yoursamlee

[yoursamlee]

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[yoursamlee]

“Virtual Reality”

Since I was very little, my mother always pushed me to be active she had told me “The outdoors are where you live life and inside is where you rest your body”. While I was younger I always thought “well of course mom, I love to play soccer so why wouldn’t I go outside?” well it turns out I would come to find out what she meant by those words later in life. As the rush of technology came while I was growing up I felt myself drawn inside more than outside using the internet and computer more so than going outside, and up to the point where I detested going outside. Life passed me by as I sat inside with the occasional stare outside to pinpoint the sources of commotion that occured.

I was in a dire place and so my mother took the chance for an intervention, taking away the computer that was so dear to me. The life that was instilled within that computer was taken away in the moment that my mother hid my computer out of reach. I felt my life crumble away and I thought I would never be able to enjoy life as I once did playing my Maplestory and Runescape. I did not know what to do, I was lost, I didn’t want to go outside because that is what my mother wanted me to do and I wanted to rebel. There was no way that I would listen to someone who ruined my life.

I sat; staring out the window for the duration of 2 weeks complaining to my mother at every chance to make her feel bad. My “friends” that I once had, they seemed so distant it felt like forever since I talked to them. I wondered if they even cared to know where I was all the time. I wanted to be happy and frolicking, but in the virtual world and that was impossible. My days seemed bleak and no amount of coercing seemed to help until one of my friends that I thought had forgotten about me, approached my house and rang the doorbell. Alex asked if I was home and if I wanted to play soccer with them. After staying away from the outside I was hesitant thinking it was out of pity but reluctantly I went with him. It couldn’t possibly make my day any more worse than it had been.

As I experienced the outdoors for the first time in a long time I realized that in no way could the outside world be replaced by fantasy. I felt a rush of excitement, my body was screaming for me to run. To feel the wind in my face not wind from a fan next to the computer but wind from the outdoors that blew all around my body. The real world is better; and I found out that I did not enjoy computer time as much as I enjoyed friend time. I found something about myself and this is what I believe. I believe that the internet is a not a place for me to live my life, that the real world cannot be replaced by something like technology; that “the outdoors are where (I) live my life and inside is where I rest my body”. That balance between these two things is key and while I enjoy the use of a computer it cannot be compared to the company of friends who enrich life and give me more meaningful memories than something in virtual reality.