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I love playing video games. On a typical evening, I usually put in at least an hour gaming. Of late, one of the games I’ve been playing is Hide Kojima’s latest Death Stranding. I’ve found this game to be oddly compelling. It’s not like most other games. For the most part you’re running around building structures, while trying to deliver requested goods and avoid ghosts and Mules (delivery people gone rogue). So it’s not a typical game at all, but what’s so compelling about Death Stranding is that it explores the nature of connection between people.
In the game world, you don’t see any other players, but can call out and hear other players. And you can build structures that other plays can use, even as you use their structures. you can also like their structures. And with all of this is Hideo’s philosophizing and world building, which is always thought provoking, because what the game and for that matter Hideo is concerned with is the nature of connection and how in some ways we’ve lost that ability to connect.
What’s kept me playing this game is my fascination with the journey, figuring out the best possible path to get the goods where they need to go, with the least possible damage. But I also play this game because its gotten me thinking even further about my own connections with people and what I can do to be more present in the lives of the people that matter to me. That includes all of you, my readers.
I write my books, non-fiction and fiction, to connect with people, to share stories and ideas and exchanges of ideas. I think that if we are to connect meaningfully with other people we need to find our way to each through the journeys we take. If we make no effort, we lose each other and become isolated. And that’s something I don’t want.
So how do we connect meaningfully? We connect through our actions, our choices, our words, and our decision to invest meaning in any of that. For me that act of connection is my choice to write these words, write the books, but also to reach out and connect with you. I highly recommend checking out Death Stranding, because it is a very thought provoking game that may get you to think about your own connection with other people and how you make those connections meaningful.
