Bertram's Blog

I’ve been playing a hidden object game for a while now, and every time the game updates — about once a month — I think it’s time to find something else to do because every month, they add annoying effects. For example, a couple of months ago, they added an effect where when you clicked on the found object, it flashed a bright light. Yikes. That’s enough to give a person migraines, to exacerbate epileptic tendencies, to aggravate people with the beginnings of cataracts, as well as create a whole bunch of other problems. Apparently, enough of us complained, so that they removed it. All went okay for a couple of months, but now they brought it back. It’s not as much of a bright flashing light, but it’s still a quick flash of a light, which is just as bad. Even worse, it slows down the game, especially if you have to close your eyes every time you click on an object to keep from being hit with the flash.

From what I can tell, the game players are mostly middle aged and older, not a whole lot of young folks, though I imagine the people who write the code for the game are all young. (Or AI for all I know.) Still, we older folk don’t need flashing lights to hypnotize us into playing. We do better in a staid atmosphere, but apparently, that’s not fun for the developers. I also bet they’re trying to attract more younger people, but it doesn’t seem a good business model to upset the older folk before they attract the younger generations.

Usually I can get used to the changes, especially since I turn off the annoying sounds, but those flashing lights are a deal breaker. So I’m going to have to find an alternative to the game as a way of wasting my time. Reading used to do it, but I still haven’t been able to force myself back to the library. I simply do not want to read romances or mysteries or thrillers or pretty much anything written in the age of AI, so I read and reread the books I have — a couple of fantasy series. I did order another series that seemed like one I could read, which surprised me — both the ordering and the finding. Most of the books in that genre are written by writers I don’t like who use bizarre names with bizarre spellings that leave me totally confused, and I’m confused enough as it is. (Not really, but it sounded good.) So finding something I might like, something, moreover that I’d never read, is appealing.

I’m not only going to have to step away from the game, but the internet in general. For a time, I liked seeing that the United States was actually working to break the globalist hold over us, but now that the midterms are nearing, the part I’m interested in is being drowned out by the horrendous specter of a communist takeover from inside the country. Not that I think they could do anything permanently — the whole reason for the second amendment is to prevent that sort of thing — but it could be a sad and depressing time. Even if by chance those so-called socialists are voted out, which I don’t think they can be since the blue states simply arrange the votes so they get who they want, it’s still sad and depressing to think that so many United States citizens hate this country and want to rip it to shreds. And I simply don’t want to see that hatred anymore.

It seems as if I got way off track. Or maybe not. Maybe the game and the politics are simply two sides of the same issue — the young vs the old.

Today, while trying to play the game, I understood why so many young people have no use for us older people. They need the lights and sounds and constant changes while we prefer a quieter game. For us, time goes so fast, it seems as if the changes come in a constant flash, while for them, the time must drag between the changes. We also don’t need the changes — we’ve lived through so much that it’s a comfort to immerse ourselves in a slowly evolving game instead of one that changes rapidly. But for younger folk, it’s all new and exciting and a thrill to be able to constantly think of new ways to “improve” the game.

It’s the same with the greater world. For us older folk, at least those of us who are not imbued with a savior complex, we’ve experienced way more than the younger people, and prefer a slowly evolving political scene, not the rapid and rapacious one we have right now. But for them, it’s all new. They are caught up in the whole “change the world to suit me” mystique without ever realizing the damage they could be doing.

So my solution? (For me, that is. There is no solution for the idiocy of youth except time, and no hope for the older people who should know better than to root for communism.) It’s a matter of my trying to find something else to do to shut out the outside world. The problem with that is that I risk becoming too insular. So, I guess, I’ll just do what I always do but just be a bit more circumspect and a lot more protective of myself and my peace of mind.

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Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One