didn't take very long for me. At first I thought it was a remarkable way a little son of a bitch like me could make a big difference. It didn't require doing anything unreasonable like leaving my home, talking to people, or donating my "locks of love" (if love can be construed as oil and the carcasses of dead, disillusioned horse flies that thought my curly dome was a nest). But no, it didn't require doing anything more than pressing a series of buttons, and it was a virtuous undertaking I was heroically prepared to commit myself wholeheartedly to. Five minutes into my first work unit, the altruistic charm of making a difference rapidly shrunk and was replaced instead by a malignant, festering selfishness that grew like a tumor underneath a Soviet x-ray machine. Not quite as bad as the situation depicted in the panel up above, but still pretty bad.
It was harmless enough at first. Folding became a delightful visualizer for me. With every tender nudge of the analog stick, I was endlessly entertained by the seizurelike dances of strange molecules and the cute sound that accompanied it (for those who haven't experienced this, it sounds like an ocean of lemonade–or any beverage of your choosing really– where millions of ice cubes clink and collide). I also spent hours looking at the world map, scouring continents for small, isolated beacons which represented fellow folders. These miniature lighthouses really told you a lot about the economic standing of a country (i.e. the few beacons in Africa were located in the southern regions). They also prompted questions as much as they provided answers, like who is that lonely dot out in the middle of the ocean? Is it some outlaw living on a houseboat along the boundaries of international waters? Is it L. Ron Hubbard? Perhaps it's some mysterious electrical anomaly emanating from the sunken city of Atlantis, teasing us with her existence and her hidden majesty. But this playful flirtation with Folding soon became more of an abusive raping.
The sinister enterprise began when Ben noticed the number of work units I had accumulated. His voice held the most subtle and indifferent tone of awe, more a distant cousin of awe really. It was a relative of awe nonetheless and that was more than enough of a spark to light this cataclysmic powder keg. Before long, I went to his house and noticed that he had surpassed me in the war on cancer. This was unacceptable. My polyp-pounding high score of 10 work units was going to be trounced by this newcomer, this mere protein private? Not on my watch. So, the unspoken duel of wits, work units, and energy consumption commenced. It seems so ridiculous to think of now, but it made perfect sense at the time. We felt a sense of accomplishment not from the bigger picture, the knowledge that our dedicated participation was potentially of some medical significance, our satisfaction came from a series of numbers, which were earned by not using our brand new PlayStation 3s to play games. We effectively got stronger for our PS3s being weaker, reduced to a dormant, vegetative coma of perpetual folding and overstressed cooling fans. If purgatory does exist, it's most likely being a cooling fan in my PS3 for the duration of this folding feud.
The contentious bout reached its apex when a new unexpected contender entered. Ben and I noticed that beneath our friend Reid's PSN ID, it constantly stated, day or night, that he was folding. Naturally we had to investigate this potential threat. We invited ourselves over his house under the artificial pretense of wanting to "hang out", "watch a movie", maybe "drink a few beers", "angrily drunk dial some old flames of ours" and tell each other mournfully that "you were never there for me", but for all intents and purposes this was a recon mission. What we discovered destroyed us. Reid's number of work units far surpassed ours. For a time, an alliance was forged between Ben and I to tackle this greater foe. In the face of defeat, we even contemplated enacting a scorched-earth policy to attain victory; erasing Reid's hard drive and possibly the cure for cancer buried deep within it. Either out of a startling moment of clarity or succumbing to laziness and apathy, the blood feud was abandoned.
After the blinding haze of debilitating anger and dismay had subsided, it wasn't very difficult to pinpoint the origins of these absurd emotions. The series of numbers that constituted my completed work units wasn't unlike other numbers that wrapped me in a similar fervor in the past. Frags, headshots, flags captured, weasel pelts collected, fake currency amassed are examples of just a few dominant game mechanics–namely defining proficiency and aptitude in terms of numerical value–that are tried and true methods of getting people invested in something. One's dedication, skill, and involvement with a game is being quantified. You can't even play a leisurely song in Rock Band without receiving a post-song analysis of completion percentages and subtly condemning adjectives (I'm looking at you, "Spirited Survivor") that declare who was the weakest rhythmic key-pusher and who was the strongest. At least provide an option to turn it off if one so chooses. I also don't think that having a tense band meeting after someone misses an ending bonus is particularly enjoyable or team-building, and yes, this has happened to me. Games have always been about competition (competing with yourself, against the rigid confines of the game, or someone else). Only fairly recently have some games proved otherwise, or at least made competition optional or subtle. But largely, it seems that many of us have been tempered in the vengeful flames of kill counts and post-mortem teabaggings.
If there is a clear, shallow, immediately visible indicator of how good one is at something or how much of it they do, no matter how mundane the task, and bragging rights are involved (qualities that can be debated as to how useful they really are in the first place), then controllers will be quickly converted into triggers, people will no doubt be gettin' the C.R.E.A.M. (dolla, dolla bills ya'll), and even a noble, philanthropic venture such as Folding can be perverted into a pride-extinguishing weapon, all in the timeless tradition of competition. I can't argue that this isn't an effective tool to temporarily posses someone into doing something though. Maybe that's the secret recipe behind all successful charities. There are some people who genuinely want to make a difference, and then the majority of other people who take some egocentric stake in it, like people who want to prove their concern for a cause and their dedication by running X number of miles for it. Or the extremely wealthy (who may or may not have made their fortune by climbing on the tired backs of the desperate, the exploited, and the destitute) who dedicate wings to hospitals provided that their name is in clear view on a shining plaque and a statue of them giving off a carefully detailed smile of generosity is nearby. And for that matter, the same could be said for city kids who pride themselves on being so worldly, cultured, understanding, and so kindhearted. They rally around water fountains in parks, take out sidewalk chalk and their soapboxes, and loudly, aggressively preach to the choir about the war in Darfur. But mostly, all they really do is boast about their "sympathy" for the ongoing injustice by inviting you to Facebook groups, changing their status to "so-and-so is perpetually weeping over Darfur )-; Hit up the cell tonight if you want to go club hopping (-: ", or wearing their fashion-conscious 'Save Darfur' shirts. A lesser evil for the greater good I suppose.
