It’s a day late but as they say better late than never which couples well with ‘never judge a book by it’s cover’. I’m opening with this to set the tone that this is not so much art driven as it is to recognize a Veteran who I never met but impacted my life in a very random way.
I grew up gaming with Nintendo consoles and later a wii. Eventually as my son grew past ‘childish’ things as gaming advanced we played Xbox on a regular basis. I was taken back by how many people were gaming that I wouldn’t have thought did but then again I doubt anyone would consider me a gamer and I use that term lightly for the hardcore gamers out there. I guess what I’m saying is I’m not totally removed from it and therefore engaged in it as much as someone who plays basketball would call themselves a pro and get dunked on.
Ok all that aside. My story in this instance starts with a break up and a slump that had me down for a while. Gaming gave me an escape from long hours of working on projects that were mostly a long game of commitment. Sculpture in woodwork and my work in general is something that takes a long amount of planning and execution to find it’s realization. So as I was playing and connecting with people on top of a small solid group of friends I know in real life the extension gave me insight to people who are less connected in real life where it’s focus is mostly a common goal. To me that goal is to escape not unlike taking in a book or movie for engagement. This was a new dimension to venture something I didn’t know and be humbled by people who would spend hours supporting creatives who shape worlds as an extension of our own.
Being in a small group of Natives who game casually one night I stumbled into what would become an eclectic group of unlikely friends. Three Pacific Northwest Natives, an Englishman, a Latino and an ex military man from the South. We were an unlikely team but in that dynamic, our contrast lead to great conversations may of which were uncomfortable but insightful.
This leads me to this post I’ve been wanting to put up for a while but was reluctant to until now.
As gaming goes with live gaming connecting in competitive genres people can be brutal to say the least. I learned this by playing Titanfall on it’s early release where people can take that game so serious they would find your social accounts and blow you up if you performed bad on a team they were on in a random lobby. Eventually I improved but learned just how serious people took the experience. Not unlike Twitter or any social platform people can get worked up and make assumptions without real face to face engagement so it can cut both ways in that regard.
One evening as my friends that I know in person were offline I was messaged in randomly to help with a task a team needed another player on and so I jumped in. That decision changed the way I thought about gaming onward. I think mainly because it was a call for help where I could at least contribute something to a common goal. In that group was the Southern guy rough around the edges but honest and kind, perhaps brutally honest but memorable to say the least. I enjoyed having difficult conversations that informed us all as a whole over the couple years we gamed with him. In all I was reminded how we all just look and appreciate people we connect with even if it’s for a brief moment of time but genuine. I was reminded how unlikely it would be for us to interact if not for the internet and a game. It made things fun and I looked forward to logging on and learning a point of view I’d learn something from even if I didn’t agree.
Sadly, as we were all getting to know one another in our group like anything, like a band perhaps things fall apart. Not in the way that we didn’t get along but real life takes priority and while I was moving into a new house I wasn’t online for a while. In our group I learned Duck was diagnosed with a terminal illness he was alluding to but didn’t want any help from us or pity. He enjoyed his anonymity and privacy. He did share how he felt shut out because he was older and we accepted him and he enjoyed the recognition we gave him. One day he didn’t show up and that day turned into a week and then into a month that became a year and so on. In that time passing we started to regard him as the Yondu character from the Marvel universe and I think he may not have liked it but it fit his personality and it has a sentiment that is true.
I guess I write this down to get outside of an idea that Natives only write or think of their own mythologies. As much as I do I’ve grown up in a time where we are connected and influenced by the time we grow up in. Just a human experience, not unlike anyone else necessarily but maybe reflecting more on it I suppose.
It’s a day after Veterans day and one of our friends shared this photo we did our detective work on and wanted to recognize the impact of randomness and the personas we have online have threads of us within it regardless.
Happy Veterans day Duck.