Holy AVATAR, Batman!

I have the movie "Avatar" sitting on our coffee table, compliments of NetFlix. It has been here almost a week and we have not watched it because our evenings are so occupied with interaction with REAL PEOPLE. Call me old fashioned, but "pressing the flesh" with friends in "this" world is more in sync with my soul than the whole concept of avatars and this movie...which we will watch eventually. After all, it's a movie first, and a symbol second. Although there are some mythological and ancient religious meanings to the word, avatar almost exclusively refers to computers, video games and the various forms of online substitutes for living a real life.

Avatars in video games are basically the players physical representation in the game world... a kind of stand in like we used to do when we played with lead toy soldiers and Barbie dolls, only more high tech. Skilled techies can choose the physical characteristics, weaponry, attitudes, and voices of the characters they craft who will "live" in the virtual world. I don't know why we find the virtual life so attractive but it may be because we have so little apparent control over real life that it is nice to remove all our flaws and limitations by creating a virtual version of ourselves that lives a whole different and controllable life in cyberspace. I have seen the avatars that have been developed by gamers and they often are more handsome and possess powers that are superhuman. The women, like in Anime', often have big boobs, wasp waists, and graceful mobility. Flaws removed, assets enhanced, powers that one would not have working for someone in a dead end job in real life...what's not to like?

This is not something new. We had Batman, and Superman, and a host of others who allowed up to have a secret life that was better than the one we had where stubbing your toe on the speed bumps of reality was commonplace. Even the Lone Ranger provided someone with whom to identify, when our life was circling the bowl and going down the porcelain convenience, which it does from time to time. And let's not forget Walter Mitty.

I was going to write about how we used to play in the back yard and participate in three varsity sports a year and how our lives "back then" were so much superior to the indoor computer-linked lives of today's kids, but then I noticed that every joint in my body aches. It could be from those three varsity sports. Maybe the only arthritis the kids of today will get is in their thumbs. And maybe, that's a good thing.