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Unpacking

Created with FigJam

I was drawn to this class due to the concepts of choice, agency, determinism, and interpretations of self-autonomy. Despite not being an avid gamer, I appreciate the opportunity to complete tasks within a framework of ‘play’ that is devoid of immediate real-world consequences. Games offer a cathartic experience by providing options to pause, restart, replay, quit, and essentially, try repeatedly. They encourage us to learn from our mistakes, creating a safe space for exploration devoid of real-life repercussions.

Exploring our options in the real world often involves considering everyday thoughts and decisions in common settings, such as running errands, cleaning, watching TV, and doing laundry. These are tasks that all individuals usually encounter, unless they have the luxury of hiring help or sharing these responsibilities with a partner or parent.

Instead of the narrative-rich universe typical of first-person games, the user will encounter options on how to perform everyday tasks from the perspective of a person practicing OCD techniques.

An example of a text-based game-play is as follows:

Experiencing intense cleaning compulsions. You decide to

1. Give into compulsion and spend 2 hours deep cleaning the sink, the handles, and the faucet to make sure there are no germs
2. Ruminate on how you cannot trust your anxious thoughts on how dirty the sink is. You write in your journal for 45 minutes about the conflicting choices presented in the name of ‘mental health’. Immediate satisfaction in ‘self-soothing’ activity for a perceived danger that, cognitively, you know isn’t real, must be avoided.
3. Decide he best course of action to distract from the impulse is to go running.

If 1 is picked

Your spend 2 hours of your day deep cleaning instead of writing that project proposal you’ve been ruminating about. You plan how you’re going to write this project proposal while getting into the deep crevices of the sink. Everything is going to work out. You feel in control. You feel like you can accomplish everything you needed to do without compromising your compulsion.

Your options are

1. 1. 1. Take a shower to clean yourself again after sweating from cleaning. You need to feel clean in order to begin writing this paper proposal. Once your thoughts are organized in the shower, and you brainstorm while doing a 7-step skin-care routine, you will surely feel ready to write this project proposal.
      2. Decide against showering, rationalizing that you already gave into your first compulsion to deep clean the sink (which was probably already clean to begin with, considering you deep cleaned it 2 days ago after your night shift from work), and guilt yourself into believing that starting on this project proposal is the ‘responsible’ course of action after you’ve gave into your initial compulsion.
      3. You feel overwhelmed with your decisions and decide to post-pone making one by brewing another cup of coffee. Surely, a caffeinated drink will clear your head and give you the motivation to pick the right decision.

If 2 is picked

You must decide which color of pens to use for journaling. You just got a new journal from MUJI; the sides are clean, the paper is crisp, and you don’t want to ruin your new notebook with the color that ‘feels’ incorrect.

Your options are

1. 1. 1. The navy-blue pen size .5
      2. The navy-blue pen size .38 with ink running out
      3. The gray pen size .5
      4. The dark-green pen in .38 that slides mores smoothly than the other ones; it is your favorite pen.
      5. The black-pen size .70 that is also your favorite pen, although you feel guilty for having 2 separate favorite pens, like they’re almost in competition with each other. You can’t decided which one you like more. You feel guilty for favoring one pen over the other, almost like they’re your children, or like you’re in a love triangle and can’t pick which partner to spend the rest of your life with. The consequences are dire, and the ambivalence you hold towards these two pens morphs in shame. Do you even know who you are? You can’t make a simple decision between two, inanimate objects that are designed to be thrown out and purchased again anyways? They are temporary and say nothing about you as a person. But the fact that you don’t even know your own preferences, your own likes or dislikes, or the fact that you can’t make a decision about two simple pens to write your compulsive thoughts is so embarrassing.
      6. The generic plastic BIC pen you stole from work. You hate the way it slides over the paper in uneven fashion, and how the ink is inconsistent. You know using this pen will bring your great discomfort, but healing is all about putting yourself through discomfort, and so this might be the ‘right’ decision for you to make.

If 3 is picked:

You have to decide which clothes to wear in your closet. You notice your closet is unorganized, as you haven’t sorted out your laundry from ‘worn once (still wearable) from ‘worn 3x but maybe nobody will notice any potential smells’ from ‘absolutely stained and improper to wear in public’ from ‘clean’.

Your options are

1. 1. 1. You decide to quickly sort your clothes into 3 piles just to get more organized for the future, and then finally wear an outfit for running.
      2. Haphazardly find the running pants and shirts that are either in the ‘worn once; still wearable’ category or ‘clean’ category without organizing.
      3. Grab any sort of shorts and t-shirt and endure the dirty feeling of running in somewhat-quetionably-clean clothes in order to alleviate your anxiety about a dirty sink that could potentially harbor COVID-19 viruses. This is the option that will bring you the most discomfort. And healing is all about enduring uncomfortable situations with dignity and strength. You already made the right decision to not deep-clean your sink, and so, this options also seem like the right decision for you to make.

Although, start thinking that you can frame it as a situation where you made the tough decision, and as a reward, you can spend a little extra time picking out the clothes that feel clean to you. I mean, you have to compromise somehow, right? Rewarding yourself for a correct behavior will only reinforce the notion that physical distraction is an effective coping mechanism. It’s kind of like your Pavlov’s dog, but you are the dog and the master at the same time. These are your choices, and your life is defined by the choices you make, whether short-term or long term. You have more control over your life than you think you actually do. It’s time to start monitoring your feelings on the spot and question whether your anxiety-driven obsessions are rooted in rationality or irrationality. It’s hard to decide because they feel so real and so rational. It’s almost an injustice to not feel anxiety in situations like these. But maybe I should reward performing one coping mechanisms by performing a compulsion, because then I’ll associate it with positive feelings.

