Lately I’ve been thinking about the importance of cultivating one’s pleasures. I think it’s important to find and participate in activities and hobbies that produce joy. Life is difficult, after all, and fraught with disappointments and tragedies great and small. I believe that one antidote is to pursue fun for fun’s sake—in moderation, of course. Which is all to say that
WE GOT A Wii AND GUITAR HERO!!!
Last week we happened into a small little bundle of money in the form of a somewhat unexpected bonus from S’s employer. After socking most of it away into savings, we quickly decided to spend the rest on a mini-splurge and get ourselves that coveted Holy Grail of video-game systems, the Wii.
“But M,” you say. “You are so not a video-game person! You roll your eyes and flee the scene when S and his brother get together twice yearly and trash-talk their way through ‘Madden NFL’ for hours on end. You dislike violence and have no desire to pretend to shoot anything or carjack anyone. Plus, you’re 32 years old, woman! The hell’s going on here?”
Well. As you may or may not know, the Wii is not your average video-game system. The controllers are wireless and require all sorts of physical movement and exertion to maneuver. And the games! The system comes with Wii Sports, which is a little collection of five games: Bowling, Tennis, Golf, Baseball, and Boxing. They’re more like virtual-reality experiences than video games in that you’re swinging your arms madly about to mimic serving a tennis ball or releasing a bowling ball down an alley. S and I have been playing so much bowling and tennis, our right arms are both strained and sore from our wrists to our shoulder blades. This is not Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, people. This is creating a little “Mii” avatar who looks just like you, from your hairstyle to the shape of your mouth, and taking her to the tennis court and the bowling alley and the baseball diamond. This is flailing around your living room like a spaz trying to match your husband strike for strike in the virtual bowling alley. This is pleasure, and I’m cultivating it.
…and then there’s Guitar Hero. Oh, my. I first fell in lust with GH when I played it for the first time at a friend’s house about three months ago. After becoming so engrossed in playing along to the bass line of an excellent, excellent Toadies song that I pretty much forgot that Maya was in the room (don’t worry! She was being supervised by three other responsible adults!), I became utterly hooked. I’ve been pining for my very own GH ever since. And now…and now…I have one!
Here’s what makes GH so fabulously wonderful: It’s supremely fun to pretend to be a guitar player in a rock band. It’s highly entertaining to sling a guitar over one’s shoulder and rock out to bunches of classic, sometimes cheesey songs that everyone knows and loves. Best of all, it’s challenging! It requires loads of concentration and hand-eye coordination to press the right chord buttons with the right fingers at the right times. It’s a skill that is developed with practice, and it is intoxicatingly satisfying to see yourself improve.
WE GOT A Wii AND GUITAR HERO!!!
Last week we happened into a small little bundle of money in the form of a somewhat unexpected bonus from S’s employer. After socking most of it away into savings, we quickly decided to spend the rest on a mini-splurge and get ourselves that coveted Holy Grail of video-game systems, the Wii.
“But M,” you say. “You are so not a video-game person! You roll your eyes and flee the scene when S and his brother get together twice yearly and trash-talk their way through ‘Madden NFL’ for hours on end. You dislike violence and have no desire to pretend to shoot anything or carjack anyone. Plus, you’re 32 years old, woman! The hell’s going on here?”
Well. As you may or may not know, the Wii is not your average video-game system. The controllers are wireless and require all sorts of physical movement and exertion to maneuver. And the games! The system comes with Wii Sports, which is a little collection of five games: Bowling, Tennis, Golf, Baseball, and Boxing. They’re more like virtual-reality experiences than video games in that you’re swinging your arms madly about to mimic serving a tennis ball or releasing a bowling ball down an alley. S and I have been playing so much bowling and tennis, our right arms are both strained and sore from our wrists to our shoulder blades. This is not Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, people. This is creating a little “Mii” avatar who looks just like you, from your hairstyle to the shape of your mouth, and taking her to the tennis court and the bowling alley and the baseball diamond. This is flailing around your living room like a spaz trying to match your husband strike for strike in the virtual bowling alley. This is pleasure, and I’m cultivating it.
…and then there’s Guitar Hero. Oh, my. I first fell in lust with GH when I played it for the first time at a friend’s house about three months ago. After becoming so engrossed in playing along to the bass line of an excellent, excellent Toadies song that I pretty much forgot that Maya was in the room (don’t worry! She was being supervised by three other responsible adults!), I became utterly hooked. I’ve been pining for my very own GH ever since. And now…and now…I have one!
Here’s what makes GH so fabulously wonderful: It’s supremely fun to pretend to be a guitar player in a rock band. It’s highly entertaining to sling a guitar over one’s shoulder and rock out to bunches of classic, sometimes cheesey songs that everyone knows and loves. Best of all, it’s challenging! It requires loads of concentration and hand-eye coordination to press the right chord buttons with the right fingers at the right times. It’s a skill that is developed with practice, and it is intoxicatingly satisfying to see yourself improve.
The downside to all of this pleasure cultivation is that, right now, the Wii and Guitar Hero are both so novel that S and I are spending way too much time with them and not enough time on our usual evening chores. As a result, we’ve got a sink full of dirty dishes and a kitchen floor that desperately needs mopping. I feel confident, though, that once the initial buzz wears off (by the end of this week, I predict), we’ll reduce our Wii and GH playing to a couple of times per week, as a fun and more lively alternative to TV-watching. (That’s the plan, anyway. Wish us luck!)
