What are we smoking?

Because


xd


You speak of "quiting" as if it were quitting quitting from some addition like drugs or gambling. In the sense you say me continuing to visit sp after quitting is like going to an alcoholics anonymous after I quit drinking.

But just because you chose to end something or deciding to stop ding something, you don't necessarily have to end it from your life if it was once a big impact on your life. Take high school for instance. We all hated high school when we're in it. We get in trouble, we have authorities, we have tardy sweeps, we have people calling our parents when we ditch school. But if you ask any person who are out of high school, many people will say they miss high school--high school reunions. If you ask college students, many would trade college for high school again any day.

Let's get one thing straight: the internet and its various extensions, such as online games like Maple, IS a culture. Numerous intellectuals in such fields as anthropology, cultural studies, and folklore agree on this, and have expressed interest and encouraged analysis of different aspects of internet culture, such as youtube, facebook, my space, forums, irc chat, and MMO's. I'm not sure if there are any actual studies published in any academic journals, but there is a growing interest in internet culture as a worldwide phenomenon. My point is, if you're conducting an analysis of what modern Maple Story is, then you've got to look at as many contributing aspects to what makes it a culture as you can. It's not just the people who play Maple and therefore make up its community, but it's the company itself, and the rules and practices they create for and impose upon the game which thereby effects the community of players. Otherwise, your analysis comes out biased.

But, then again, this is a public forum, and any Joe Sweatsock can put himself behind a keyboard and spout forth outrageous claims of systematic analysis and theory while presenting no credentials whatsoever, merely in the interest of venting pent-up negativity. Oh wow, everyone is capable of lying on the internet; makes sense why it's not a respected academic source 9 times out of 10...

As for your presentation of articles which call into question such things as if dieting actually works, if people can naturally read minds, and if scientists can harness invisibility matter, these are singular studies published on newsgroups, and skewed by the writer of the article. What I'm saying is, you're not getting all the facts, and the only way to consistantly prove these "discoveries" to be empirical "truth" is to conduct the same study several more times, and recieve the same or similar results. What's more, is that the very nature of any kind of academic study is that when one point of view is expressed and "proves" one thing, another will inevitably arise in opposition to that point of view, "proving" an altogether different "truth". Even further, another academic study may prove both viewpoints are true, and that there is some sort of middle ground between the two. This is what is called discourse, and it gets very complicated, very fast.

But that's just the thing: any truth can be created, but there are often countless ways for an opposing discourse to prove that "truth" wrong in some way, shape, or fashion. This is the nature of deconstructionalism, and I'll leave to your university professors to explain it to you, as reading stuff like Derrida provokes headaches and confusion unless you read him several times over.

Long story short, your world is whatever the hell you choose to construct it as.

Go to school, learn, study, realize things are waaaaay more complicated than you ever thought, and that none of us will ever figure it all out.

ANYWAY, AA meetings are for people who are trying to cope with the fact that they've got an addiction and are seeking group conselling to help them get through it. Even people who are no longer addicted to something continue to go back to AA meetings because they are afraid they may fall back into their addiction if they no longer have that support structure in their life. Visiting a gaming forum and complaining about the game/gaming community you've quit seems like you are turning it into your own personal AA meeting. The question is, are you only here to keep yourself from returning to Maple Story, or have you not actually stopped logging onto the game?

Why are you complaining about a game you don't play anymore, or a community you're not part of anymore?

How do you define "quitting" something if you're still actively participating in it? It's like saying that I quit watching baseball because I hate the sport, but I still talk about it with my friends, and look at the scoreboards to see the standings and stats of the different teams and players. Doesn't that mean that I'm still somehow interested in baseball despite my decision to "quit" it? Isn't quitting defined as to stop, cease, or discontinue a certain activity?

If you're still interested in activities LIKE Maple Story (ie, video games and chat programs or message boards), I'd think that you'd seek out other forms of that kind of electronic entertainment.

And dear god, high school over university? I'd never go back to high school after spending several years in university... high school was a joke - University is so much more stimulating. High school is not the be all and end all: there's so much more to life, there's so much more after high school.

And for any smart ass wondering why I would waste so much of my energy on such a long post, I did it because this is what I wanted to do with my time, and damn whether this was actually a constructive excersize or not - I had fun writing this wall of text. You can choose to read my wall of text if you want to, you're the master of your own choices.

It is still fun to do things even if you have gone passed the purpose of the activity. I could tell you the same thing, couldn't I? Why are you on the internet when there is a big world out there?

Because I'm also doing work on my computer... and it's night time.