I've spent quite a few hours, scattered throughout my life, playing Thomas Biskup's roguelike classic, Ancient Domains of Mystery (ADOM). In this ascii-graphics RPG, the player crawls through various dungeons and towers (re-randomized every play) ultimately trying to close the Gate of Chaos. The game has a lot of very unique perils and features, and one of my favorites is the idea of "doom". Dooming is a status ailment the player can pick up, but it's not like the usual curses which lower stats or increase damage taken. It doesn't have any blatant visible effects, and many an inexperienced player has suffered it without even knowing, until finally seeing it in their own epitaph after dying some horrible grisly death. (In ADOM, when you die, your save file is deleted-- no reloading from the last save point!) So what does this horrible ailment do, if not mess up your stats? It basically puts "Murphy's Law" on you, making the worst possible things happen at the worst possible times. Your weapon doesn't just break, it waits until the worst possible moment to break.
The thing about being doomed is that you can't prove you're doomed based on any of the effects. Any of the terrible symptoms could conceivably just be bad luck with the random number generator. That is, you can't prove the dice are loaded, all you know is you seem to be having really bad rolls.
One of the few explicit clues Biskup programmed to warn the player of their miserable fate, is a variety of obscure "You feel depressive." type messages. As a novice player, when I saw my character felt "depressed", I just scratched my head and ignored it (and usually perished in some ignoble way shortly thereafter). This is the whole wisdom in the doom-curse. Gradually alerted to the situation through the gentle prodding (and gruesome demises) of a video game, I've come to realize the exact same situation in real life. Whenever I feel any pang of depression, God may as well want me dead, for all the good I'm gonna do.
Any time I feel all "woe-is-me", it usually ends up a self-fulfilling prophecy. I squander my time, feeling bored and aimless even though I know twenty things I "should" do and forty more things I "want to do, just not this moment". Heaven forbid I go out and interact socially when I feel this way. The last time I felt like this at a party, I ended up not being invited to that guy's parties any more... and I can't say I blame him, either. If I do manage to get off my lazy butt and do something, I end up sabotaging myself.
I'm not talking here about legitimate sadness. Real sadness, like when we lose a loved one, is not a curse at all, but an integral part of healthy emotions. This "healthy sadness" doesn't cause people to gorge on junk food-- in fact it usually has a cathartic, healing aspect to it. (Admit it, a good cry can really ease your mind.) Unfortunately, in this day and age, a lot of the gloom in the world is neither natural nor healthy.
When I feel good, I'm on a roll. It's as if I have divine intervention on my side. Like how they say when you're in love, you can't do anything wrong. It's not love that does that, it's joy! Well, it's more like the two are one and the same. When you're glowing with joy, how could you possibly not love everything around you? You can't happily hate something.
Unlike in Ancient Domains of Mystery, when you suffer gloom and doom in real life, you don't need to swallow a roasted karmic lizard or ritualistically sacrifice gold at a marble altar. What I've found is that the best thing to do is just passively observe and be aware of the mood shift. I don't try to fight it or resist it, I merely note: "Oh, I'm in a slump right now." I observe my feelings non-judgingly, just keeping an eye on them. The thing is, as long as you're not actually suffering the chemical imbalances of clinical depression, depressive feelings are so absurd and silly that they can't withstand scrutiny. They're like shadows, and the attention you put on them is like a glaring light. It's like, you might subconsciously sabotage yourself when you're distracted, but if you're consciously watching your hand, you're not going to use it to hit yourself in the face. Just pay attention passively to a gloomy feeling, and you may end up laughing at it, it's so trivial.
Now let's go close that pesky Chaos Gate!
FURTHER READING
For a very unconventional look at joy and sorrow and gratitude, check out the philosophy of Merlin Carothers.
In my Sword Neck article, you'll read about a technique I've used to push through certain fears. The technique itself is probably not that important, it's the theory behind it that's useful.
When you feel good, you can do miracles. You could even teach yourself calculus if you felt like it.
The thing about being doomed is that you can't prove you're doomed based on any of the effects. Any of the terrible symptoms could conceivably just be bad luck with the random number generator. That is, you can't prove the dice are loaded, all you know is you seem to be having really bad rolls.
One of the few explicit clues Biskup programmed to warn the player of their miserable fate, is a variety of obscure "You feel depressive." type messages. As a novice player, when I saw my character felt "depressed", I just scratched my head and ignored it (and usually perished in some ignoble way shortly thereafter). This is the whole wisdom in the doom-curse. Gradually alerted to the situation through the gentle prodding (and gruesome demises) of a video game, I've come to realize the exact same situation in real life. Whenever I feel any pang of depression, God may as well want me dead, for all the good I'm gonna do.
Any time I feel all "woe-is-me", it usually ends up a self-fulfilling prophecy. I squander my time, feeling bored and aimless even though I know twenty things I "should" do and forty more things I "want to do, just not this moment". Heaven forbid I go out and interact socially when I feel this way. The last time I felt like this at a party, I ended up not being invited to that guy's parties any more... and I can't say I blame him, either. If I do manage to get off my lazy butt and do something, I end up sabotaging myself.
I'm not talking here about legitimate sadness. Real sadness, like when we lose a loved one, is not a curse at all, but an integral part of healthy emotions. This "healthy sadness" doesn't cause people to gorge on junk food-- in fact it usually has a cathartic, healing aspect to it. (Admit it, a good cry can really ease your mind.) Unfortunately, in this day and age, a lot of the gloom in the world is neither natural nor healthy.
When I feel good, I'm on a roll. It's as if I have divine intervention on my side. Like how they say when you're in love, you can't do anything wrong. It's not love that does that, it's joy! Well, it's more like the two are one and the same. When you're glowing with joy, how could you possibly not love everything around you? You can't happily hate something.
Unlike in Ancient Domains of Mystery, when you suffer gloom and doom in real life, you don't need to swallow a roasted karmic lizard or ritualistically sacrifice gold at a marble altar. What I've found is that the best thing to do is just passively observe and be aware of the mood shift. I don't try to fight it or resist it, I merely note: "Oh, I'm in a slump right now." I observe my feelings non-judgingly, just keeping an eye on them. The thing is, as long as you're not actually suffering the chemical imbalances of clinical depression, depressive feelings are so absurd and silly that they can't withstand scrutiny. They're like shadows, and the attention you put on them is like a glaring light. It's like, you might subconsciously sabotage yourself when you're distracted, but if you're consciously watching your hand, you're not going to use it to hit yourself in the face. Just pay attention passively to a gloomy feeling, and you may end up laughing at it, it's so trivial.
Now let's go close that pesky Chaos Gate!
FURTHER READING
For a very unconventional look at joy and sorrow and gratitude, check out the philosophy of Merlin Carothers.
In my Sword Neck article, you'll read about a technique I've used to push through certain fears. The technique itself is probably not that important, it's the theory behind it that's useful.
When you feel good, you can do miracles. You could even teach yourself calculus if you felt like it.
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