The best video games teach us about ourselves. That's something I really believe. But I just have to go into "self-therapy" mode a little bit because of something that happened this morning.
One of the main themes of Slitterhead, without going too deep into spoilers, is wrath. And specially, that switch in your brain that gives over to rage and anger instead of reason and compromise. One of the endings in Digimon Survive hit a similar note for me, in a different way, and it left me feeling devastated for weeks afterward.
But anyway. We got nuked with snow overnight. Over 80cm in the last two days, and I was unable to get out of my parking lot for work this morning. We're under a lot of pressure to get a number of projects done before Christmas, because all these contractors wanted to delay delay delay until the last possible minute.
There was ice under the snow. I saw the snow clearing company here, no plows on their trucks, guys just hanging out in their trucks. I got mad. I flipped them off, I cursed as I tried to dig my car out, I sent an angry letter to the building manager. It's their fault I'm late. It's their fault. My friend comes down to dump his garbage, we start venting to each other.
But then the manager, guy around my age, comes to talk to us. Maybe a few years older, reminds me of my cousins. In the calmest voice I could ever imagine for a built, blue-collar dude, he asks, "Is there a problem? How can I help." I explain why I'm upset, how the building company keeps cheaping out, my friend - being the guy who has to argue literally everything, no matter how annoying it is when he does - starts analyzing their business and recommending ways to avoid this situation... And the snow clearing boss is just like, "It's been a really hard couple days for us and I've been through a lot in my life, and I know this sucks but we're doing our best," before explaining that my work truck has the wrong tires, that they're pulling someone out of a ditch, that they're running on coffee and fumes.
I was the asshole. I was wrong. I didn't have all the information.
I was the problem Slitterhead is confronting.
And instead of shriveling up inside myself and playing sad puppy and being upset with myself for being the worst possible creature on the planet, like I usually do... I owned it. Because pouting about it is just running from the problem. I apologized to the guy. I told him I was the asshole. I unsent the email to the building manager. I accepted that I was wrong, and I have a chance to do better in future. I can break the cycle. Passing my anger to him, or to anyone else, doesn't fix the problem. It perpetuates the anger.
That's what this game is about. And boy, did I even need it...
