stand up, tilt your head back and let the weight of your cranium pull you down.
Half an hour after the Minecraft music has ceased, it's still playing in my head, it entrances me and that's why I find it alarming. I'm coring an apple and distributing equal portions upon the three plastic plates that are lined up on the counter. I'm going through life and I'm trying to evade the bubble-wrapped culture, today's countermovement to the values espoused by Thomas Jefferson, the man who said, "Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude."
When did we lose the right mental attitude? The attitude that helped people live full lives, intertwine liberty with responsibility, and pursue the happiness that is sharpened by toil and independence?
Sometimes I wonder what life would be like had it been handed to me on a silver platter: all the money I needed to do whatever I wanted, all the comforts that could enable me to accomplish my dreams. But I've read Proverbs and The Wall Street Journal enough to know that the greatest worldly riches aren't satisfying, and if they are, it's because you worked hard to get there and you give back as much as you get. The really joyful people, they give back more than they get.
The soft, entrancing notes of the Minecraft theme song are playing in the background; it's a happy-go-lucky, get-lost-in-time sort of tune, inducing a sense of lukewarm bathing that is neither exciting or dull. It just makes you semi-satisfied and you feel you don't need to go any further in life. This is all you'll ever need. Despite my beliefs that the Minecraft theme song is a conspiracy to make people play a Sisyphean video game, that is not the reason that I am writing this post. Forgive my tangent.
But alas, it's not much of a tangent after all. For isn't this what our culture, the culture beneath the glamour, Superbowl commercials, and Oscar awards, demands of us? A sub-level of consciousness, lost to anything behind us and complacent to anything in front of us? People floating their lives away in a lukewarm bathtub and no one daring to turn on the cold water, no one wondering what it's like to pull the plug, or at least explore the wonder of making bubbles?
Everyone here, we're all sitting on the couch next to the bookshelf and no one is daring to climb up, stand up, tilt your head back and let the weight of your cranium pull you down.
Half an hour after the Minecraft music has ceased, it's still playing in my head, it entrances me and that's why I find it alarming. I'm coring an apple and distributing equal portions upon the three plastic plates that are lined up on the counter. I'm going through life and I'm trying to evade the bubble-wrapped culture, today's countermovement to the values espoused by Thomas Jefferson, the man who said, "Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude."
When did we lose the right mental attitude? The attitude that helped people live full lives, intertwine liberty with responsibility, and pursue the happiness that is sharpened by toil and independence?
Sometimes I wonder what life would be like had it been handed to me on a silver platter: all the money I needed to do whatever I wanted, all the comforts that could enable me to accomplish my dreams. But I've read Proverbs and The Wall Street Journal enough to know that the greatest worldly riches aren't satisfying, and if they are, it's because you worked hard to get there and you give back as much as you get. The really joyful people, they give back more than they get.
"For I can testify that they gave not only what they could afford, but far more. And they did it of their own free will." -2 Corinthians 8:3
After we've eaten lunch, they want to watch a movie. I look out the window and spy the banks of snow, hesitant.
"Hmm, how about we go outside?" I suggest instead.
It's met with immediate acceptance. Movie is quickly forgotten, layers are pulled on, and the four of us are suddenly Michelin men in our insulated outfits. But this insulation is different from bubble-wrap, different from lukewarm bathing, because we throw ourselves into the snow: cold, pain, joy. Some snow creeps into my shirt, I yelp and quickly extract myself from the white stuff. Laughter follows.
This is living.
It's cold, yes, it's grey, yes, but is it's definitely not a laissez-faire atmosphere. The music playing here is unpredictable, spontaneous and you never know what's going to happen. One moment we're hopping around, another moment we're slipping on ice, and then the next we're sitting inside all rosy-cheeked, sipping hot tea and marveling over the crackle of ice when it meets boiling water.
I refuse to live content. Ever present in the moment and ever thankful for what I have? Yes. I will live that, but I will not be content to be merely surviving and surrounding myself with ambience music to drown out the noise of cymbals and impassioned cello.
Once again, she's on the edge of the bookshelf, and I'm right there, arms poised to catch her. We're doing trust falls, and I'm seeing my life displayed in a moment: falling, falling, and trusting, knowing that I'm going to be caught. It's a miraculous, marvelous, and dangerous Love. I tip my head back, count to three, and I'm all in.
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