I AM BECOMING LIKE GOD (or) "How I am getting slightly better at Donkey Kong"

Look upon my works and DESPAIR.

Well, not despair, really.  Truth be told, these aren't particularly impressive Donkey Kong Scores by any stretch of the imagination.  The Current DK High Score is at 1.1 Million, so I'm still just an ant before gods, but that isn't the point.

I started volunteering at Bodega 420, a small general store in the Roosevelt Row in Phoenix, a couple of months ago.  I worked with the owner, Adrien, on getting a 48-in-1 arcade machine at a scorching good price and cleaned that bad boy up and put it in the Bodega about the same time I started closing the store on Monday nights.  In the last few months, I've watched my score steadily increase on a budget of about a dollar or two a week.

This is to be expected, of course, as anything you practice at, you will get better at.  What's come to my attention playing Donkey Kong is that, when I get better, I am instantly aware of it.

If you've ever played Donkey Kong, you know what an unforgiving mistress it can be.  There's just enough pattern to lull you into a false sense of security, and just enough randomness to dash a perfect run to dust when an unexpected barrel comes at a 45 degree angle and ends your futile climb.  There is no relaxing, no losing focus.  It's like being a fighter pilot, but with more barrels and quarters.  Every small progression is a grueling process of trial and error, instinct, and calculated risk.  A 6000 point advancement is an epiphany.

I've played a lot of video games, it's true, but if you've ever entered "the zone" as someone putting on neon green shades in the eighties might say to you before skateboarding away, you might be familiar with part of what I'm getting at.

"Have you ever entered the zone?"

At risk of sounding like a serial killer, when playing an FPS, you might go on a kill-streak.  You become a focused murder-android of destruction, barely thinking as you put round after round into anyone who appears near you.  Screaming voices over your headset fade away, and for what might seem like an eternity, you are unstoppable.  Okay, that did sound like a serial killer, but allow this particular simile.  There is a part of our mind that can focus on complex tasks with tremendous accuracy and finesse.  When it perceives these tasks as "life and death" it can seem to distort time.  An experiment by David Eagleman dropped participants into a freefall over a net to mimic a frightening event, then asked how long they thought they were experiencing it for. All participants over-estimated their freefall time.  Maybe this is because memory is distorted by adrenaline, but the imitation of danger is enough to provoke this heightened state.

By engaging in the "life or death" struggle to survive against robot-kill machines or pixelated gorillas, one can experience this phenomenon as well- though probably not as heightened as a fighter pilot.  Furthermore, because of the relatively codified worlds of video games (as opposed to the REAL world, where there are trillions of factors to constantly consider), skills or knowledge is incredibly specific and focused.

A particular example of this kind of epiphany:  On the "Elevators" level of Donkey Kong, one has to actually step towards the springs at the top and double back to climb the ladder to save Pauline.  This particular moment stands out to me because I realized it like it was a bolt from the blue.  I understood it as I did it.  It goes against the basic premise of the game (avoid objects) but it's the easiest way to beat a level most people will get stuck on.  (If everything I just said makes no sense, I'm sorry.)  Regardless, it was a burst of insight.  This sort of thing happens somewhat regularly while pushing against the brick wall of Donkey Kong perfection.

What am I getting at?  Zen.  I felt a brush with something like Zen. Maybe awareness of Kong is an awareness of Kōng, to some degree- there is an emptiness in the moment of moving forward, something transient, a moment where I understand "This is not real, it is a game" with perfect knowledge.  A fleeting instant where I am aware of the both real-ness and void-ness of all things.
Or, I just like Donkey Kong.  With any luck, I will break 100,000 points this summer, and look forward to the time I can say "LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE I'M A FIGHTER PILOT" as someone tries to interact with me as I reach some new stage of being.

READER BONUS POINTS:  You get 10,000 "Totally Rad" points for noticing I said "fighter pilot" three times in this post.

ULTRA BONUS POINTS:   You get 1,000,000 points for noticing "zone dude" has a fighter jet model hanging from the ceiling.