as mentioned below i stopped blogging pretty much exactly two years ago. you may wonder why and let me try to explain what happened. it all started at the beginning of 2005. i had just finished writing my PhD thesis and was in a sort of “no man’s land”: nothing to do but to wait for the final exam at the end of april or in early may. it happened that i got an invitation to the closed european beta of “World of Warcraft” and that new “occupation” that started out as a nice way to waste my time until my final exam turned into a “i eat all of your free time” monster.
my final exam came and passed, life moved on but i still was stuck in that virtual world. in fact, that only changed six week ago. i woke up from my World of Warcraft slumber: i cancelled my account and quit playing. a few (unfortunate) events this march really opened my eyes. life is too short to be wasted in an online game and it is not the life i want to live. what happened to my dreams, to my passions? some critical minds picture players of World of Warcraft as mindless zombies who are afraid to deal with their real lives and hence “escape” to a fictional world. World of Warcraft made me numb.
i think you really need a dramatic eye-opener to see what your current life is like and that it’s about time you do something about it and change it. i want to live my life to the fullest, embracing every challenge and cherishing every moment. spending five to six hours every evening with mostly teenagers in fictional virtual world doing the same things over and over again and where at the end nothing really matters is not part of that life. “life” in World of Warcraft it is shallow, requires no intellectual effort and can be easily compared with junk food – it gets its “job” done, but it is not good for you and doesn’t leave a good feeling either. it can also be compared with mental hypothermia. i am really glad i woke up thawed out.