When you suspend disbelief

I find there are times where I am in that VC and those virtual controls seems like all that matter at that moment, and the world beyond its cabin windows is the world in which I feel my immediate experience exists. But that bubble always pops within moments of its origin, and I'm back to sitting in a chair in my simpit setup. This might sound like I am going crazy, but this is one of the things that keeps me coming back to FS. I can't say I get this suspension of disbelief very often, nor am I obsessed with it (well, maybe a tiny little bit), but am I thankful that I can get those precious distractions to escape the stress and mundaneness of everyday life...too bad we all cannot own and fly a private AC like we can in FSX.

 

BTW, don't read too much into what I just wrote. I do have other interests beyond FS, some of which are far more important, and sometimes more enjoyable, than spending time in my simpit.

I find there are times where I am in that VC and those virtual controls seems like all that matter at that moment..

 

People sometimes tell me I spend far too much time on my computer and that I ought to get a life in the real world, to which I reply- "Huh, what are you talking about? This IS life"..;)

WAIT, I feel a profound philosophical insight coming on!-

Bearing in mind that nobody knows what "life and reality" are, the world inside the computer screen is as valid a real life as any other ..:)

 

"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one'' -Einstein

"All that we see or seem, is but a dream within a dream" Edgar Allen Poe

"You can be in my dream if i can be in your dream" -Bob Dylan

"We are such stuff as dreams are made on" -The Tempest

"Strawberry Fields, nothing is real" - The Beatles

"What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes" (Bible: James 4:14)

"Have you ever had a dream that you were so sure was real? What if you were unable to wake from that dream? How would you know the difference between the dream world and the real world?" (Morpheus in The Matrix)

Yes. Get out in the real world they say. What? Like Facebook every two seconds, Twitter, 'Insta'? Yeah right..

 

 

Anyways, my touch of reality only lasts as long as the point when the cat jumps up on the desk and stretches out wanting to be smooched and when doing so stretches out a leg onto the keyboard hitting Z turning off the autopilot and generally causing mayhem 'in the cockpit'.

 

:D

I think the "Walter Mitty" aspect is what draws many of us to many games. In FS I can be a test pilot in an X-15 or an explorer in a Tri-motor or a bored Delta pilot on his 100th run from Atlanta to Chicago. In racing sims I can relive my racing days (I am much more successful on screen). In an rpg I can be a medieval mage searching for the Staff of Ineptitude to return to Maximus Flatus, or a cyber augmented tech investigating a spaceship full of mutants.

 

Then I exit the game and return to the fantasy world of work and bills and wondering who is that geezer in the mirror.

When I was in my early teens, every time I brought a new plastic kit home my dad would glare at me with a face as sour as sh*t and snarl "Huh, been wasting your money again, when are you going to grow up?", but I just ignored him.

Perhaps he'd have preferred me to join the local street gang and keep getting in trouble with the police instead of sitting quietly up in my room in a world of my own building models?

 

PS- he's been dead for 30 years but I still buy them, I've got my eye on a nice "Roman Fort" kit down the local model shop..:)

I do like it when the immersion factor kicks in, especially on a longer flight at cruise and you nod off (!) to the sweet rumble of the engines. Just for a moment you are actually on that DC10 or 757 off on holiday or whatnot.

 

Of course as noted the illusion soon gets shattered, wife needs a bulb changing (less frequent these days with LED) or as noted few RW PIC's need to navigate with a furry feline belly laid across the hand and that Puss In Boots stare, "Isn't it time you fed me."

 

Entertainment gives us the opportunity to enter a world we couldn't contemplate in real life, be that driving planes, trains or trucks, being a military strategist, a spaceship captain, an ancient warrior or stealthy assassin. Strangely I think this does help inspire confidence in certain real world situations - "I've captained the Boreas (X3) into a Khaak war zone and emerged victorious, so I can deal with this little challenge at work."

It just simply rocks that a well add-on enhanced FSX can deliver such an experience. Other games, such as Skyrim and FPS titles, are just too far removed from reality for me to hit that peak, but they do deliver their own satisfying style of immersion. Rise of Flight is a close second: when your 6 is being dropped upon, or better yet you are the drop-er, and those reactions to kick that kite around are an instinctive response of knowing exactly how and what you want it to do, man that is really gooood stuff!

The essence of all things is the Nameless. The Nameless is unknowable, mightier even than Brahma. Things pass, but the essence remains. You sit, therefore, in the midst of a dream. Essence dreams it a dream of form. Forms pass, but the essence remains, dreaming new dreams. Man names these dreams and thinks to have captured the essence, not knowing that he invokes the unreal. These stones, these walls, these bodies you see seated about you are poppies and water and the sun. They are the dreams of the Nameless.

 

Occasionally, there may come a dreamer who is aware that he is dreaming. He may control something of the dream-stuff, bending it to his will, or he may awaken into greater self-knowledge.

Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny

Perhaps one of the greatest Sci-Fi/Fantasy novels ever written, although there is some dispute as to which category it fits, if any.

 

Sorry, it just seemed appropriate somehow.

Pat☺

I think the "Walter Mitty" aspect is what draws many of us to many games. In FS I can be a test pilot in an X-15 or an explorer in a Tri-motor or a bored Delta pilot on his 100th run from Atlanta to Chicago.

 

Remind me never to fly Delta again ! :D

Occasionally, there may come a dreamer who is aware that he is dreaming. He may control something of the dream-stuff, bending it to his will, or he may awaken into greater self-knowledge.

Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny

 

Maybe Jesus was just such a dood, bending "reality" to produce what looked like miracles to people.

And he said we could do it too, if we had the knack..:)