The Exciting Life of Loneliness

My thoughts of solitude

When I was a child, I always took the safe route to anything that crossed my path. If I thought something could cause me physically harm or distress, I would stay away from it to protect myself. When I first learnt about solitude, I thought of the movie “Cast Away” where Tom Hanks gets standard on an island for years and eventually begins to lose his sanity. The thought of this scared me and I took this movie as a lesson to always be around other people, since it made me believe humans are innately attracted to others and that we need each other to function properly.

This is actually a main reason why I chose to major in human resources. I like being around other people and I always thought it to be the healthiest thing to do. It wasn’t until a year or two ago that I really began to appreciate what solitude can do for a person. Maybe it’s the fact that since coming to university, I have had constant human contact and it has made me appreciate the claiming of loneliness.

But are we ever really alone? The guy from Cast Away is definitely alone. Someone living up in the mountains or deep in the country is pretty alone. Is the teenage boy or girl who sits in his room on their laptop alone?

So where can I find NO people?

I enjoy my time of solitude after a long day of going to work, doing some homework and socializing a bit with friends. It’s nice to get home, lock yourself in your room and listen to whatever music or play any games you like. But is this even solitude? What if I were on my laptop on Facebook or YouTube? Or on my phone messaging others? Or playing an online multiplayer game? It’s hard to be alone when there’s still so much human contact involved.

After reading an article by Josh Halliday involved with this topic, I came to the conclusion that most of us are never really alone. We may be physically away from other people but all our technology keeps us together in a certain way. We really only get alone time, we are never completely secluded from society. I realized that this even applied for me. My alone time consists of sitting by myself in my room, but still interacting with others in a virtual world.

Thinking about it, most people will probably find it pretty hard to find some actual solitude.That nice background filled with nature at its best, that claiming sound of nothing but the breeze, and the feel that there is nothing around you that can take this from you. Since most of us live in cities and thrive on our technology, we do not understand this type of true solitude. Along with constant construction and our industrial world expanding, solitude is becoming a dying art.

Solitude can be fun!

But let’s get away from the theatrics. Solitude and my description of alone time still have the same basic principle behind them: being away from other people. Everybody needs this time away to collect their thoughts, think about their day, and do something they enjoy. In fact, according to Mark Sisson in his article, it can be extremely healthy to take time a bit of time to yourself every day. It can be very distressing and can let you explore your hobbies.

Our culture is so inclined to interact with others that we sometimes forget how good solitude can be. There is a negative attitude towards people who enjoy their alone time, especially with younger adolescents. They may be mocked for their preference in seclusion but it is not their fault. They are just normal people like you and me who just find an interest in spending time alone. Everyone has something they like doing. So why should little Timmy be made fun of for something he likes? Society doesn’t mock those who enjoy sports, dancing or roller coasters.

For people like Phil Daoust, it can very stressful and exhausting to have to interact with so many people every day. Sometime I suffer from this as well. There are times that I need to just get away and not have to deal with other people for a bit. But I grew up with a background of solitude. My childhood consisted of a lot of alone time since I don’t have any siblings and I have divorced parents, who were rarely around the house. I didn’t think of it much at the time but this may be the reason why I enjoy it now. In high school, I couldn’t wait to get to university and have friends around me at all time. And even though I did really like it in my first and second year, I’m starting to get back to my roots coming up on my fourth year.

We do need others though…

I know I’ve been talking a lot about how solitude can be great and healthy, but being around other people in society is just as, if not more, important and healthy. Society is needed in order to develop social skills, worldly intelligence, and keep us functioning properly. Coming back to my Cast Away reference earlier on, socializing is very important to keep our brain in check. Loneliness can cause us to break down and possibly loose our sanity.

Relationships are another key factor in developing our character and personality. Sometimes there is nothing healthier than finding a good friend to be with or a special someone to love. I believe humans are given social skills and the intelligence to communicate with one another for a reason. Deep down, I believe we are social creatures that have a need to be around others. Sure, it’s great to get away from everything at times, but in the end, it’s amazing to connect with another human being.

To Pirate or Not to Pirate: What are the Effects?