Right?

1. 1. 4. Get overwhelmed and make your way into the kitchen to brew a cup of coffee instead.

The objective of this game is not to ‘successfully’ overcome a compulsion. Instead, it offers a first-person experience of performing everyday tasks while constantly weighing the pros and cons. This game aims to portray the ongoing struggle with OCD, not its defeat. It’s about enduring OCD in a way that minimally disrupts everyday life and managing the associated emotional stress. The ‘final boss’ in the game is not an external entity trying to defeat you. Instead, it’s your internal monologue advocating for your safety in harmless situations. The very voice trying to protect you is also causing harm, masked by intense compulsions driven by irrational fear.

The idea of a “magic circle” in Bogost text Play Anything (2016) resonates with me at my current part-time job at a grocery store.

Working customer service, one is always preoccupied with the idea of how to derive pleasure in a monotonous, emotionally performative, and labor-inducing job that rarely requires challenging to stimulating work. Most interactions with customers are based on chance at a fixed time and space; specifically, two hours scheduled on an assigned register during an 8-hour work-shift.

One of few challenges one is more likely to face in that scenario involve an argumentative customer, who wishes to complain about whatever issues they are dealing with outside of my control. Because of that, most interactions with customers are assessed by 5-second judgements I conceive pre-interaction. Questions I try to assess quickly include “Do they look like they’re in a hurry? Do they have earphones on? Do they want me to paper bag everything because they live close-by? Do they want me to bag groceries in two-evenly distributed paper-bags to ease their arms as they walk home? Do they want me to bag all the heavy grocery items into their reusable bag because they’re taking a car to their final destination? Am I gonna get snarked at because I didn’t tie up the egg carton with a produce bag? Am I gonna get snarked at because I didn’t spray hand sanitizer on each hand before handling their produce?”

For mental stimulation, I practice a form of Tetris while bagging the groceries. All frozen items in one separate bag, with raw meat layered in between bags of frozen peas or berries. Produce that is easily bruised will be packed on top of sturdier items, like canned beans, or boxed muffin-mixes. Small snacks, such as granola bars or peanut-butter cups, are left for last, as a courtesy for the customer, who probably bought the $0.99 impulse candy as a reward to be immediately consumed after the transaction is complete. Triangle-shaped cheeses are placed next to each other so their angles perfectly line up. Bags of leafy-greens and delicate tortilla chips are placed on top, to avoid damaging the delicate chips, or smushing the soft leaves. The rules to grocery-bagging were never taught, only enforced to let the time go by quicker. I heard the phrase “packing each grocery bag like an intricate, special gift” on a podcast from an over-enthusiastic grocer, describing the pleasure they receive from carefully doing this monotonous practice. At first I judged her, but now I get it.

Another ‘game’ I play involves the interaction with the customer during this limited, rehearsed interaction we experience together. It relates to Callois’ definition of alea, in that–

“Chance determines the distribution of the hands dealt to each player, and the players then play the hands that blind luck has assigned to them as best as they can.” –pg. 18

Each customer sent is not by my choice; therefore I must adapt to each situation differently. If I get the impression a customer feels slightly more engaged to small-talk, I start guessing what kinds of topics or humor they’d be more receptive to. Some interactions result in deeper, yet slightly uncomfortable information being passed around. While engaging with an older, male customer, he felt it was appropriate to disclose his suicide attempt to me following a distressing episode of depression. Another woman was shopping with her toddler, while holding onto a pair of crutches to ease walking with a heavy cast around her ankle. She informed me her husband is waiting outside in the car, hinting that the cast around her leg was a result of physical abuse on his end. I offered her help to her car, as she anticipated being scolded by her husband for buying “too many” groceries for the family, and I wanted to make sure another person was present to avoid any verbal altercation that would ensue between the both of them.

Bogost states in Play Anything (2016) that

“Frustration is one way of interpreting the difference between what I wanted and what lawns do. Another way is to acknowledge that the world is outside my head rather than within it.” –pg. 16

As a way to cope with long, monotonous working hours, I find myself observing customers and coworkers alike, assessing each interaction as a sort-of game, which the objective always is: “How do I avoid uncomfortable interactions or confrontations? How do I de-escalate a situation which has never escalated in the first place? What kind of stress would they be under that could cause me stress? Do they not want to make eye contact with me because they’re shy, they’re in a hurry, or they simply are a rude customer? Is there any miscommunications I played on my part that could have contributed to this disagreement?” Trying to imagine a strangers inner world and conflicts outside of my own has become a coping mechanism to avoid taking rude or demeaning behavior personally. It also allows me to engage in what Caillois terms as mimicry, in which I am the performer, delighted by the sheer presence of the customer, and driven by the idea of success being dependent on how well this contrived interaction will play out.

“…it consists in the actor’s fascinating the spectator, while avoiding an error that might lead the spectator to break the spell. The spectator must lend himself to the illusion without first challenging the decor, mask, or artifice which for a given time he is asked to believe in as more real than reality itself.” –pg. 23