When I was a kid, one of my favorite toys, and one that I have some of the fondest memories of, was my Viewmaster. We had a few sets of reels and a nice textured plastic carrying case they all fit into. My favorite set was The Fox and the Hound. I’m pretty sure I never saw the movie. But the setting of the reels was these beautiful forest scenes. The story, to me, was peripheral to being able to peer into the viewer and get lost in these beautiful almost real places. The Fox and the Hound set was painted pictures over three dimensional scenes. They must have been models. I can remember clearly the texture and the depth without being able to remember much else. I know that I would stare into them and imagine myself SOMEPLACE ELSE. I was transported.
This seems to be a common thread over the course of my life. Is it common to everyone, or is it one of my special qualities? Does everybody want to get lost in somewhere mysterious? Somewhere far away but very close, somewhere just beyond the veil of reality?
Another question I have about this… is it a longing for heaven or is it a pull toward hell? When I was a teenager almost grown I flirted briefly with the idea of becoming a missionary. I had no good plan for my life, and there was this place that would teach you, train you, and send you. That sounded pretty good to me. They were fundamentalists. King James Version only. Skirt wearers. I wasn’t daunted by that, though. What changed my mind was the beginnings of the Internet. There were all these people out there pretending together. Specifically, there were people out there creating dragon personas and playing to be them with each other. Just having fun in a mysterious pseudo-place as made up characters. I wanted to be a part of that more than I wanted to be a missionary. That felt, and still feels a little like a failing. Looking back at that organization now, the thought of me doing something like that at that age gives me chills, and not in a good way. I don’t believe I was meant to become that kind of fundamentalist. But still, the fact that imaginary games led me away from what I thought could be a calling pauses me. On the other hand, it wasn’t a real calling, right? If I was really supposed to travel to the jungle and pass out leaflets, something so trivial wouldn’t have lured me away. I wasn’t meant to do that. I mean in a way, maybe I was spared by this. Maybe that would have been a horrible life. Maybe I would have grown up full of hatred and judginess. Maybe my love of imagination spared me from a life of unhappiness.
Parenthetically, I converted from nondenominational Protestantism to Catholicism in my late twenties. I may have been trying to convert Catholics to Protestantism if I had gone down that path. A lot of missionaries do. I have no desire to look up the place I had considered going with and see what they are up to these days. It feels too much like a brush with death and, on the other hand, too much like trying to look down the path I didn’t travel.
When I was a teenager, the very same teenager, I was so enamored of the idea of virtual reality that I read an entire non-fiction books,, purchased with my own money, about what it could be like in the future. Okay that doesn’t sound as impressive as it did in my head. But it was definitely something that enchanted me. I read fiction books about it, too. To this day one of my most favorite series is Otherland, an epic 5000 page saga spread across four volumes about a merry little band of adventurers who have to cross from one VR world to another and another to try and save the world and the people they love. I love how it bends reality. I love encountering creatures that may be real or may be artificially intelligent. I love pondering what the difference is.
Me a few years ago, happy to enjoy cheap, phone-based VR 
a few years ago I purchased an old copy of that book I had been obsessed with as a kid. Just so I could still have it. A little piece of the past.
For Christmas this year I bought my sons a Playstation VR headset. It came with two games and there are many more on the store. The Playstation VR is a middle of the line VR device. The resolution isn’t as good as playing Oculus Rift on the PC but it’s nothing like sticking your phone in a modern Viewmaster, either. First we played a game that is like a rhythm-runner set on the cover of a 1980s space metal album. You press the buttons at the right time to avoid obstacles and destroy squiggly demons. It feels like a roller coaster and it’s wonderful. I swear my mouth was hanging open the whole time. It was a rush, a good rush. Lovely.
Then I played the game that came with the set I bought for them. It’s called Moss and it’s about this delicate little mouse who is joined by an overseeing spirit (yourself, Player One) in a quest to save the world. What was wonderful about this game is that when I twist my head around I can see around and behind things. I don’t know if anyone who hasn’t been a gamer for awhile can appreciate what that means. For decades we’ve all been craning our heads to get around obstacles due to poorly designed camera angles. Never before has the game actually responded.
But that’s not the only thing that strikes me about the game. It’s so beautiful that I just want to sit in it. I sit in my chair with the goggles on and suddenly I’m in an ancient temple for brave mice. The light filters in beautifully. If I take the goggles off I can still see the scene on the screen, but it’s flat. It’s pretty, but it’s flat. I put the goggles back on and the light is vivid, twisting. I’m there. I want to stay there. My grandchildren, ojala, will laugh at this level of tech. But for me it’s transporting. It’s magic of the most delightful kind.
Along the same lines of this love for VR is my love for role-playing games. I’ve started playing them with my kids in the past few years. Mom as the gamemaster, the kids as kids having adventures in another time and another place. It’s fun. It takes us someplace else. It makes us like each other more. That’s a good thing, I think. I’ll write about that more another time.
With any of the games I indulge in, I only play for a little. There is laundry to fold and there are children to care for. I did become a missionary in my own way. I have four children of my own who need evangelized every day. I don’t wear skirts unless they are emblazoned with the symbols of the Hufflepuff house or the stained glass from Beauty and the Beast and I never try to convert anyone to my religion, at least, not on purpose. But my daily job is trying to show my family the love of God in whatever concrete ways I can. For now, the taste of the mysterious unknown fits in there. Whether it was ever supposed to be, whether this is something calling me homeward or away, I still do not know.