Power & Control

Power & Control Matt Style

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again.  Everything, pretty much, comes down to power and control.  Religion, Job, Money, Love, Career, Hobbies, Sports, Relationships it all seems to boil down to Power & Control.  P&C for short.

I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that, and it’s completely and ultimately human to want to have some semblance of P&C.  We want to feel, even those of us who believe in a higher power, that we have SOME control.  SOME power.  Some ability to bend things to our will and put things in our box and do with things what we want to do with them.  Just own a cat and you’ll see how fruitless this is.

For years I worked as the “low man on the totem pole” in all my jobs.  I had little or no P&C and I was okay with that.  Give me the drone job.  Sit me at a desk.  Point at computer screen.  Say:  “Work.”  And I would do so.  Happily.  Why?  My P&C wasn’t about my job.  It was about writing.  Now, if you told me I couldn’t write anymore, well...then there would be hell to pay.  THAT’s what I want P&C over.  Not my job.  But then, something happened and I got a job that gave me some P&C.  I could hire people.  I could even fire people.  I could tell people what to do and...it felt GOOD.  It felt REALLY GOOD.  But then came the Spider-man adage:   “With great power comes great responsibility.”  And so every year I had to do reviews, evaluations, sit down and figure out raises, budgets, write up this...write up that....WAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!  I wanted P&C without work involved.  After I left that job and went back to a “point at screen and say work” job, I missed what little P&C I had.  But I didn’t miss it for long.

We do this in our relationships, too.  Some of us are more subtle while some of us are more blatant.  Some try and get P&C through honey and some try to get P&C through raised voices and pointed fingers.  Sometimes I do one, sometimes I do the other.  I’ve learned, over time, that some of the most power is the power that is done silently...still, I’ve been known to yell and/or point a finger.

Then there’s what I call “reestablishing dominance.”  If Miriam works all day at her job and that means Nick and I are home on a Saturday for 8 hours when Miriam gets home she has to “reestablish dominance.”  What that basically means is that soon after she comes home (not every time) she will take to task something (dishes in the sink, something not done properly, clothing still in the drying, chores that hadn’t been done, so on and so forth).  I’m not saying she doesn’t have a point, I’m sure she does when she asked us to clean out the dishwasher which takes all of 15 minutes and, somehow, in the last 4800 minutes she was at work not one of us could find 15 minutes.  But I see it for what it is – it’s reestablishing dominance.  I’m not saying it’s a bad thing or a good thing.  It just is what it is and it is normal human behavior.

For me I try my best, sometimes consciously so, to not go all hog-wild on the whole P&C thing.  Most of the time it’s just too much work for me to attempt to even get P&C so I wait until I’m home all by myself and then I, ultimately, have P&C.  If I want grapes for dinner with chocolate on the side, well, then, I can have that (still, I’ll have to answer to the question of “so what did you have for dinner?” – grabbing the P&C again).

But here’s where I notice my P&C and it makes complete and total illogical sense.

It’s one approach to say to a child:  “We want you home by midnight.”  And the child might say:  “Why?”  And here are the P&C reasons:  “Bad drivers at night, you need your rest, can’t sleep when you’re not home, more cops on the street, harder to see, fog, snow, drunk drivers, don’t want you falling asleep at the wheel, sketchy people wandering about, etc.”  Are they all legit reasons?  Yes.  Is the underlying issue about P&C?  Yes.  But, again, these reasons (some might say excuses) are all legit and logical and have a substantial base of reasoning behind them.

So now we return to my P&C...  For years, when DVDs had yet to be invented, we had the old cryptic VCR and for years I videotaped every possible movie I could (and some special shows/documentaries).  When pay-per-views weren’t around we’d want to watch a Tyson fight and I would go to my Viacom outlet in South Everett and get the box for the weekend.  We’d watch the fight on Saturday night but Friday, all day Saturday and all day Sunday I would videotape any and every movie I could get my hands on – until I had well over about 5,000 movies/specials/shows.  Used to be that my cable company would have a “Showtime/HBO” free weekend.  And the company would “unlock” those channels for a weekend.  I’d stock up on $2 tapes and record everything.

Why?  Well P&C of course.

As VCRs and videotapes faded into obscurity, then it was the DVD (and now the blu-ray).  And I picked up where I left off.  Certainly I couldn’t record stuff on DVDs but I could find cheap movies and join DVDs clubs and soon after I had well over 3000 titles.

Why?  Well P&C of course.

I was excited to get my Kindle a few years ago.  Within days I had put on over 1000 books that are in the public domain, plus many many others.  I don’t read.  So why did I do this?

Why?  Well P&C of course.

And then this week I’ve encountered this again, which brings me to this blog.

There’s a great website out there called “Good Old Games” or GOG for short.  www.gog.com – this company has contracted with old game manufacturers (some still in existence) to revamp their old PC games so they’re usable in this technology.  That old game I played on my ancient 286 PC?  Well...now I can play it on my Windows 8 PC.  The company, who I greatly respect, has gone into painstaking detail to make sure these games work.  And not only are they finding audiences that still hanker for this old games, but they’re making converts of today’s players, too.  And there are NEW games being made for the site, too.  Companies are starting to make new games for this site while simultaneously re-creating old content.

How much are the games?  The most expensive games are in the $30 range and that accounts for, maybe, 2 or 3.  80% of the games are under $10.  Some are even free.  And then, every weekend, GOG puts more games on sale, some up to 75% or 80% off.   Then, on occasion, they’ll just say:  “Here, take a free game.”  And for most of the games you just don’t get the game.  You get the manual, the sound track, avatars, concept art, behind-the-scenes stuff.  Not bad for $4.99.

This week they decided to do a “limited time promotion.”  Since this is all digital content that won’t run out, what the management did was create a “limited amount” at a certain price.  100 “copies” of “insert game title here” for $1.50.  Once those run out, a new game pops up.  Some are free, most are in the $1.99 range.  So these are really REALLY good deals...that is, if you play PC games and have an affinity to these old school re-configures.

I haven’t played one of these PC games in I don’t know how long but that hasn’t stopped me from purchasing them.  At last total I have 124 games.  Some are games I’ve never heard of.  Some sound interesting.  Some have really cool additional content.  Some are highly rated.  Some I’ve actually heard of and even played in their original format.  Some say they’ll take over 100 hours to complete.

So why?

P&C

Let me explain.  I may never watch one of the 3000+ movies I have on DVD.  I may never read one of the thousands of books I have on my Kindle.  I may never install more than four or five of these GOG games – I just want the Power and Control to know that I COULD if I wanted to.  If I wanted to go home tonight and watch “Bonnie & Clyde” – I could do so.  If I wanted to pop open my Kindle and read “Mark Twain” – I could do so.  If I wanted to install “Balls of Thunder” and play a pinball machine on my computer – I could do so.  Just the ABILITY to do the above (though I highly doubt I’ll actually do any of the above tonight or this weekend or the rest of the year...) gives me enough endorphin drops to satisfy some partial aspect of my Power and Control needs and/or desires.

And, you know what?  I’m okay with that.