A classmate of mine likes to play visual novels. Visual novels are actually like those make-your-own-adventure books, wherein you decide what course the story will take, only that they are played in a computer. Well, one time, I watched him play a game, and got interested on the story. It's about a medical student who got into a car accident. He had undergone a major brain surgery. When he recuperated, he found out that the way he sees the world has changed, side effect of the surgery. People appeared as monsters, his food looks like human guts, the world a big, strange, scary place.
So, what made me interested? Try this.
Close your eyes. Imagine.
You are walking on a dirt road. On your right is a flowing river. On your left is a forest teeming with life. A cool breeze is blowing softly across your face. After some time, you arrived at a group of nipa huts arranged in a circle. At the center is the bonfire. People are either playing, eating, cooking of course, while learning what their surroundings is telling them. Everything you need, the forest provides, and no one abuses the forest because everyone knows that it is your life source. This is your village. Only one law is followed, and that is to do what you want to do, as long as you don't hurt others, otherwise they'll hurt you too. Everything is beautiful. Everything is clean, even the air. Peace is so palpable, so evident, that you can feel it to the bones. And you are happy and contented.
Now, open your eyes.
What do you see?
People might not appear as monsters, your food still tastes good, the world as normal as ever. But what I think the game was trying to portray is the dark side of reality. That people don't appear as they really are, allegory to the things humans do to change themselves. Beauty products, surgeries and implants, food supplements, processed foods. Not only these things, but also on the way we think, how selfish we really are, how self-centered human race is. And because we are like this, we do not realize that everything around us is affected. Pollution. Toxic wastes. New diseases. Global warming. Mutated animals. These things are the product of humans trying to control nature, when in fact doing this only makes nature against us.
Imagination may be the only answer. If we can imagine terrible things, we can imagine beautiful things too. Remember the quote, "You are only limited by your imagination."
So, what made me interested? Try this.
Close your eyes. Imagine.
You are walking on a dirt road. On your right is a flowing river. On your left is a forest teeming with life. A cool breeze is blowing softly across your face. After some time, you arrived at a group of nipa huts arranged in a circle. At the center is the bonfire. People are either playing, eating, cooking of course, while learning what their surroundings is telling them. Everything you need, the forest provides, and no one abuses the forest because everyone knows that it is your life source. This is your village. Only one law is followed, and that is to do what you want to do, as long as you don't hurt others, otherwise they'll hurt you too. Everything is beautiful. Everything is clean, even the air. Peace is so palpable, so evident, that you can feel it to the bones. And you are happy and contented.
Now, open your eyes.
What do you see?
People might not appear as monsters, your food still tastes good, the world as normal as ever. But what I think the game was trying to portray is the dark side of reality. That people don't appear as they really are, allegory to the things humans do to change themselves. Beauty products, surgeries and implants, food supplements, processed foods. Not only these things, but also on the way we think, how selfish we really are, how self-centered human race is. And because we are like this, we do not realize that everything around us is affected. Pollution. Toxic wastes. New diseases. Global warming. Mutated animals. These things are the product of humans trying to control nature, when in fact doing this only makes nature against us.
Imagination may be the only answer. If we can imagine terrible things, we can imagine beautiful things too. Remember the quote, "You are only limited by your imagination."
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