Thoughts about Dying, Death and Video Games

I have a lunch hour game that I play, which is supposed to make me forget how hungry I am - and it never works. I play it and keep wondering just how well this game describes the process of death itself - and needless to say, it's an annoying game to me right now.

Here's what it's called: "Five or More". The premise is that you have a field of squares, and you're starting out with three colored balls. There are a total of seven different colors, and three drop down each time you move. You're allowed to move the balls next to each other, from anywhere on the board - until you get five or more, and then they'll disappear.

However, more pieces keep coming each time you make a move and it's not five cleared. Here's what it looks like.

As you can see, two blues are dropping - there are three blue on the board. Pink is lined up for four in a row, so as soon as a pink colored ball hits the playing surface, you will clear that line. It's a little bit like tetris.

This game has become a metaphor for age related sickness, and dying - at least to me. Each new drop gives you three colors, only one of which can be moved. This is like the regeneration process we start, when we're 30. Cells in our body are replaced every seven years, just like the balls that drop onto the board for each move. And like our bodies, the imperfections in a telomerase - weak replication should provide for a host of imperfect or slightly flawed coding sequences casting around in our dna. Scrape your fingernail against the back of your neck. You'll pick off layer after layer of dead skin. All of these adds up, but not really to you. You're playing against viral forms of life. The body itself doesn't start making the mistakes; instead, the telomere keeps getting fewer and fewer options to trick the virals that are in your bloodstream right now - and more and more of them start building sequences based on your dna.

Think of your body, kind of like a locked door. Viruses are forever attempting to open that door - simply because if they can, they'll be able to use you to make more of them. The most successful ones are the ones that work slowly - keeping their host alive. So many of these have made it into the air we breath and the water we eat, that we take it for granted that we'll have to fend them off - and so we developed a breakaway dna sequence at the end of our dna chain that essentially encrypts our dna , and locks the door continually - over and over again - a new lock sequence. This leaves viral life forms forever guessing, and keeps us healthy.

But as we play, over time, the remnants of many other viral fights tend to be like a history book - that the viral life forms can use, to tell them how and when to get us. And they start sending down 'colors' , that end up being disperse - so we can't connect them. Eventually, they overwhelm us and cause some kind of immune system breakdown.

So. Can you tell I'm having fun? :)

I don't really understand cell death - it seems to be a complex process of triggers that causes cells to just kick the bucket. I believe, however, that there is a parallel from this game. I am guessing that death is a very, very slow process. Just as this board fills up - we are able to operate thanks to many backup systems - in five or more you can keep playing as long as you have enough area to work with to connect five colors. Gradually, however, we pick up very slow acting viruses - that begin to tear us apart. Wounds that do not heal. A strange feeling in the morning, like a cough or a cold - that quickly goes away. As a species , we haven't documented nearly a fifth of the viral lifeforms on this planet - and it's a good chance that there are some that are just so low grade, that they start to feed on us at a very early age and we just don't develop full responses to them.

But I think our immune system is aware of them. Virals that cause cancer, parkinson's disease, chronic fatigue syndrome - are probably the game that our immune system plays on its lunch break. Trying to figure them out, and stop them from attacking us. Some of us are born with good early combinations that allow their immune system to start right away into the problem of clearing off these virals. Others are born with "easy to guess" viral combinations and we quickly start running out of space to play - the disease that manifests, can be different each time but it's usually related to a specific set of fault conditions in the immune system itself before it becomes anything else.

It is for this reason that I believe that age related sickness, cancer, and rejuvenation therapy are all part of one and the same field of research. And it is also for this reason, that we see failures starting to occur in our body as we age - they are a reminder that no matter what we do, in the end, we will basically explode with disease. It will eat our bones, our skin, our bodies.

Sure, there are some people who are 90. But they are so wasted and tired looking. Don't they remind you of someone who's been sick for twenty days?

And that's also the reason why we develop attitudes toward the old. We know, instinctively, that they are breaking down before our eyes. We don't like to be reminded that the endgame, for us - is a very dangerous one.

The idea that I will be overwhelmed by bugs - presses me on to try to win the game. To be honest, I like Fruit Ninja alot better. The games last sixty to 90 seconds, and then I can just move on without being reminded that I'm going to be mauled alive.

Since I am playing to win - I'll share a secret with you. When it gets really bad, I just look at a picture of Dita von Teese. It's not her real name, but so what. ;) It cheers me up.