Dear Esther. I have lost track of how long I have been here, and how many visits I have made overall. Certainly, the landmarks are now so familiar to me that I have to remind myself to actually see the forms and shapes in front of me. I could stumble blind across these rocks, the edges of these precipices, without fear of missing my step and plummeting down to sea. Besides, I have always considered that if one is to fall, it is critical to keep one’s eyes firmly open.
That was an excerpt (actually, the opening line; scratch that, one of the opening lines) of an art game made back in 2008, and remade in 2012. You can see it here.
The premise of the game is that, first, it is not actually a game. It is some kind of interactive novel; a visual poem; nope, maybe some different kind of art altogether. I won't explain the mechanics or reviews here, there are already tons of that in the net, but what I will focus here is the story.
Have you ever meet a man; once a lover; once a husband; once having a beacon of his life, guiding his love, now all shattered? It was the base of all the monologues and walking done in the game. Shortly; a man who has lost his beloved, his wife. Beneath the surreal atmosphere and the cacophony of colors presented on the sky and deep in the caves of the island he traversed, is the mind of a man who is trying to cope with the grim fate the world has given to him, hiding in the forms of electrical diagrams and chemistry formulas painted with luminescent paint all over the island.
Nope; I can safely say I have never meet such a man; I have never met a widower in my life. But from what I have gathered in my experiences living in this world for 22 years, I can perceive that it must be a lot, a whole lot, to deal with. Many survives the pain; some cannot handle it, and decides to join their sweetheart as soon as possible to the afterlife. In the case of the game, this man took the latter. Esther was his beacon; and so he chose to climb the beacon of the island himself (in this case, the aerial) and join her in the bath of light. No more empty guidance. No more lost ships. No more pain.
I won't ever judge his decision; this is a game that present his way of thinking, his battle with despair, his efforts to make sense of all the happenings in his life. And for that intentions, it was beautifully made.
And this game does pique my mind. It's not sudden realization; it's not a new idea. We must have done it more than once in our life. In fact, we always do it. Do what? Trying to make sense of our life.
We born. We are taught to walk. To speak. Then, to the environment around us. We are sent to educational institutions. We make friends. We create links. We find what we loved to do, we find our interest. Within the frame of available courses of formal education. Then we graduate. We search for jobs, we search for soulmate. We find both. We settle in. We have children. We rose up to the ladder of our occupation. We nurture our children. We sent them to schools. We guide them to choose their way in life. We then see our children graduate, marry, then having a job. We resign our job. We play with our grandchildren. We live a peaceful retired life. We die.
That's the life of idealized Average Joe or Jane; one that is pursued by many of the middle class individuals.
Then the cliche comes in. It's not that easy.
Some will never have a chance to get formal education; some will have to help their parents' business or jobs all their lives. Some will find their interest outside the frame of formal education; some struggle for acknowledgement of their disregarded talent. Some will find their neighborhood or family circle disagree with choice of their love; some hit the unflattering boundary of religion, culture, race, or group. Some become the very agent of hatred in that subjects. Some will find their progress always hindered by their jealous seniors; some will find their own ideas ridiculed by the proper. Some will be stuck doing something they don't like all their life for the sake of their family; some will have to witness their family crumbles.
And as if the preliminary conditions are not enough to twist the ideal, fate comes up with a basket of bad lucks.
For example, an automobile accident in a bright, clear day which took from us our beloved's life.
At which point, one can not avoid to stop and think: what is the meaning of all this?
What is actually our life's worth?
Why all that happens, have to happen?
Why do we live?
Why?
Then we begin to try to make sense. Some find their answers in religion. Some finds no answers in science and became nihilists. Some dedicate all their thoughts and life for some other ideas. But the fact remains: that we need some reassurance that all of our struggles, all of our decisions and actions in our life means something in the end. And if we think further about it, the idealized life of the Average Joe above is actually void of meaning. At least for me.
For Esther's husband, his conclusion is that the reassurance is no more. It's that simple.
For many choices we have made in our life, then, I ask you not to doubt your resolution, if you already have any; but to always wary about what the world might still have for you behind her sleeves.
This game actually has no real conclusion; no lesson underneath. One just have to let himself feel the heart of the protagonist and let himself thinking in the protagonist's mind. And then, make his/her own conclusion. That's the part that I find neatly done, and one that you will hardly find in any other entertainment software out there today.
Out there, for each and every man walking through their lives, they do that for a reason. Some just have to adjust their bizarre fate with equally bizarre actions; such as that you will find uncommon in everyday facade of life. And at the end of the day, you will question their choices; some will dismiss even the early attempt to understand; and just state that they are delirious, lunatic, ignorant. But who is the ignorant one?
And finally, my conclusion for this game all comes down as just another call to understand; a plea to dismiss ignorance; an invitation to ever question our paradigms, to never rest trying to reach out others' way of thinking, to stubbornly reject our own tendency to label others easily.
To never cease to try to understand.
This world is bigger than an Hebridean island, anyway.
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