Vault Boy says: Don’t worry! Be happy!

Vault Boy says Don’t Worry, Be Happy!

Well, it’s a funny thing, but I found my inspi­ration in Vault Boy here, mascot of one of the greatest games ever made, Fallout. This fellow was sitting on my desk next to my watch and speaker control pod. I noticed the humongous grin he had, stretching ear to ear. Feeling aggressive and depressed, I stared him straight in his beady black eyes and asked him, “What the fuck are you smiling about?”

Seeing his smile actually made me smile and somehow, I felt a little happier.  Then it got me thinking about the Vault and all that other nonsense. Being stranded in a desert wasteland, trekking across dangerous lands trying to find your father, that kind of thing. Which reminds me, I could roleplay as Kwai Chang Caine. I know, Kwai Chang was trying to find his brother, but still. Anyway…where was I? Oh yeah, deso­lation. I don’t know. I need some kind of goal. They say that games are fun because of chal­lenging but attainable goals. If I had some kind of adventure, things would be a lot more exciting. Things are kind of a grind, and my adventure is years and years away.

Luanne had mentioned while discussing my suicidal thoughts that you can’t save the world and that you can only made things better a person at a time. That you’re not a superhero, that you’re only one person. And it got me thinking about The Dark Knight.

The movie resonated with me on a deep level. It portrayed Bruce Wayne as a lone guardian of the city. He is one who does what is right, what is necessary. He seeks neither fame nor fortune, neither the recog­nition nor the credit of all the good that he does. He is alone in his crusade. I operate in the same way: doing the right thing, even though there is no reward and nobody but you will know it. I never seek recog­nition or praise. I am driven by an inner desire to make the moral decision at each junction of my life. I also carry that lone­liness with me. Perhaps a touch of that cynicism as well.

I’m not saying I’m Batman. I’m not saying I’m a superhero. But as a char­acter, I iden­tified with him. It brought to attention some things about myself that I didn’t really give much thought about. I started to think, what if I could be a superhero? Yeah, it’s absurd. But it made me see that what I seek in life is a goal in the scale of a grander perspective. Making a difference, doing some­thing that will affect other people’s lives, even, dare I say, a noble pursuit? I couldn’t imagine walking into an office, taking the same left, right, and another right turn to sit in my cubicle for forty hours a week, pounding away at my keyboard, logging millions of keystrokes and thou­sands of miles on my mouse.

I’ve come to realize that I am a big picture thinker, and I see now that what moti­vates me is the feeling that I am contributing to a “greater good”. With that under­standing, it’s only a matter of finding my place in this world now.