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Library: life, fear, and bat

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Author: Ran
Date:Sep 26 1997

  Fear is fear or dangerous things (survival), but also fear of the unknown.
  Life is generally safer than when the instinct was developed.  A prehistoric
human would have to worry about his/her whole tribe being eaten, or being
frozen to death, and the like.  But today, it's rare that people's survival is
threatened.
  But fear still exists, it hasn't gone away.  Fear of death becomes fear of
bad feelings and bad emotions, fear of change, fear or society, and more.  
  So, a typical human will divide his life into "safety zones", things s/he
feels is safe, and "unsafe zones", things s/he fears.  In reality, this is a
fallacy, there is no "safe zone" and "unsafe zone".  But a "safe zone" is a
place they can feel at home, okay, confident, and generally good about
themselves.
  Among a hardcore player here, this place becomes their favored "safe zone",
not only the place they feel safest in, but also the place they feel most "at
home" in.  It begins to replace their life.  Something that happens here, like
a friend's betrayal, can often cause larger reprecussion to them then the same
thing happening in real life.  This place hasn't so much become their life,
but it is substituting for a lack thereof.  
  They don't quite know about this, they can't admit it themselves.  But, when
you look at the effects, that's what's happening.  A player breaks up with a
lover in real life, and it pushes him further into this game.  A player gets
betrayed by someone here and he's dragged in even deeper.  "I'm not spending
enough tiem here", he thinks.  I"I'm not.  I'm not good enough."
  Finally, when something is perpetually stupid, and the person doing it knows
so, but is too stupid to admit it to themselves, then it becomes
all-encompassing.
 Someone that thinks aliens have infiltrated the government and control key
citizens, and are trying to take over his life will see every little setback
as something "they" are responsible for.  When a reasonable person tries to
convince him he's got it all wrong, they become (in his mind) someone working
with the aliens.  Even though it may not be the real truth, or reality, it
becomes his truth and (for him) functions the same way.


Books