I didn’t kill him because I thought it was amusing. I had a green light to turn left, and as I started going, I saw him. He floored his motorcycle and ran his red light.
Calling his vehicle a motorcycle is generous on my part as it was smaller than my daughter’s tricycle. It was smallest than a Chihuahua with oversized tires. It was fascinating to see this dude assert his masculinity by running a red light on a clown bike. I thought it amusing–partly because it was inherently funny and partly because it was relatable.
I also grew up playing Mario Kart.
Mario Kart is the one video game I consistently play even to this day.
I wondered if this guy was high on mushrooms, and that’s why he thought he could run the light. Maybe he held the accelerator down as the light changed from yellow to red, and he felt entitled to a super boost. I’m sure he knew he didn’t shoot off like a rocket because I was able to lock eyes with him while he was pulling this stunt.
It was the slowest, most awkward stunt I have ever seen in my life.
People argue that as we control video game characters through our remotes, those characters also change how we perceive the world.
I’m not sure if I buy that. I spent many hours playing video games and blowing up heads for endless hours with my fake marksman skills, and I have never had any desire to pick up a martial art, a gun, or finish a Spartan race. But behaviors like the one little knivel exhibited make me reconsider my position because it does seem like his reality is influenced by Mario Kart.
When we think of virtual reality, we tend to think of video games.
But virtual reality was only associated with computers in the early 60s. Before that, philosophers argue that we internalize the expectations others have of us, and we use those to guide our behaviors and create our reality.
It is as we are someone else’s avatar, and they are the ones controlling our reality through their well-intentioned lessons.
Our parents’ voice is the best example to illustrate this.
I grew up in Colombia, and there you can go to bars when you are 15 if you look old enough. So when my sister looked old enough, I wanted to be a good older brother and show her a good time.
I was invited to a foam party, and I convinced our mom to let us go. Now that I’m close to forty, I think, “foam party. Gross!” But when I was 18, it sounded cool.
I brought my friends with me, and we had a fantastic time dancing to Electronic Music in the middle of a disgusting, highly unsanitary foam party.
By the time we had to leave, no taxis were picking us up. We were all soaking wet, with foam bubbling out of our ears, and that’s without taking into account the bacteria we were carting around.
We had to walk to one of my friend’s house, and from there, another friend’s dad had to pick us up in his truck and deliver us one by one to our houses.
My sister and I were the last ones, and by the time we made it home, the porter informed us my mom had left, furious, looking for us.
When she came back, we saw her outfit. She was wearing her PJs with shorts, and flip-flops, and curlers in her hair. We were grounded for two months.
And that was the end of it.
Or so I thought.
When I went to school on Monday, I learned that it wasn’t the end of it. A friend of mine was still there when my mom burst into the club. He saw my mom with her PJs with shorts, and her flip-flops, and her curlers.
My mom instructed the DJ to stop the music and call for us in the PA system. Then she asked the manager to turn on the club’s lights.
I don’t know if you know this, but flip-flops and foam are not simpatico. She stumbled from room to room, calling out our full names.
The embarrassment I felt that morning at school scarred my brain.
Whenever I was at the brink of violating my curfew’s mandates, a miniature version of my mom with her PJs with shorts, and her flip-flops, and her curlers stumbling at the foam party materialized in the back of my head and took control over my behavior.
I always excused myself with ample time to make it home, so I never had to relive that moment. Since then, I have been convinced I am my mom’s avatar.