Monday, January 4, 2010

What you can learn about me from farmville

My spouse had a friend who passed away tragically a few years ago. By profession he was a therapist. Unfortunately I have only ever heard stories about him because although I did meet him, he did not like me. (I know, how shocking!) One of the things I know about him is that as a part of his work as a therapist he did some art therapy and interpretations of family dynamics from the way in which people drew their homes. (My spouse will have to correct me if I am wrong, but I am pretty sure this was part of his therapy "tool kit").

I am fascinated by the idea that it is possible to tell something about someone just from what they choose to draw and it is something that I contemplate every now and then. What would my drawing say about me?

In the meantime, I don't draw lots, but I play games on facebook, and one of the games I enjoy is "farmville". One of the options you have is to go to the farms that your friends who are also playing the game have linked to yours and you can "help" on their farm for points. I love checking out the farms of other people and trying to match what I know of their personalities with the layout of their farms. This got me thinking.

My farm and my spouses farm are very REAL representations of how we live our lives, and how different we are. My spouse works hard on her farm to make it beautiful. She commented the other day on how she likes to visit her farm because it is a place she would like to be, a place she would like to create for herself in the real world. In real life my spouse is the kind of person who enjoys the journey. I am much more focused on "the destination". My farm is sparse and serves only a FUNCTIONAL purpose. I want to "move forward". I want to maximize my potential. I want to make the most and progress the fastest so that when I am "finished" attaining all the levels that are possible I can make my farm into a place I want to "be".

I don't like it necessarily, but I like working on it. I like calculating which crops to plant and where, how often to harvest, plant and plow. I have had a lot of fun in the last few days comparing farms and wondering if I change the way I farm if it will change the way I live.
I thought about my spouses friend and how fun it would be to analyze drawings. If I can extrapolate this much from a video game how much could I get from something handmade?

This morning on the way to work and daycare my son dropped something on the floor of the van. It was something that he didn't "need" but which would have made his journey into town more enjoyable. When I stopped at the top of the road I put the car in park, I got out, I retrieved his item before proceeding. As I got back in to the drivers seat I gave myself a little pat on the back for taking a moment away from my focus on destination to improve the journey.
It was a teeny thing - and admittedly I waited until I got to the stop sign before getting out - but it made me smile and it made him happy. I think I'll go "plant a tree" on my farmville farm... then again, that might be a little too drastic for me.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

lol Love the self-analysis and the effort to improve the journey! What if you don't finish your goals before the journey's ended?

Anonymous said...

Always questions. Never statements. Wonder why?

Teena in Toronto said...

I took a peak at Farmville but didn't see what the excitement was about ...