Arguably a person hasn’t really lived until they’ve experienced any number of the many iterations described as pain. But how a person deals with, and also shares, their pain, it turns out, is the subject of this week’s topic; and, for some, looks at how they dealt with their pain through the creation of playable digital games.
It is always very sad when a parent(s) loses a child. My biggest hope for any parent, including myself, is to never experience such a loss. My grandmother survived my father, and even though he was 65 when he died I can still imagine the grief she must have felt as something very upsetting. At the time I remember thinking that her son had died before her. I also thought about how her husband (my Pop) also died at a similar age, which my grandmother also had to bear some 20 odd years earlier. Nan lived well into her 90s which just goes to show that a long life can include its full share of adversity. My parents are both gone, now, so at the very least I know they will never experience such a loss; and now at 56, with a legacy left by my forefathers of dying at a relatively early age of around 65 years means the percentages of seeing any of my children go before me is slim—God willing.
This was not the case, however, for
the young family of the late Joel Green. A spirited young fellow who bravely
fought that often described ‘unwinnable fight’ with cancer. Especially
considering his resistance never even got a chance to get started. You see,
Joel was only 1 year old when he was diagnosed with a brain tumour that the
doctors said was terminal. Joel underwent extensive rounds of chemotherapy,
only for the parents to be told the tumour had returned and the prognosis was
he would unlikely see another 4 months. Those 4 months turned into a 3 year
battle, until finally coming to an end with his death (Green, 2017).
To help put into perspective what it was the things the Greens were dealing with, in those ensuing, and arguably very short, 3 years the family had with their son, an idea came about to document that period of time with the creation of a digital game titled That Dragon, Cancer. The game can be played in full or watched as a video walk-through—which is basically a recording of someone else playing the game and recorded as a video.
There is a saying that goes, ‘what
doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.’ I disagree with that aphorism, and I
think Marie Curie would, too, whose pioneering work in the field of
radioactivity meant she was exposed to so much radiation that it resulted in
her death. What I do think, however, is that what doesn’t kill you ends up shaping
you. All of life’s experiences are what shape the people we end up becoming.
For some, their life experiences can be cathartic; they become stronger and
better for having gone through something that no doubt was a difficult-time in
their life, but after having made it through, they end up feeling like they
have grown and matured. They feel the experience has made them a better person. And in the case of Marie Curie, her life's work opened up areas in science for more than just the study of radiation; it also opened up an otherwise male dominated industry for women.
On the other hand, there are those people that seem to struggle with their life-experience. They come out the other side bitter, confused, or even worse they don’t come out the other side at all. In some cases these are the people that ridicule others like the Greens and their struggle to come to term with a loss. Some people don’t seem to understand all the fuss. To me, these people are the ones that haven’t found a way to deal with their own pain. Often they just bottle it up inside. This can lead to any number of psychological disorders such as alcohol and drug abuse, to mental health issues that can reduce their effectiveness as social citizens. Dealing with grief can be difficult. Fortunately, there are real people with empathy that care enough to want to help; these are the people that say things like ‘a problem shared is a problem halved.’
People who create a digital game to help describe what it is a person is going through, just as in other mediums, can help them to share and metaphorically halve their problem and reduce the load. It's like opening up a kind of dialogue to help show others what the person is going through. Some might think this exposes them to further pain, but often it can mean that ‘when you are vulnerable, the first step to a problems’ solution is to empathise’ (Bartelson, n.d.). It shouldn’t matter whether you are the one creating a game, or playing games others have written, if the results are worth the effort, anything considered therapeutical must be a good thing. Therefore, I have no problem with people making games to help them deal with their grief. I understand pain, too, which has helped me understand the meaning of empathy.
In times of great stress, or life changing moments, to help get through those times, sometimes people need to bring something big into their lives to help put things into perspective. I’m sure the things people do is countless. It might be losing a huge amount of weight because of a driving need to do a lot of walking, which is great for soul searching; or it might be writing a book that you always thought was in you, but didn’t think would ever happen. It might be giving away a multi-million dollar fortune because you’ve found that money is not the key to a happy life; and endless other reasons for doing the things people do, who find they are experiencing extreme levels of stress and anxiety brought on by a major loss, and need something just as big to help keep their world in balance.
