#321 / Indoor-Outdoor #3

I have never played a computer war game. I think I am correct, however, that these games, which can become a very compelling "reality" for those who do play them, have many of the characteristics of modern movies. I have seen a lot of movies, and lots of the movies I have seen, whether war-themed movies or not, routinely include scenes of extreme violence.

I have noticed something about violence as depicted in the movies (and I am assuming that the same thing is true for the computer war games that I haven't ever experienced personally). In almost every case, the "results" of the violent acts pictured, which seem to be strikingly "realistic," as depicted in the movies, are in fact absolutely at odds with the reality of what such violence would be like in the truly "real" world.

For instance, long fight sequences go on, sometimes for minutes, in which people are hit with bottles, shot with guns, kicked in the stomach, or strangled and beaten. And....they keep on fighting. In fact, they quite often seem to survive all that violence just fine. If you were to believe what you "see" in the movies, you would think that human bodies and human beings can bear much more than they really can. The consequences of the violent acts depicted are not accurately recorded. Quite the opposite.

To the degree that we don't get outside the images that we ourselves produce, these images become more "real" than reality itself. We experience the actual "reality" of our lives outside, in the world of Nature. That is the world that is "real" because it is the world that we do not create, and the world that presents itself to us as a precondition of our existence, and as an absolute. Every other "reality" is one we determine for ourselves. Our human-created world is within our power. The "realities" we create there are ones we visualize first, and then make real. Just like the movies.

If we don't have a continuing and genuine contact with the world of Nature, which is the origin and foundation of our lives, and the true "reality" upon which we ultimately depend, we may be misled about what will happen if we do certain things.

We could, for instance, deduce that war, and violence, will produce good results.

I don't think that has been well borne out in the real world!