Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to Mythic Mind, where we pursue wisdom
Speaker 1: in the past between primary secondary worlds. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Andrew Snyder, and I'm glad that you're here. Before we
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Speaker 1: for today, I want to read a short article that
Speaker 1: I recently posted in the Mythic Mind substack, which you
Speaker 1: can find at mythicmind dot substack dot com and in
Speaker 1: the show notes. If you aren't subscribed, then go ahead
Speaker 1: and do that. This is our community substack, our fellowship substack,
Speaker 1: and so you get a range of different voices or
Speaker 1: represented here on this platform. So it's really a I think,
Speaker 1: a unique platform that we have going on for us. Well, now,
Speaker 1: as I said, I'm mostly going to be reading this article,
Speaker 1: but I may add lib a little bit of it
Speaker 1: along the way. Okay, so this is called video games
Speaker 1: as subcreation. I wouldn't call myself a gamer, at least
Speaker 1: not these days. Between my responsibilities as a husband and
Speaker 1: a father, as well as my lesser roles, the time
Speaker 1: simply has not been there for quite a while, and
Speaker 1: it's not necessarily a bad thing. Furthermore, making up for
Speaker 1: an over engagement with video games in my youth, I
Speaker 1: had long become convinced that they were, at least for
Speaker 1: the most part, a waste of time. However, as I
Speaker 1: advanced further into my literary renaissance of the last few years,
Speaker 1: which has gotten me thinking about questions regarding what is art,
Speaker 1: what is enchantment, what is beauty, I'm starting to reconsider
Speaker 1: this prejudice that I've had toward video games based off
Speaker 1: an over indulgence of my youth. So our games, are
Speaker 1: they indeed an unhealthy escape from responsibility and real world achievements,
Speaker 1: And obviously that argument can be made, or might video
Speaker 1: games serve some kind of real world benefit? And I'm
Speaker 1: still working through this question and even exactly how to
Speaker 1: articulate that question properly, but I'm definitely moving toward the
Speaker 1: latter possibility that there is some potential value here. Now.
Speaker 1: As a kid, video games were ubiquitous in my life.
Speaker 1: I can't remember a time before the nes and the
Speaker 1: snees were set up, or or before the game Boy
Speaker 1: was a hallmark of long drives. And yes I'm talking
Speaker 1: about the original clunky gray game Boy. I mean equipped
Speaker 1: with the handy boy of course, to add to the sound,
Speaker 1: add to the light dynamic, and so I really had
Speaker 1: that maxed out. And then I remember being taken in
Speaker 1: by the you know, quote realistic graphics of the Nintendo
Speaker 1: sixty four and the PlayStation two. And then eventually I
Speaker 1: moved into primarily PC gaming, and I would regularly ask
Speaker 1: for a new graphics card for Christmas, and so that's
Speaker 1: really my thing for a while. And the reality is
Speaker 1: that I just played video games far too much in
Speaker 1: my youth, and I now regret that I didn't spend
Speaker 1: more of that time reading books. I regret that I
Speaker 1: only really discovered the value of reading relatively recently, all
Speaker 1: things considered, within the last several years, while waxing and
Speaker 1: waning with other responsibilities. This practice, this regular engagement with
Speaker 1: video games continued largely through my young adulthood until I
Speaker 1: was married, at which point I started to play considerably less. Then,
Speaker 1: once the twins were born, gaming time became nearly non existent.
Speaker 1: A significant cause for this was immuree necessity, as I
Speaker 1: saw some fulfilled the greater desire of providing for and
Speaker 1: spending time with my family. And you know, part of
Speaker 1: that meant that I had to work a lot. It's
Speaker 1: important to me that my wife is able to fulfill
Speaker 1: her desire to be home full time with the kids.
Speaker 1: It's important to me that you know my kids that yeah,
Speaker 1: we're not extravagantly wealthy, but I want them to be comfortable.
Speaker 1: That's important to me. And so I work a lot,
Speaker 1: and I also spend a lot of time with them,
Speaker 1: which means I'm working odd hours sometimes to make that happen,
Speaker 1: which means there's not a whole lot of time for
Speaker 1: things like video games. However, as I continue to consider
Speaker 1: questions about the nature of enchantment and the power of wonder,
Speaker 1: I'm starting to conclude that, you know, properly ordered within
Speaker 1: life's demands, there can be some good in playing games. Now,
Speaker 1: it's not an overstatement to say that my life was
Speaker 1: changed by reading Tolkien, not being an active reader in
Speaker 1: my youth. As I mentioned, I discovered Tolkien later in life,
Speaker 1: just a few years before writing this article. I was,
Speaker 1: of course familiar with Tolkien inspired media such as the
Speaker 1: Jackson films and various games, but I'm still fairly new
Speaker 1: to actually reading Tolkien's own words. Knew as in, you know,
Speaker 1: I just picked up The Fellowship really a few years ago,
Speaker 1: and from the moment that I opened the Fellowship, I
Speaker 1: knew that I was engaging with something real, although I
Speaker 1: didn't get have the categories for articulating what that meant.