Breaking it down

I know the term “piracy” can be something people take different views and opinions on, so let me introduce the topic in a way I see best fit. Piracy can be defined as the unauthorized use of one’s intellectual property that they have the exclusive rights to due to copyright law. It’s a mouth-full right? Well, let’s see if I can break it down a bit more.

I’ll start off with unauthorized, meaning that the rightful owner does not give permission for the use of their product. This brings us to intellectual property, which is the intangible product the owner claims. Someone may exclusively own these intangible objects by filing for a copyright that the law can recognize as your creation. This is basically how musicians, writers and producers are able to take credit for their work. Alright, I know this all may be very trivial to hear.

The main message I wanted to get across is the unauthorized use part. I find this part interesting since the term describes not being allowed to have the product, but it is not considered theft. Unlike those fearsome pirates you see in the movies that steal all that ‘booty’ from other ships, piracy is the act of copying and keeping something that they did not rightfully pay for. Both parties still have the same product at the end.

The peoples rant

It may already seem like I have a bias opinion on this subject, and I would be lying if I said I didn’t. I think we would all have the same bias towards it since we benefit most from not having these new piracy laws like SOPA and PIPA taking away our free stuff. We have been able to thrive for so long with our ‘free Internet’ that this new threat is leaving us angry and confused by the changes.

But who can blame us? When we find out that something we’ve used every day for free for so long is going to be another thing we have to use our paycheck for, it’s just natural to be overwhelmed by upset emotions and fearful of the change. This new change has the possibility of making us spend a lot more money on the things we saw as simple parts of our lives. Our music, movies, books and anything else downloadable will just be another product to buy and use.

And why is this all happening now? I remember hearing about how in the 80s and 90s high school kids would make ‘mixtapes’ for their crushes and give it to them as a gift. Is this not an early form of piracy? When reading an article by Matthew Yglesias, I found a great quote that I believe is a perfect way to describe the situation of Internet piracy. “Online piracy is like fouling in basketball. You want to penalize it to prevent it from getting out of control, but any effort to actually eliminate it would be a cure much worse than the disease.”

Piracy ain’t all that bad!

There are actually some significant issues that may arise from cracking down on piracy laws. For one, piracy is something we all do almost every day and if it comes to the point that we have to pay for all of our transactions, it may have an impact on the communities standard of living. People will have to put even more money aside to be able to appreciate their everyday hobbies and may have to give up other areas of their life to afford it.

Also, if people now have to spend money on things they would usually download, it may cause them to no longer contribute as much as they used to on society, like at their local food market or at community events. According to an article, most people who download free stuff off the Internet would probably not buy the product in real life anyways. They chose to download a downgraded version of the real product over buying it in person for a reason. They are not able to justify using their hard earned money on a product that they will most likely only use a couple times. In this sense, the owner of the copyright isn’t really losing out on profits as much as they are losing out on reputation.

Personally, I know most musicians, directors, writers, and producers by downloading their work and forming my opinion. If I had to buy all of their stuff, I wouldn’t know if it was any good and would most likely ignore it all together.

They do have a point…

So far this blog has been filed with the opinion of a regular citizen, which will most likely be in favour of not having these new piracy laws crack down on us. But if we take a moment to think about it, the government’s position on this isn’t all that crazy. It actually makes a lot of sense to try to reduce one of the most common crimes.

Of course I may kick myself later for saying this, but I’m not surprised or even that angry about this new development. Even when I was younger I was able to see the problem with piracy on the Internet. It has been a problem brought up, jokingly, a lot in the past on TV shows, movies or even on the Internet itself. My opinion on all of this will probably change if the piracy laws go into full force and take away my ability to watch or listen to anything I want, but for the mean time I can see their position on the situation.

Overall, it can be good to have piracy laws. Piracy laws are put into place so that the rightful owners of copyrights can be appropriately compensated for the hard work they put in to create their art.  It may seem absurd to some of us, but we need piracy laws in place to help protect the inventors. If we treated patent laws or trademark laws the same way as we treat copyright laws, our society’s economic market would be in shambles and no one would be safe to introduce their product to the world.

Take a quick look at this if your having a hard time picking sides.

Online Gaming Addiction: Don’t be a Noob!

So whats this all about?