But for those people on the outside looking in (at those suffering) who don’t understand what the fuss is all about, arguably, their level of empathy doesn’t allow them to understand what the other person needs. Life has shown me that, in some cases, people who lack empathy are the ones that say things like ‘build a bridge over your problem’, or, ‘toughen up princess’, and many more short one-line sentences used to ineffectually offer a semblance of support. But I think sayings like that don’t always do any good. At best they only offer an insight into the true nature of a friendship which is too often one-sided. Arguably, being empathetic requires some form of effort. According to a study in the Journal of Experimental Psychology titled: Contagious Yawing, Empathy, and Their Relation to Prosocial Behavior, there is evidence of literature suggesting ‘that mimicry [by humans], be it conscious of unconscious, facilitates social cohesion…’ and that ‘subjects who were instructed to mimic others also have higher levels of empathy for the imitated person’ (Franzen, Mader, & Winter, 2018).
In conclusion, life is about the experience of living day to day. There are times when the journey seems to take on a different dimension; when the pain of living becomes too unbearable and the proverbial wheels fall off the cart. But like every journey, with each milestone a new perspective comes into view. New people appear on the horizon that recognise our struggle and offer to lend a hand to help get us back on track.
Works Cited
Bartelson, E. (n.d.). Empathy Games: birth of a genre? Retrieved from Control500: https://ctrl500.com/developers-corner/empathy-games-%E2%80%A2-fighting-tears/
Franzen, A., Mader, S., & Winter, F. (2018). Contagious Yanwing, Empathy, and Their Relation to Prosocial Behavior. Journal of Experimental Pschology: General, 147(12), 1950-1958.
Green, A. (2017, May 17). A video game to cope with grief | Amy Green (Ted Talks). Retrieved from YouTube: https://youtu.be/vWJwa7lntTs
Hi Darren,
ReplyDeleteYour post this week is very thoughtful. I appreciated your research into the psychology behind empathy, your comment on yawning being an empathetic response was very interesting! It seems that one would think empathy would come as naturally as this yawning reflex, that being the same for everyone, but as you've discussed in your post that not all people have the same capacity for empathy. It saddened me to see in this week's readings that some people responded in outrage to 'That Dragon, Cancer', as if they had a right to tell grieving parents they have no right to express or share their suffering. I think it is important, and it seems that you do, too, to have a platform for these kinds of human experiences through empathy games.
-Bianca
Thanks for stopping by, Bianca.
ReplyDeleteHi Darren,
ReplyDeletethis was such a thoughtfully written blog post. You have a way with words, and it really moved me reading this post. I am sorry about the loss you have experienced, but what followed from your experience was an understanding of situations that require empathy, and thus some insightful advice on why empathy games can be so important.
-Dallas
Hi Darren,
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing your thoughtful words on the Week 9 topic. Your comments and research into empathy were were so interesting. It's hard sometimes when we come across people who lack empathy but unfortunately we all do at some point. It definitely would have been hard for your Nan. Without a doubt, the two saddest funerals I've ever been to are those of my 25-year-old cousin who died of a drug overdose and my ex-boyfriends 11-year-old cousin who died of a brain tumour. Apart from the sadness we all feel when we see such young lives cut short, the hardest part was to see the suffering their parents. I'm no longer in contact with my ex-boyfriends family, but it's been 11 years since my cousin lost her daughter and I just know she'll never be the same. If anything can help people through such grief, I agree, it has to be important and it certainly can't hurt. Thanks again for yourthoughtful post. Cheers, Kirsty
This is beautifully written, Darren. It was really emotional and got the message through well. I couldn't imagine how heartbreaking it would be to lose a child, even losing a friend was awful but the child you raised? Absolutely heartbreaking!
ReplyDeleteI like your point about people saying things like 'Toughen up princess' which really doesn't help. Nor does 'other people have it worse'. I think people say those kinds of things because they don't have enough empathy to want to deal with other people's worries.
Now, on the topic of empathy games, I think they are really good as a way to put the player into someone else's shoes. Games like That Dragon, Cancer really make a player empathise with the creators by showing what they went through and the emotional journey.