Speaker 1: But it didn't take me long for me to finish
Speaker 1: Lower the Rings. I went through that pretty quickly, and
Speaker 1: then I moved on to Tolkien's other works, including on fairy Stories,
Speaker 1: in which he describes fantasy as subcreation rather than merely
Speaker 1: being made up we make in the image of and
Speaker 1: with the materials made by the one in whose image
Speaker 1: we are made. Good fiction, therefore, is dealing with things
Speaker 1: that are It's dealing in the domain of truth. That's
Speaker 1: what good fiction does. And this was a very important
Speaker 1: corrective to a misunderstanding that I had growing up, and
Speaker 1: that honestly most people today have. So I want thought
Speaker 1: that if I wanted to learn something, if I wanted
Speaker 1: to know something true, then I would have to turn
Speaker 1: to nonfiction, because nonfiction deals with truth and fiction is
Speaker 1: made up right, and this is typically how these two
Speaker 1: categories of literature are divided. One's true, one's made up. Well,
Speaker 1: this is certainly what I thought for a number of years,
Speaker 1: although even before picking up Tolkien, I was already starting
Speaker 1: to spend some time with fairy tales and with folklore,
Speaker 1: and I was starting to recognize that there is some
Speaker 1: hidden wisdom there, there is truth to be found there,
Speaker 1: and so my appreciation for good, so called made up
Speaker 1: stories was beginning to grow. But Tolkien helped me to
Speaker 1: understand that good fiction is not made up at all,
Speaker 1: but it's rather a secondary creation that is true, and
Speaker 1: as much as it relates to the way that things
Speaker 1: are on a metaphysical level. Of course, we don't believe
Speaker 1: that there are such things as orcs and elves and
Speaker 1: dwarfs in the same way, at least that they're portrayed
Speaker 1: in Tolkien's text. However, there is something fundamentally true about
Speaker 1: the character of the story, the fibers of his world,
Speaker 1: the interaction to the peoples that are involved, which is
Speaker 1: why one can read the Lord of the Rings as
Speaker 1: an act of Christian discipleship as much as anything else.
Speaker 1: When we escape in the right way and into the
Speaker 1: right substance, we are not merely running away from the
Speaker 1: primary world, but we are rather escaping to a place
Speaker 1: of value that we might recover something of that value
Speaker 1: and bring it back into the primary world, although of
Speaker 1: course we can get lost along the way, because for
Speaker 1: better or worse, no one leaves the perilous realm unchanged,
Speaker 1: because it is there that we come to terms with
Speaker 1: ourselves and decide what that relationship looks like. Again, in
Speaker 1: un Fairy Stories, Tolkien clarifies that it is not the
Speaker 1: denizens of Ferry that are supernatural, as they're actually hypernatural,
Speaker 1: but that it is we, with our transcendent souls, that
Speaker 1: are supernatural. The perilous realm brings us not to heaven
Speaker 1: or to hell, Tolkien tells us, but to the road
Speaker 1: that we must walk. It's where our destination is determined.
Speaker 1: It's where our direction is set. It may be the
Speaker 1: path to salvation or damnation. Hence the differing impacts of
Speaker 1: Galadriel on Borimir and the other members of the party
Speaker 1: that everyone becomes really more solidified in the direction that
Speaker 1: they are going. So this is where our relationship with truth,
Speaker 1: for better or worse, becomes solidified. It's where we can
Speaker 1: be gained or where we can be lost. And so
Speaker 1: Tolkien provides us with a framework for relating to truth
Speaker 1: even in worlds that are not found in history. And
Speaker 1: this is immediately relevant for our primary topic in dealing
Speaker 1: with how we might engage with video games, and in
Speaker 1: pointing out that this is a place where we can
Speaker 1: gain something or it's a place where we can lose something,
Speaker 1: even ourselves. Now Again, in the same essay, Tolkien also
Speaker 1: discusses why literature is a superior medium for fantasy compared
Speaker 1: to cinema, and I think that this is going to
Speaker 1: give us some useful principles as well. In a movie,
Speaker 1: he tells us. The audience is given the full story,
Speaker 1: including plot, visuals, music, etc. There's no room for the
Speaker 1: viewer to get involved in the process of subcreation. A book, however,
Speaker 1: does provide this room. When you read a book, assuming
Speaker 1: you've not first seen a cinematic adaptation of the book,
Speaker 1: you fashion so much of the story in your own
Speaker 1: head based on your background other books you've read, the
Speaker 1: thoughts floating around in your conscious and unconscious mental spaces,
Speaker 1: and everything else that you bring with you to the text.
Speaker 1: You cast the characters and decide exactly what the text
Speaker 1: looks like, what it sounds like, what it feels like.
Speaker 1: So we could all read the same story but have
Speaker 1: different mental adaptations as we contribute to the story through
Speaker 1: our own process of subcreation alongside the primary author what
Speaker 1: they give us. Now, it seems to me that much
Speaker 1: the same could be said regarding video games, whether we're
Speaker 1: talking about a story driven role playing game or something
Speaker 1: more in the sandbox arena, there is space for the
Speaker 1: player to decide who they are, what their background and
Speaker 1: motivations entail, and what kind of impact they will have
Speaker 1: on the world, and whatever else may be relevant to
Speaker 1: that particular game. All of This brings us into the
Speaker 1: act of subcreation, which can be a great aid in
Speaker 1: helping us to become more enchanted in our primary world experience.
