A Walled In Sim

NoFor those not familiar with the series, there's a game called The Sims.  There's four versions now.  In this game, you create a digital person; you determine their looks, give them a wardrobe, assign traits and a life goal, and then you plop them on a starter lot to live out their little lives.  It's really fun.

As the game progresses, they have wishes you can either help fulfill or you can ignore them.  They have careers, fall in love, fight, fish, and fuck.  They even have some free will thrown in for good measure, so you may occasionally find them chatting up a stranger rather than doing the shopping you sent them out to do.

There can be dark elements to this game.  Let me explain.  The first edition I played was a console version called Sims: Bustin Out.  Or something like that.  I let my sim flirt with one of the pre-made Sims.  They fell in love.  I had mine propose only to find out she was already married.  Bummer.  So... I went into buy/build mode and built four walls around the competition then unpaused from build mode.  This is called walling in a sim.  Over time the little sim starves to death and dies because it has no door to walk through and no way to get to food. 

So I played and watched and waited for this sim to die so that mine might marry the girl he wanted.  The thing is, is that these little digital creatures turn around and look at you.  They point at their mouths to let you know they're hungry.  They get lonely and cry.  They lose control of their bladders and end up wallowing in a puddle of their own piss.  I could only take this for so long before I was bawling my eyes out and going into build mode to tear the walls down.  He ate, cleaned up, peed and socialized and slept.  All was made right at last.

"So where are you going with this?" you may be asking by now.

I'm talking about a human being as a walled in sim.  I am a walled in sim.  That is to say, I feel trapped in my home and sometimes unable to perform even the simplest of duties like bathing or washing my hair.  Sometimes the terror I experience just thinking of leaving my house is intolerable.  And I don't feel like I'm in control of any of this.  I feel programmed to be this way to the point that I sabotage my efforts to lose weight (my programming seems to dictate that I can't drop below 205 pounds.) When I apply myself with determination to get even one pound below 200 just to prove I can, the programming kicks in followed by weight loss fail, or even a rapid gain to punish me for my audacity.

However, food must be bought and dishes must be washed so I can cook a meal so whatever evil hand hovering over that big mouse in the sky finally puts me in build mode (which I must not be conscious of)and builds a door or window of time, I can temporarily get a few things done.  I don't fool myself into thinking this is free will anymore.  It's all fear driven.  As soon as I get home I feel relieved and just want to slunk down the front door. 

Whatever hand hovers over the mouse in the sky must be owned by something that really hates me and enjoys tormenting me.  I see people who's lives seem to be lived in the sun and their sim angel or whatever, loves them and blesses them.  Mine just likes to get my hope up and then snatch my hope away.  Any time something starts looking promising, I wait for the other shoe to drop.  Most of the time I don't even look any more.  I'm just waiting for my sim angel to grow bored enough to delete my file. Hey, rearrange the letters in file and you get life!

In Heathen beliefs it could be said that I was born under the dubious auspices of an ill willing Norn.  Perhaps I was an assignment someone didn't want so I get tormented.  Who can say?

Not me.

I don't know if I really believe any of this or not, it sort of smacks of The Matrix, but it's the best analogy I have to describe my frustration.