Author: Steve D (---.splitrock.net)
Date: 08-11-2001 09:22
(I still who've made comments, so I'll get to them when I can. For now, though, I think Darren's raised the issue I feel is the most important.)
Darren says, that "I think that it can eventually cause more damage than it's worth when they cling so tightly to childhood, to geek culture, that they become socially retarded". And this is where we'll have to agree to disagree, most emphatically.
Sure, there is a cost. While I would never like to try and draw the line between socially damaged kook and wildly eccentric fan, there is, quite possibly, some risk of social damage in immersing yourself so totally in one hobby or idea.
But.
BUT BUT BUT BUT BUT.
Let's take that phrase he said again: "more damage than it's worth".
That's the key. Because what is it worth? What are we getting here?
Well, I said that - we're getting kids who don't kill themselves, or others.
Now, to me that's worth it. Because I'd rather have a socially retarded kid any day than a dead one. I've had friends die on me, and let me say, I'd rather have a goddamn million socially retarded kids, a whole army of them, reducing culture and civilisation to a stand-still - that's better, far, far better, than one single teenage suicide.
And you know why? Because you a socially retarded person has the potential to not be socially retarded one day. But a dead person can never be anything else but dead.
This is the choice I'm putting forward in this article, Darren. Risk a few instances of social retardation to reduce the number of people who stop living. Are you really sure that this price is too high, given that we're buying human lives with it?
And the truth is, the bullies already damaged my psyche so badly, there was nothing left for RPGs to do. I pretty much was made, and still am to some extent, socially retarded - but I'm OK with that. Because once again, I got my life in exchange. Every emotional wound and scar I bear says one thing very loudly - "I'm still here, dammit." They didn't get me. They didn't win. I survived. I chose to live.
And nothing - NOTHING - is more important than that. Better dork than dead any day. IMHO, of course.
Cheers,
Steve
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