Assassin's Screed

I'm a gamer. Ever since my cousins introduced me to the magnificence of that heart-pounding game known as Pong in 1974, I've been hooked. We'd sit for hours watching that slow-moving white dot float methodically from one side to the other across that black screen. Too young for pinball, I grew up as part of the Arcade Generation---those noisy hangouts with coin operated masterpieces that transported millions of us into the world of killer space insects while playing Galaga, or bouncing on cubes escaping coiled snakes in Q*bert. And then came Ms. Pac-Man---the baddest bitch in the room. She was the original cash money ho', what with all the currency she took from me and all the angry faces when my crew and I would walk into that arcade in the mall and run my hands on the top of the machine to find that sweet-spot:  the reset button. (I often popped that lever and watched the other boys' faces melt as the game went dark only to power it back on with their high scores completely obliterated. Such fun).  But my favorite game, however, was Gyruss.  I discovered Gyruss in the back of the Busy Bee convenience store across the street from my alma mater, Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte, NC.  My friend Terence and I would play that game for days on end.  It had a left-handed dial joystick and you had to battle your way through spaceships and space mines in order to reach the different planets in our solar system.  Starting with Neptune, you blasted invaders to the beat of a suped-up version of Bach's Toccata und Fuge in D Minor, a sure precursor to the techno mixes of 20 years later. Many players of Gyruss, then and now, suspect it is impossible to actually reach Earth. Yet it is possible, and occurs at level 25.  My high score of 979,250 remained unbeaten until a kid with a fifty-cent Tropical Fantasy fruit punch hit the reset button; it erased my high score forever.

The arrival of the PlayStation brought home gaming RPGs (role playing games) to the masses.  I played Final Fantasy VII until the timer stopped after 99 hours.  I think my ex still wakes up with cold sweats from the constant, jarring, and unchanging fight music plunging like an ice pick through his brain. I was so emotionally connected to that game that when Sephiroth killed my beloved Aerith I actually mourned her death. I still remember the shock I felt watching him impale her. Now that I'm a grandpa of video gaming I choose games for substance and complexity rather than loud volume.  I like to play RPGs that carry some meaning for me. I choose them like a sommelier looks for a fine wine. Infamous 1 & 2, Batman: Arkham Asylum and Batman: Arkham City, Mass Effect 1-3 and Assassin's Creed.

So, allow me to draw an allegorical point between real life and video games.  Amidst killing the baddies and puzzle-solving in the game Assassin's Creed, you have the opportunity to climb to the top of large towers during different points in the game. Climbing these towers gives you a tactical advantage as you can see across massive swaths of digital landscape. It also gives you an opportunity to blindly jump into what the game calls a "Leap of Faith"; from improbable heights onto impossibly small haystacks. Recently, a close cousin (who is like a sister to me) came to me with great concern. She deeply hated her job and wanted to change her career. I told her sometimes in life you have to take a leap of faith. Sometimes you just have to walk up to your fear. Climb to the very peak of it. And jump. 

As human beings we are conditioned to stay in our comfort zone, even if that zone is filled with dissatisfaction and dysfunction.  From childhood we're programmed to soldier on with stiff upper lips and our heads held high even though unhappiness and petulance tend to abound in this oasis of such misery. It's the enemy we know. Why strike out in the feral darkness of the unknown when you can hang out in the light of shame, guilt and anger that you experience everyday. At least in the light, you know the hurt you're going to get. You'd say, "I can anticipate the anger at working a dead end job. I can anticipate the fussy lover, the bitter mother, the adolescent acting father, the stupid boss." All of these things culminate to assault us with wretched intentions. Since we've surrendered so long ago we often allow the foot soldiers of despair march over us. With their familiar boots and recognizable gazes we allow these feelings of fatalism to stomp our souls as if this doom is part of our nature. Why change? If you transition out of this zone, who's to say it won't be worse?  You probably sit there and enumerate everything that is wrong with your present life and how each step of the way could be worse than the last. Murphy's Law is your mantra. Repeated with deference like a prayer each day of your life. But what if your salvation is through a thicket filled with something that scares you? What if the fear you fear the most is the fear you need to move forward? What if you accept the fact that life will be hard. That there will be grief and pain. And that it isn't fair. That the truth is ugly and grim and--once faced head on--far less powerful and penetrating than we thought it would be. What if we climb that tower and just jump?  Down into the depths of it...Our unrelenting fear. 

So when my cousin came to me with her fears I told her that sometimes you have to take a leap of faith. A leap off that tower of pain and just hope that something, anything will be there to provide you a soft landing. Oftentimes facing that fear is the leap of faith. As soon as my cousin put in her notice within an hour another opportunity came her way:  a phone call offering her the start of the career she wanted with a salary twice as much as she was making.  Now, sometimes things don't come so quickly. But through it all you must remember that feeling of unrequited joy and fearlessness of your childhood gamer and jump. 

My cousin jumped. And she is doing something she loves.  That, in and of itself, is the most valuable high score.