Speaker 1: Of course, it should be noted that the potential of
Speaker 1: the reader's subcreation is directly related to the materials that
Speaker 1: they are provided in the text, and the same could
Speaker 1: be said of video games. Sometimes the material is so
Speaker 1: corrupted that one who engages with it is far more
Speaker 1: likely to be destructive first and foremost to their own
Speaker 1: selves than creative in a positive direction. Some books are
Speaker 1: just bad, Some games are just bad. They're very unlikely
Speaker 1: to move us in the direction of being more integrated selves,
Speaker 1: situated to bear primary world responsibilities and to accomplish worthwhile things.
Speaker 1: Maybe the philosophy at hand is particularly heinous, or maybe
Speaker 1: the nature of the material is so tedious and addictive
Speaker 1: it is simply amusing, which is literally to not be
Speaker 1: amusing that we're likely to throw away time with very
Speaker 1: little hope of gaining something back in return. Now, sometimes,
Speaker 1: and probably most of the time, time, the fault is
Speaker 1: not so much with the material, even if that might
Speaker 1: be there, but the primary fault is actually with the
Speaker 1: person who's engaging with it. As with every vice, it's
Speaker 1: easy to prioritize whatever lesser good that may come from
Speaker 1: games over the greater goods that are before us. However,
Speaker 1: that many, and that you and I can go wrong
Speaker 1: with games does not mean that games themselves are an evil.
Speaker 1: It has been said, do not suppose that abuses are
Speaker 1: eliminated by destroying the object which is abused. Men can
Speaker 1: go wrong with wine and women, Shall we then prohibit
Speaker 1: and abolish women? Now, as far as I can tell,
Speaker 1: this is an apocryphal quotation attributed to Martin Luther, but
Speaker 1: the principle certainly holds up even if the citation does not.
Speaker 1: That we can go wrong with video games does not
Speaker 1: mean that video games are of necessity wrong. There is
Speaker 1: a way I believe to go right with games, instead
Speaker 1: of letting them pull you into the abyss of empty amusement.
Speaker 1: They can be tethered to virtue, to truth, and to beauty,
Speaker 1: and in turn they can become points of connection between
Speaker 1: you and goodness. Furthermore, games can become touch points with
Speaker 1: our culture and with ourselves for dealing with significant topics
Speaker 1: that apply to primary life. As with most mediums, you're
Speaker 1: likely to find what you are seeking if your desire
Speaker 1: is rightly ordered, you will find another step on the
Speaker 1: upward journey. If your desire is wrongly ordered, you will
Speaker 1: slip further toward the abyss. Discernment rarely involves in all
Speaker 1: or nothing mentality. It instead involves having honest conversations with
Speaker 1: yourself and with others. If you are honest with yourself,
Speaker 1: then in your heart you generally know when something is
Speaker 1: upbuilding and when it's not. If you authentically seek the good,
Speaker 1: you will surely find it, as seeking the good is
Speaker 1: evidence that you have already found it in some measure.
Speaker 1: For more on this topic, you can go back and
Speaker 1: listen to episode seventy eight of Mythic Mind when I
Speaker 1: talk with Master Samwise and Josh Trailer about this topic
Speaker 1: in a more extended fashion. But that is the end
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Speaker 1: chat for you, and until then, God's speed. The Elder
Speaker 1: scrolls in Philosophy a six week course beginning in September
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five. I don't play many video games these days,
Speaker 1: but there are certain titles that have stuck with me,
Speaker 1: enchanting the mind of my youth and never entirely fading away.
Speaker 1: One of the chiefs among these titles is the Elder Scrolls,
Speaker 1: namely Maruin, Oblivion and Skyrim. The level of artistry, mythology,
Speaker 1: and lore of this universe is vast and provides a
Speaker 1: strong representative for asking the question as to how video
Speaker 1: games might relate to literature as an art form. Where
Speaker 1: might it rise to such a level, where must it
Speaker 1: fall short? And what unique advantages does it possess. For
Speaker 1: this eight week study will be seeking to answer these
Speaker 1: questions while analyzing various elements of this franchise, specifically focusing
Speaker 1: on content related to Morrow and Oblivion and Skyrim. We'll
Speaker 1: be taking a look at the philosophy of RPGs and
Speaker 1: considering the philosophical implications of character creation and formation in
Speaker 1: an open ended series such as this, and will be
Speaker 1: looking at the relationship between in game religion, lore, and
Speaker 1: ideas with our primary world philosophical and religious concepts. Each
Speaker 1: week will include one to two videos addressing these topics,
Speaker 1: ongoing discord conversations, and live meetings. You are also encouraged
Speaker 1: to spend at least a little time playing one of
Speaker 1: these titles each week as a launching pad for conversation.
Speaker 1: Join us in Tamreil that we might better understand our
Speaker 1: primary life here on mundus. Enrolled today by going to
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