Life in Tutorial Mode

Felix:    Jeepers! Is she always this intense?

Kohut:  It’s not her fault. She’s programmed with the most tragic backstory ever.

Wreck-It Ralph (2012)

 

Thanks to Naypong at freedigitalphotos.net for this picture of someone playing video games, probably far more skilfully than I ever have.

I am really bad at video games.

I enjoy them, I really do, but somehow my hands just don’t take easily to the shape of a console controller. It was all right when the console in question was a Mega Joy 2000,¹ there were only eight buttons for in-game control, and even of that repertoire barely half was really required by most games – but when, in more recent times, my family acquired an Xbox 360, it was an altogether different story. Suddenly, I was presented with joysticks, triggers, bumpers, and goodness knew what else, and caused much hilarity to assorted siblings by my inability to do, well, anything, when I embarked upon my first game. The game in question was Assassins’ Creed: Revelations, which perhaps wasn’t the best choice for a beginner in view of the very heavy foundation of its storyline in the events of earlier instalments of the franchise.² I also like to think that I’d have been a bit quicker to pick up how to use the controls if I’d started at the beginning of the series, and wouldn’t have ended up making quite such a fool of poor Ezio, who found himself running into walls, falling off buildings, and attacking sword-wielding enemies with nothing but his fists when he had a perfectly good weapon of his own sheathed at his side. Still, things could have been worse. The game did provide some useful hints without which I would have doubtless made even more of a mess of things. First off, during the opening chunk of gameplay, there was a sort of ghostly figure, resembling Ezio in shape, that ran along doing everything Ezio was supposed to do before he did it, demonstrating the correct direction in which to climb walls and so forth. Additionally, there was the option of taking a break from the narrative to practise particular moves in a kind of blank, computer-generated training area. (An option which I employed. Quite a lot.) And on top of that, helpful prompts of which buttons to press would periodically flash up on the screen, especially in unusual situations like needing to deploy a parachute.

Wouldn’t it be handy to be able to access these kinds of supports in real life? No worries about getting lost in a new place: one’s mysterious ghost-self would lead exactly the way one needed to go. No stress in high-pressure social situations: one could simply rehearse a conversation as many times as one needed in order to be happy with it. No confusion over which course or job to apply for: a helpful prompt would appear in the corner of one’s vision to make the correct choice crystal clear.

This week, my university released to its undergraduates (myself among them) their exam and dissertation results. The wait is over, and the obvious question is what next? At this time, I count myself among the happy few who do have a specific and secure plan for the coming few years, but I remember from previous points of decision in my life the distress of not doing so, and can only imagine it magnifying as time goes by. My seventeen-year-old self, for instance, agonising over whether, where, and for which course to apply to university, would have absolutely loved a little flashing hint that Classics at Exeter was a good shout. It would make life so much easier not to have to think about these things.

But that’s exactly the trouble. If one didn’t have to think about these things, then, logically, one probably wouldn’t. The correct response to every dilemma would be handed over on a plate and one would never have to actually engage one’s brain in a process of reasoned decision-making; one would never learn why particular choices were good or bad ideas. In other words, to perpetually play in tutorial mode is to never really learn how to play the game at all.

There is a wonderful book by Kevin DeYoung called Just Do Something, which I highly recommend to anyone needing to make a decision, or in actual fact anyone at all.³ In it, he argues that this generation is far too inclined to sit around waiting for a sign from God about what to do, and far too disinclined to actually do anything. We have this false idea, DeYoung explains, that if we make a wrong decision, we’ll derail ourselves from the track God had planned for us, fall short of our potential, and lose our one shot at fulfilment and happiness – and so we’re afraid to make any concrete decision at all, in case it’s the wrong one. I won’t go through his argument in too much detail here, because you’re better off just reading the book, but I reckon he hits the nail on the head. We’d rather play life in tutorial mode than gain a real understanding of how best to play and, indeed, what the point of the game is. We’d rather sit back and have God give us precise direction at every corner than spend time and effort getting to know him, his character, and the kinds of choices he approves of as a result. We act as if God’s plan for our life has as its purpose our own personal happiness, rather than his glory.⁴ We place greater importance on God laying out a life-plan for us than having brought us into new life in Jesus.

But God doesn’t want us to play life in tutorial mode. He wants us to understand the game. Granted, life is a lot messier, more unpredictable, and more complicated than any video game that will ever be released; still, I do think there are a few alternatives to tutorial mode that are equally applicable to both.

1)       Read the manufacturer’s instructions.

“The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul;

the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple;

the precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart;

the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes;

the fear of the Lord is clean, enduring for ever;

the rules of the Lord are true, and righteous altogether.” Psalm 19:7-9

So the guy who programmed the game wrote a book about it. Probably worth a look. This isn’t just about straightforward commands – press A to jump, love the Lord your God, that sort of jazz – but also familiarising oneself with the lore of the game world. It helps, for instance, to know who the bad guys are.

2)      Ask someone who knows the game better than you do.

“Older women … are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.” Titus 2:3-5

The game of life is, of course, never the same for any two players, so advice from someone a few levels further on than you isn’t going to have the uncompromising accuracy of a video walkthrough. The beauty of not playing in tutorial mode, however, is that this individual will hopefully have learned some principles applicable in quite general terms, because he or she has been actually learning how the game works rather than simply waiting to be told what to do in a specific situation.

3)      Consider your own previous experience of the game.

“You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm.” Deuteronomy 5:15

If pressing B to have Ezio swing two hundred and seventy degrees around a lampshade worked before, chances are it’ll work again. Likewise, if getting up a bit earlier in order to have some prayer time before leaving the house, or stepping out of one’s conversational comfort zone in order to make mention of the gospel, or setting aside an amount of money in order to support a particular cause, proved to be a positive thing before, chances are it’ll do so again. I hasten to add that this very much has to be taken in conjunction with reading the instructions. One’s personal experience of the game is bound to be incredibly limited compared to that of the programmer’s, and should never be trusted over it. Still, it can certainly be massively helpful and encouraging to recall personal experiences where the truth of the instructions was demonstrated.

Other than that, all one can really do is get on with playing the game. Reading the instructions won’t always yield the kinds of answers one wants, but it does yield the answers which are important. For those of you making significant decisions in the next little while, I pray that you would know that God’s plan for you is bigger than a particular location or career or relationship; rather, it involves better knowing, loving, and serving the Lord Jesus, and becoming ever more like him. It’s bigger than blindly plodding along in tutorial mode; rather, it involves becoming directly acquainted with the one who dreamed up every element of the game in the first place, and learning to play the game the way he intends through knowing him personally. What a privilege.

Footnote

¹ If you want to know what the Mega Joy 2000 was like, someone has thoughtfully posted a review on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdF_ADVWDVc. Ours was purple, though, and had a slightly different game selection. I spent many a happy afternoon watching my mum play Super Mario on that console (she was a lot better at it than any of the rest of us).

² An Assassin’s Creed film is set to be released at the end of this year: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2094766/. Clevver Movies have come up with a pretty solid list of attributes that might allow it to buck the trend of films based on video games being utterly awful: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yr5YsNtdiwc.

³ As usual, 10ofthose offers competitive pricing: https://www.10ofthose.com/products/17815/just-do-something/.

⁴ Fancy a hilarious-yet-convicting Adam4d cartoon on this subject? Of course you do: http://adam4d.com/wonderful/.