Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 recently came out, and to be frank, I’m as happy as your girlfriend was at the premiere of Twilight: New Moon.
While much of the joy over the arrival of this video game stems from how it will provide me with a medium to finally satiate my long festering, almost innate desire to give terrorists new holes to breath out of with a Barrett M170 .50 Caliber sniper rifle, there’s something else that has me more excited than an underclassmen with new photo tags on Facebook. See, what I’m really after in this game is the chance for a great distraction.
I know that I’m going to keep coming back even after I’ve eaten so many bullets the doctors are worried about lead poisoning because for every second I’m playing catch with grenades, I don’t have to be Ben Gloger. Every second spent dodging bullets and tripwires in the desert is another second I don’t have to spend fighting to stay awake during class–a much more daunting task.
It would be trite to say I simply like video games because they give me the ability to play professional football, serve my country abroad or eliminate an alien-race hell bent on the eradication of mankind. Everyone knows that video games provide an escape from the monotony of everyday life.
What I’m getting at is that you need to find your very own version of Duty in life and hold onto it (I’d also like to take this time and note that I’m the first columnist to say the word duty, twice.) It’s important that anyone, doing anything, finds the back alleys and hidden Harry Potter doorways that offer an escape from his or her daily routine. Even in the most mundane of tasks there is an opportunity, no matter how brief, to step through the closet door and find yourself in a personal Narnia. I know from experience that mine has multiple monkeys in suits serving endless virgin Piña Coladas.
This column is the endorsement of the distraction, the daydream or the doodle that takes up so little of your time yet seems so important at that moment, more important than the notes you just forgot to take because these things get us through the day.
Yet, I think distraction is the wrong word to describe what I’m getting at. Life really is a sinusoidal function, its high points are only matched by its low points. And since all of us–save Brett Favre or whoever is currently dating Meagan Fox–are going to have more lows than highs in our life, it’s important we always find the good in the negative, the hidden cookie in a box once thought to be empty, or that gem of a song by an otherwise annoying starlet (this is my second official endorsement of “Party In the USA,” and I couldn’t be prouder to admit it).
Recently, I realized how important this was when my beloved Phillies lost the World Series to a team that shall not, nor ever will be given the privilege to be named in my column (you can’t buy me). While I had wished for this victory more than I ever will for world peace, I was thankful for the chance to even get upset about such a thing as losing the World Series in game six. I remembered how I had screamed louder than a girl at a JoBro concert when the Phillies did well, and how much fun the entire process had been for me and realized I had taken for granted these brief interludes, distractions if you will, that not only enriched my day-making it easier to handle that test I had forgotten to study for or that assignment I had never known existed–but it’s what made it hurt so much now to see the wrong jerseys jumping up for joy.
Within everything, including that embarrassing weekend that you want to forget or maybe already do, there are still times that we should take solace in, times that even in their squirminess are still times well spent. Like a moustache that’s overstayed its welcome or a half-shaved eyebrow, these reminders, while at first make us cringe, are also evidence that we are taking each day at a time and simply living.
Next time you moan and groan about that homework assignment, get accepted at that college or rejected, eat 12 Twinkies when you’re trying to diet or take a nap when you know there is still so much to be done, I hope you take a step back and try to find comfort in it all, even the bad, by ignoring the big picture and focusing on what really gets us through the day: the brief escape spent as a swash buckling pirate or a daring astronaut aboard the International Space Station in a day dream. Hard work pays off in the end buts these things that make such work possible. If sometimes two plus two has just got to equal fish for you to get by, then take care and invest in a snorkel. So even when you’ve got your trigger finger jammed down in your trusty M16 and there’s bombs exploding in the background, please, don’t forget to stop and smell the roses; they’re really beautiful this time of year.
