Lament of an Eternal Noob

* see below for a definition of 'noob'

I often sit and wonder, during the quiet loading time before the start of a game, asking the question, “Why?”
Why do I play this game? Why, for the love of god, do I return time and again to this game, a game which offers me nothing more than confirmation of my incompetence among my fellow men? Why do I return to a game which invariably reduces me to a state of anguish and of regrets of missed opportunities? Why do I so irrationally, like an abused wife returning to her spouse, return to seek approval from a callous gaming community that deemed it proper to castigate and stigmatize individuals because of their substandard neuro-motor abilities?

Why do I allow the game which readily brings out the worst in a person to reveal a side of myself which I had taken great lengths to hide? A side reeking with hatred, spite and jealousy. A side that I so readily let loose on opponents, only to pay back doubly in the middle of my sleepless nights with guilt, the guilt from venting my frustration on new initiates of the game, the guilt from using a map-hack program in the hopes of leveraging the playing fields in my advantage, guilt from making derogatory racist remarks on a opponent who sole offence was having an upper hand on me... the guilt of… the guilt of... the list goes on.

Often I find myself before a game, feverishly cycling through a list of mental promises,
“I’ll not let my emotions get a better part of me this time.”
“It’s just a game, just try to enjoy it.”
“'I shouldn’t be afraid of losing.”
Promises that I fabricated perhaps only to make my subsequent violation of them all the more ironic and absolute.

It is strange what peace one can find in certainty, regardless how dire it may be. I would smile to myself, “Yes, I'll forever be a Warcraft noob, yes I’ll forever be a moral noob, and I’m comfortable with that. F the world.” Yes, how I would smile with my pretend courage, only to be reduced to incoherent tears and sobs an instant later when the reality of the situation strikes me as I initiate the 'F10-E-Q' shortcut sequence to prematurely terminate the game. I'll never be respected; I'll never be of any worth in their eyes. They will never see beyond the superficiality of my incompetent micromanagement, never realize that I’m actually an intelligent soul, a sentient being that is truly deserving of respect and love.

Ohh... how I yearn day and night for the day I will hit pass the Level 10 mark, the day that I would not have to pretend of never having heard of such a game as Warcraft where in actuality I have devoted every single minute of my waking life thinking, fantasizing, dreaming about it.
Oh, why? Why did the good people at Blizzard created such a game?
“It is just to torment me, isn’t it?!” I flattered myself egoistically.
“Why, why did Blizzard created this game?” I moan again. Have we not spent the better part of our civilization trying to eradicate the scourge of war? Is such an act of barbarity as of the waging of war acceptable if only it comes in a sanitized, thinly veiled electronic form? Are we mad in enticing the youth of society with the taste of unbridled power by having them play the role of a war general? Is it not absurd that we shower these armchair warlords with more adulation that the damnation we only give half to the likes of Stalin and Hitler?

And yet what right do I have to take the moral high ground, when in fact I am accomplice to the whole enterprise? My pretension sickens me.

Finally, the game loaded up, but by now I was palpitating and breathing raggedly, my hands steadfastly refusing to move, my mind in shambles, incapable of any thought let alone strategy... and when all of a sudden I was hit by a sudden epiphany.

The oceans of my confusions parted... I smiled...



To be continued




* noob- Shortened form of "newbie," the most hilarious insult ever invented, in which a person who uses a computer game too much is ridiculing one who does not, for being "new" at the game, which of course they once were. Generally speaking, the speaker of this "insult" is one who should be on the receiving end of most insults.

- from UrbanDictionary.com

I would dearly love to quote from the Oxford English Dictionary, but even the online version which is updated regularly has not incorporated this word.