My Mythic Journey

My Memorial Day celebration was less than stunning. I woke and went through my morning ritual of eating and cleansing, rifled through some bills, and did a little reading. In the afternoon I had decided to turn on my computer and kill some time playing a video game. I logged on to my game of choice, hitting all the proper clicky boxes and typing in the appropriate passwords, enabled my voice program that would allow me to talk to my friends in the game and prepared to waste a few hours.

Upon entering the games world I was immediately informed of an adventure into a very dangerous dungeon for only the most experienced players that my friends had set up. I quickly ran around the virtual world preparing for the conquest, buying all the proper equipment, readying my arsenal of combat attacks, and enlisting more people to help in the battle. After all was ready I summoned my virtual mount and headed to the entrance to the cave that we were to attack.

The ensuing battle took hours, and our forty-man team completed the mission that we set forth for ourselves. Later in the evening, after I had logged off of my computer, I called my mom to wish her a happy holiday. She asked me what I had done with my day and I said “Oh, I just played video games most of the day.”

As soon as the words left my mouth I realized what I had said. I had done more than play a video game all day; I had taken part in the telling of an epic tale worthy of Homer. I had helped to battle giants made of molten lava, gigantic flaming dogs, and men that were half snake. I had spent time in a virtual city, spending virtual money, interacting with virtual people, yet I had done all of this with the help of forty real people. We had all taken part in the telling of a tale, but had used the most cutting edge technology available to do so.

My mythic journey was seen not only through my own eyes, but also through the eyes of the other people that took part in the adventure with me, and it is now a story that we can tell to other players in the virtual world. We as storytellers now have the choice of embellishment to capture the interest of the listener, but as they pass the story along our virtual characters will most likely become epic in their stature.