I was immediately conflicted even before writing this blog. My addiction and love for online games is shouting at me, “Stop! Let’s just fit in an hour of gaming before you start this”. I can’t seem to shake this feeling and know all I want to do is go downstairs, turn on my Xbox, and play Gears of War 3 in multiplayer mode. This is a problem a lot of people face these days. With amazing new technology and graphics, online games are becoming more and more popular. With the four major platforms: Xbox, PlayStation, PC and Nintendo (Wii); gamers have no problem choosing between a diverse set of games that can fit to anyone’s personality and interests.

So many options, why not play a little of everything?

Well I wonder why I am only hearing about this all right now. Didn’t people back in the 80’s or 90’s have game addiction problems? The answer is YES some people did but they were not nearly as bad as they are today due to online multiplayer features. With this new feature, gamers are free to play as much of their favourite game online as they want, and it lets them play with people all around the world. This keeping the game enjoyable and exciting until something newer comes out. It is easy to get bored with ‘story mode’ in a game once it is completed but the online feature keeps it unique and always changing.

Passionate Gamers VS Recreational Gamers

Now even though society has put a bad spin on new games these days, they’re not all that bad and can be harmless when used in moderation. If you decide to come home from school or work one day and play an hour of NHL 2012 to blow off some steam, then good for you. But if you decide to come back and play for 5 hours, forget to do that report that’s due tomorrow and yell at loved family members when you do not win, then there is a problem.

Game rage…its real

With addiction there comes intensity. Passionate gamers truly care about their performance and will be affected based on how they do. You may be wondering why I have so much insight about the habits of intense gamers. To be completely honest with you, I write based on personal experience. I went through a rough patch of gaming when I was in high school and engaged in these characteristics. It was a daily routine to yell/swear at the TV, throw down my controller, punch a pillow a couple of times and transfer my upset emotion to others. Thankfully I snapped out of that but some people never do.

The dangers that lay beneath!

With new releases like Diablo III, passionate gaming is at an all-time high. This game hasn’t even been out for a month yet and already has one reported death and a few others rumored to be caused by it. Scary to think games can kill now. Well, it’s not the games that are doing the killing; it’s the overuse of it.

These types of cases are usually due to self-neglect like exhaustion, dehydration, heart failure due to lack of nutrition, etc. Gamers like this seem to even forget their basic human needs and play to the point where they cannot anymore. Getting to the point of having a three day gaming binge is very unhealthy and clearly can be fatal. Just like with most pleasures, video gaming needs to be kept in moderation. I can’t stress this enough since there have been studies that have shown overuse of video games can be very bad for your health and well being.

I’ve always heard the old saying, “If you stare at the screen long enough you’ll wreck your eyes”. Well that can be true in cases of extreme constant overuse, just like it can cause feelings of depression and anxiety as well. Not only that, it will most likely change your eating, sleeping, work and daily habits; not always for the better. Just like with any addiction, its hard to snap out of the habit once you are in it. It’s best to keep away from hitting rock bottom so that you don’t have to force yourself out of gaming all together. I wont even get into the topic involved with violence in video games and how realism is only making us more desensitized to it all because this blog would become a whole lot longer and much more boring.

Don’t let it get to your head

Gambling is another topic all together. The innocence of online games is taken away when a serious problem like this is posed. Playing online poker games or any other form of gambling is fun in moderation but can become a huge issue once addiction sets in. I know from experience that I can get easily addicted to online Texas Hold’em.  Even though I only play free games on Facebook, not all people are ok with the fake money and need to give it a more real touch. You don’t want your gaming to wind you up in debt and wanting to continue on. Especially with online poker, games like this give players false hope and the idea that they MUST continue on or risk loosing out on a big win. With the comfort of your own home and your bank card right next to you, how much easier can it get?

But hey, at least were making friends

“Hey, you guys want to meet up online at 5 and play some Call of Duty?” Hearing this in schools, at the mall or even anywhere else is not uncommon these days. Most people think gaming is an anti-social tool used to segregate those who play it. Where in reality, gaming is one of the most social things you can do these days. Even though you think your little Timmy isn’t making any friends at school, you may have to just check his friends list online. Chances are if he is playing an online game he is communicating with many other people who have a shared interest. Timmy may not be getting the exercise he needs (unless he’s playing the Wii fit games) but he will have people he calls friends.