If life is a computer game like The Sims 2, what will your life be like? Melissa got me hooked on The Sims 2 a year ago and although I only have The Sims 2: University Life and The Sims 2: Nightlife, it is enough for me to blog a whole entry about it.

The Sims 2 is a simulator game in which you create your own characters. They're like normal beings except they live in a different world as us, i.e. the cyber world. They're born and they die. Like us, they go to school, they go to work, they date, they get married, they have children. They go through the pain of a broken marriage or death and they also go through the joy of completing their degree and owning their first car.

Being a player, we control their world - we choose for them the colour of their hair, the shape and size of their eyes, the sharpness of their nose, their skin colour, what job to take, who to marry, how many children to have etc. We help to fulfill their dreams and to realize their fears. In short, we are actually playing God. We are like a Higher Being telling them what to do and how to do. We tell them when to sleep, when to study, what to eat, how to behave (whether to lick clean the plates after dinner or to kick rubbish bins away).

From my personal point of view, this game is about how the subconscious can be revealed in the conscious. When the repressed doesn’t need to hide and can show itself in its true form. There is a kind of liberated freedom.

I usually start off with a single SIM and get him/her married after he/she has obtained a degree. Then they have 2 kids, nothing more because it will be much harder to "manage/control" if you have too many people living under one roof. (Also, due to lack of RAM and computer space, I have to make do with a family of 4). Seemingly, I have a happy family. They live in a big house; with everything they need in the house. Pool table, barbeque pits, swimming pool, karaoke system, bookshelf, drum set, guitars, bass, bookshelf, exercise equipment and they drive a cool sports car.

There is no lack and everyone is happy. The parents go to work, the children attend private schools, and in between schooling and working, they find time to date, to socialize, and to gain skills (by reading cook books, working out on the treadmill etc). Everything seems usual, but wouldn't be life be a little boring this way? So, to spice things up, all my SIMS cheat on one another. To be it simply, they commit adultery. Father SIM will make out with friend A when mother SIM is at work, and mother SIM will make out with friend B when father SIM is at work. It can be anyone - the maid, the gardener, the fireman, and their friends. And, it doesn't have to be a heterosexual relationship. (Meaning, homosexuality is allowed.) The only thing is not getting caught.

It's unusual because people usually create something that they want to see or something they desire. Perhaps I think too much, but learning about Psychoanalysis has taught me that it's not so simple as playing a game. The family I create is a projection. And according to Sigmund Freud, projections are the expressions of who we unconsciously want to be or how we want to act but cannot. We do not create/write what we want according to our conscious self but reveal instead our unconscious projection of our fears, anxiety and guilt.

What do you think I'm trying to tell you? Remember, it is not about what I write, but what I don't write that reveals the most about me. The author is dead, and in this case I am dead. Meaning lies in the perception of you, the reader..

Anyway, I have been banned from playing The SIMS 2 and the game is now sitting quietly on my shelf. A new expansion is out though, The SIMS 2: Open for Business.

Staring into the Abyss,