Life, Death, and Videogames
(because what other things matter, right?)
The past month has been probably the most stressful of my career.
At work last spring, I got promoted into a small but important development team. In the confluence of events that followed in the last 3 months, the 4-person team included a guy who left the company, a guy who died of a sudden and rare illness, a guy who went on a 5 week leave of absence, and me.
It has been really jarring, going from most junior to most senior member of a team in such a short time. We have some interns and fresh blood to help handle the workload, but it's still really stressful. Dad always liked to quote the book The House of God, "Show me a student that only triples my work, and I will kiss their feet." To be fair, our students are learning quickly and I am happy to have them around, but I still feel like none of my own work is progressing at a pace I would like.
Also this concept of death is unlike anything I have experienced. It's always been a somewhat-expected thing from an aging relative. A sad experience, to be sure, but the co-worker who died was about my age, and that's been... disturbing. Humans are resilient, and I rarely feel great stress or anxiety at the news that someone young is going to the hospital, because, well, modern medicine is pretty good, right? They'll make it through, right?
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There are a couple sources I use for videogame recommendations, and one of them mentioned "What Remains of Edith Finch". To make a long story short, it's been exactly what I needed.
The game has been described as a "walking simulator", which is sort of a pejorative term for a game that involves walking through an environment but not really being actively challenged in the process. There are no people shooting at you, the puzzles (if any) are pretty straightforward, and it's mostly about being immersed in a (hopefully interesting) story.
And yeah, it has been interesting. Let me sum up. You play as Edith Finch, a 17-year-old girl who is returning to the house she grew up in, as the only living relative after a 6 year absence. Over the course of the ~3 hour game, you learn that her mom believed the family to be "cursed" (and you were pulled away from the house at age 11 because your mother thought your life was in danger), but the great-grandmother had a strong need to memorialize the death of a relative. Instead of boxing away all the possessions of a dearly departed relative, she would preserve their room as a "museum" of sorts, and add new rooms to the house to support a new addition to the family.
Over the course of the game you explore this museum of rooms. In each room is a journal of some sort, where in addition to reading some of the last words of each family member, you jump in, Myst-like, and have a first-person experience of some of the events prior to their end. You'd think this would be morbid, but it's actually really fascinating. The game does a great job of highlighting the good parts of a person's life, even though you know what is coming. Each story has a very different flavor to it. The atmospheric storytelling carries the story very effectively.
At the end of the day, the lesson is sort of about the nature of what a funeral is. It brings us all together for mourning, but that's not the point. The point is the love and respect that we have (and share) about our lost ones. The point is that part where everyone takes turns standing up in the front to say a few good words. The point is the positive impression we leave on the lives of those all around us.
The past month has been probably the most stressful of my career.
At work last spring, I got promoted into a small but important development team. In the confluence of events that followed in the last 3 months, the 4-person team included a guy who left the company, a guy who died of a sudden and rare illness, a guy who went on a 5 week leave of absence, and me.
It has been really jarring, going from most junior to most senior member of a team in such a short time. We have some interns and fresh blood to help handle the workload, but it's still really stressful. Dad always liked to quote the book The House of God, "Show me a student that only triples my work, and I will kiss their feet." To be fair, our students are learning quickly and I am happy to have them around, but I still feel like none of my own work is progressing at a pace I would like.
Also this concept of death is unlike anything I have experienced. It's always been a somewhat-expected thing from an aging relative. A sad experience, to be sure, but the co-worker who died was about my age, and that's been... disturbing. Humans are resilient, and I rarely feel great stress or anxiety at the news that someone young is going to the hospital, because, well, modern medicine is pretty good, right? They'll make it through, right?
---
There are a couple sources I use for videogame recommendations, and one of them mentioned "What Remains of Edith Finch". To make a long story short, it's been exactly what I needed.
The game has been described as a "walking simulator", which is sort of a pejorative term for a game that involves walking through an environment but not really being actively challenged in the process. There are no people shooting at you, the puzzles (if any) are pretty straightforward, and it's mostly about being immersed in a (hopefully interesting) story.
And yeah, it has been interesting. Let me sum up. You play as Edith Finch, a 17-year-old girl who is returning to the house she grew up in, as the only living relative after a 6 year absence. Over the course of the ~3 hour game, you learn that her mom believed the family to be "cursed" (and you were pulled away from the house at age 11 because your mother thought your life was in danger), but the great-grandmother had a strong need to memorialize the death of a relative. Instead of boxing away all the possessions of a dearly departed relative, she would preserve their room as a "museum" of sorts, and add new rooms to the house to support a new addition to the family.
Over the course of the game you explore this museum of rooms. In each room is a journal of some sort, where in addition to reading some of the last words of each family member, you jump in, Myst-like, and have a first-person experience of some of the events prior to their end. You'd think this would be morbid, but it's actually really fascinating. The game does a great job of highlighting the good parts of a person's life, even though you know what is coming. Each story has a very different flavor to it. The atmospheric storytelling carries the story very effectively.
At the end of the day, the lesson is sort of about the nature of what a funeral is. It brings us all together for mourning, but that's not the point. The point is the love and respect that we have (and share) about our lost ones. The point is that part where everyone takes turns standing up in the front to say a few good words. The point is the positive impression we leave on the lives of those all around us.