I was browsing around, and happened to find a news-published "blog" from a person playing Worldof Warcraft online. he's a hardcore gamer... has been playing for quite a few years.
It caught my eye, because the guy has been playing for quite a while now... and is 30 years old, and has a 6 year old son, just like we do.
What I came to understand was that WoW was not necessarily an escape, but a surrogate for a community that is harder and harder to find in the real world. ..... the summer after I abandoned WoW, I learned much more subtle pleasures. I took a basic Spanish class. I purchased a book on drawing. I woke up at 5 a.m. and ran through Central Park. ...
It may not shock you to learn that by September of last year, I had returned to WoW. I missed the orcs, the swords and the small hamlets of make-believe. But more than that, I missed my guild, Gnomeland Security, a loose cross-section of military guys, history majors, high school students, writers and singers. They were the place where everyone knew my name -- even if they didn't.
....
But even getting past that, I still have one problem of my own, one that I still haven't solved. My son is six now, and no longer willing to accept my proclamations unquestioningly. On Saturday evening, he is liable to wander into the room, stare at the screen for a few seconds and then ask questions "Who is that? Where are you going? Did you win?" that I am too afraid to answer. I still can't shake the old taboos, and part of me wants desperately to impute them on my son. I am clear on what's being recreated on this second earth. But in age of climate change and war, I afraid I might be teaching him to abandon the first.
My current status: june 2006. Wife ran out and filed D. Finalized Jan 11, 2010, after 12.5 years M. 3 wonderful sons caught in the middle
