Labyrinth

“He, who every morning plans the transactions of the day, and follows that plan, carries a thread that will guide him through a labyrinth of the most busy life.” ~Victor Hugo

I have often wondered the use of board games, puzzles, mazes, crossword, dolls, action figures, levels in video games, and others of that nature. Why were these particularly kinds of games and puzzles always in my life? For what reason was their presence?

Board games, puzzles, mazes, crossword puzzles, sudoku, dolls, action figures, levels in video games; these were all used to so I could pretend at thinking. They placed process (as in thought process) without the mind, external from the consciousness. The thinking process is already included in games, toys, puzzles, etc. because the material is already provided and mapped out. It has already been designed by someone else. I might as well have been a pigeon in a cage, pressing a button. Recognizing patterns doesn’t happen outside of the mind, it is a faculty of the mind; a mental ability.

Children’s toys, such as dolls, action figures, and miniature housework furniture, are not for the imagination (again, a faculty of the mind; a mental ability) they seem to be for role practice and conditioning. Action figures: listen to the name itself. An “action” “figure”? By this phrasing, it can be assumed that the action is built-in to the figure. It is not a figure of action, is it? No, an action figure. Here, the figure of action (which would be the imagination, say) doesn’t spontaneously happen through play or daydreaming, because the imagining (the advertised fun) comes already supplied. GI Joe, Star Wars, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Digimon, Pokemon, Spongebob; what the action figures do and how they look has already been seen! These toys are often based on movies, or tv shows, or comic books. What imagination is needed? Miniature housework furniture functions fine as role practice, for future role status. Look at the Kitchen sets, dish sets, power tool toys, dump trucks, battery-powered vehicles, these toys are tiny mimics of parents, are they not? What imagination is needed for such “toys”? Where is the imagination? And video games, talk about the epitome of arresting imagination! The sights and sounds of the virtual realm are nearly (if not better) than so-called reality. What does that do to a mind? The abilities learnt in video games, are not used for anything else. The mind learns, yes, but only through repetition. If the mind doesn’t comprehend what is happening, or what is occuring, can it really be learning? Wouldn’t that be more like learning to respond in a certain way for a certain reward and to avoid certain punishments? How is that truly learning? To learn would require imagination and thought process, deduction, conclusion, discovery, etc. What any of these faculties of mind occur in video games? Or even board games, puzzles, mazes, dolls, action figures, etc.? What real thought is involved? What kind of intuitive learning occurs? How could it, in a structured, finite environment?

However, if you can do one of those mazes that are all over the place (in restaurants, books you can buy from the shelf, entire books full of nothing but those mazes, online mazes, everywhere), if you can sit still for a time and trace out the direction from the start to the end, and you can do this successfully (mistakes make no difference), then you’ll sit in traffic in your car, for hours. You’ll wait in lines at stores, and almost all buildings, at baseball games, at concerts, at the school lunch line, at the microwave in the break room; you’ll do this with minimal complaint (because your complaint is merely the same thing as making a mistake in the maze). You’ll live in a city or a suburb, because it’s just like doing that maze. Except, you’ll never get a gold star for making it to the end.

“I do not wish to remove from my present prison to a prison a little larger. I wish to break all prisons.” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson