The Greater Perception

The past few days have been and interesting calamity of people, places, things, ideas, and emotions. Shards of perceptions that like cosmic rays have already passed through you and disappeared before you know it, leaving only a residual feeling behind in their wake.

Most of the time life moves to quickly to give valued attention to what has already come and gone - preparations are to be made in dealing with future battles.

Originally I was thinking the various encounters were all pointing up to some grand battle in my head of the Status Quo v. Change, along with any number of other cliches I could type up, nice soft friendly easily ignorable cliches.

However after a few recent experiences that all shifted, and a greater perspective took hold. (a quick thanks to "Exell" for that one - doubt he'll ever read this but credit needs to go out for the unique conversation that took place on Ashenvale chat).

Not very often you get philosophy in an MMORPG that isn't quickly subverted by the mob and turned into "barren's chat" - - 'nuff said.

In the end though two things stuck:

the first: That our perception shapes our truth - it is not truth that shapes our perception
second: That the only way to receive greater truth is by gaining greater perception. This greater perception can and has been denied in the past by some thus preventing greater truth from being understood.

This most likely wouldn't have stuck so much if not for the illustration that happened shortly after.

I had to go to Stranglethorn Vale to pick up some items. Shortly before the ship left Rachet a lvl31 human mage boarded (due to my playing an undead character this made my lvl27 warlock a clear target on this PVP server) shortly after we arrived - but had not docked the mage cooked me quickly and left me for dead.

I rez'd at the graveyard and found the mage standing by the warfmaster and promptly gave a /rude to them.

(note: for those not familiar with World of Warcraft there are guards that will activate if you try to fight in town boundaries - they are usually quick, brutal and efficient in ending any one who is in combat within their jurisdiction)

So the mage feeling slighted (even after toasting me up on the ship) lit up for a nice hot fireball to show their superiority once again - and triggered three guards which promptly snuffed out their current cylon body :)

I saw them again shortly there after and /smile at them - they remembered their perception changing lesson and although I could feel my "spidey sense" tingling just before the mage refrained from lighting up another fireball for me.

Not even 20sec after that encounter a much higher lvl hunter sent his pet to eat me and jumped off the pier into the bay below. Just as before the guards ended the pet - and would have left him alone, had he not shot me with an arrow, thus triggering his fate to the guards in the warm tropical waters below.

This would not have been so interesting if he hadn't come back on top and tried the same /rude on me as I had done earlier - all I could do was laugh. I'm not sure what happened to him - as he made to jump for the ship back to Rachet and missed - then promptly died and rez'd at the grave yard.

Karma is funny that way - -

With so much going on around us at the moment, there are times when feeling despair due engulf me with the impotence to change the world around me that seems to lead me to a greater perception in the end. Even if it is only temporary enlightenment to help endure what is yet ahead, many times it is after the struggle that reflection truly allows for my perspective to change.

Cylon Life

Boomer: You know, Scar has probably died and been reborn a dozen times. You may have faced him before.

Starbuck: So what, Raiders reincarnate, just like you?

Boomer: Yeah. Just like me.

Starbuck: Great. What a frakking world.

Boomer: A Raider’s much like a trained animal, with basic consciousness and survival instinct. You know, but with the destruction of the Resurrection ship, when they die, they’re really dead. So, they’re not gonna mount mass attacks where they could have major casualties.

Starbuck:Raiders reincarnate.

Boomer: Makes sense, doesn’t it? It takes months for you to train a nugget into an effective Viper pilot. And then they get killed and then you lose your experience, their knowledge, their skill sets, it’s gone forever. So, so if you could bring them back and put them in a brand new body, wouldn’t you do it?

‘Cause death then becomes a learning experience.

Battlestar Galactica (2006) Season2 "Scar" Episode

I was talking with a friend about MMORPGs and most games in general when the reality that currently most games are 'Cylon' based. Think about it - you die and your skills and abilities are 'downloaded' into a new body. There is usually some penalty extracted, as death is not meant to be a comfortable experience, but it can be a learning one.


Unlike this temporal world in which we rest this reality in simulations and the virtual world has provided the ability to learn and a near exponential rate - barring that we learn from our mistaken death and bring those lessons to help us through the challenge at hand.


This does however raise a difficult question of how do we maintain some value to a life that cannot be destroyed? Does it even have value? Is it worth being saved?

Or is it something to be devalued because of its unique nature and survivability?

As our reality begins to become more mechanized and technically advanced how will you answer your new cylon overlord? And even more interesting how do you think the overlord will answer you?

So as we play and learn what lessons will be bring to our reality from our journeys to other lands?

FRAKK

Okay - who the FRAKK decided to split BSG v2.0 and v2.5 right in the middle of a TBC? (To Be Continued)

First to screw with the frakkin' balance of power and established characters, and then pull a mid-season finale type cliff hanger.

That is just dirty pool to do to an addict - -