Last year (in May of 2015), I
flew home and spent two weeks helping my mother rehab her body after she went
through quadruple bi-pass and valve replacement surgeries. I know it sounds
like a ton of emotional and physical work, but let me tell you, those 2 weeks
as it turned out, represented the longest stretch in 5 years that I had spent
away from raising my son. So, needless to say, I was looking forward to the
break! I mean, she had a nurse coming to her house every day and my mom could
barely get out of the chair. It’s not like I had to make sure she didn’t fall
down the stairs, eat a marble or run into the street on a whim. Once the
incredibly intense and terrifying surgeries were successfully performed, I just
had to sit around and cook meals and provide entertainment. CAKE!
As
you might expect from this dream scenario (in a
not-having-to-care-for-an-infant way), there was a plethora of downtime; lots
of napping, binge-watching Broadchurch (highly recommended) and reading books
(remember those!?). My good buddy, Matt Hamill, a sometimes wine-drinking
comrade of my mom’s, graciously donated his old iPad to her recovery so she was
also looking for things to do and games to play on her new device. As an avid
Scrabble player, she jumped right on board with my suggestion of Words With
Friends. My Uncle (Happy birthday, Uncle Pete!), who had been with my mom
during the surgery and who had been basically doing my job for me while I was
recovering from the flu in LA, off-handedly suggested getting her “Candy Crush
or something.” So I did.
The
addiction began in earnest on the day I left my only-in-a-slightly-better-state
mother to return to Los Angeles (I bought her a ton of frozen meals, I’m not a
monster). In the few days leading up to my departure, I had dabbled with the
game on her iPad while she was sleeping and I found it to be mind-numbing and
ridiculous. Perfect for filling gaps in between movies and books on a 6-hour
flight across the country. So I downloaded the game to my phone and the
downward spiral began. At first it was just what I wanted, a harmless
time-killer, something to pass the time while waiting in the terminal to board
my plane.
I
have never had a heroin problem, or an afterschool special vodka-guzzling
affliction, but I can imagine, with the help of all of those tropes from TV and
Movies, that those kind of addictions start in the same way. A harmless needle
here and there with friends. A couple sips of Tito’s right from the bottle
instead of making a Moscow Mule. No big deal. But then, as the addiction grows
stronger, and you start to HIDE your consumption of the drug from your loved
ones because you know THEY will THINK you have a problem, then you know it has
become something bigger, even though you might try to deny that fact to
yourself.
Well,
as with heroin, so with Candy Crush. I found myself sneaking away just to get a
game in, staying in the bathroom longer so that I could finish the game I was already
playing, choosing to sit and play the game for fifteen minutes instead of
writing or playing the guitar, telling my son he could watch another TV show
instead of stopping my game and playing with him myself. In terms of
time-management, creative productivity and fun parenting, I had become a
complete failure.
One year and 4 months later I found myself on the floor
of my bedroom, curled up in a sweaty ball, shaking and shivering, trying to
just beat one last level while my son, who was trapped under a bookshelf that
he had knocked over days earlier, was screaming for food that I had neglected
to even buy for him. Exaggeration for the sake of dramatic intrigue or not, I found
myself sitting on the couch while my son was at school thinking about how I was
no further along in my creative pursuits than I had been at the inception of
this phase of my life. I started to calculate all of the lost seconds, minutes
and hours that I had dedicated to strategizing how to best move similarly
colored candy shapes into rows of 3, 4 and 5 so I could “acquire” striped
pieces and color bombs and outsmart the computer program that had become my
nemesis so that I could…what? Beat it? Finish the game? Yes, I think what I was
aiming for in my 80s-video-game-wired brain was to “finish” the game. Or to
“flip” it as we used to say. But here’s the thing about these games we play now
on our phones. Most of them have NO END. They just keep generating new levels
and new ways to get you to pay for “items” that you “need” in the game. It is
an infinite hole and after finishing level 500 (!?), I looked deep into that
hole and my default online frog avatar swooned.
500
levels. What good did I do for my kid, my wife or my career in those 500
levels? How have I grown after beating those 500 levels? What will I accomplish
by beating the next 500 levels? The answer to all of those questions is nothing
(or a version of nothing that fits with the text and context of the question).
Not one goddamned thing was accomplished. So, with great resolve, while the
Candy Crush clock counted the seconds until I could play my next round, I did
the unthinkable. I quit.
I’m
not a quitter by trade. I hate quitting anything. At no time in my life has
quitting something felt like the right choice. OK, I quit baseball when I was
at the top of my game in The Babe Ruth League because I wanted to be an actor.
I had been pitching no hitters in Little League and I was on my way to great
things, but I wanted to be in Grease
so I quit. BUT, that decision to quit came from wanting to pursue my ultimate dream
and, much to many people’s chagrin, I have yet to quit on that pursuit. My point here is that quitting has never been
something that I see as a positive.
But
in the case of the quitting of my tumultuous relationship with Candy Crush, it
was the best thing I have ever done. In the 4 weeks since, I have written 6
sketches, started a blog, had 3 auditions (seemingly unrelated but still) and
have spent little blocks of 10 or more minutes organizing things in my house
which ultimately adds to the overall de-cluttering of my brain, allowing me to
focus on what it is I need to focus on. Like how not to end a sentence with a
preposition. Like I just did.
I’m
still learning. But at least I don’t have Candy Crush pulling my brain into its
evil land of sugar and manipulation, thus stunting my growth as an artist. Nay,
as a person.
In
conclusion, I want to be clear about something. Games are great. I love games.
And every game doesn’t have to lead to a life accomplishment. I do a crossword
puzzle everyday because I’m a word nerd and I get enjoyment out of it and sure,
maybe it makes my brain work 1% better, but it’s still a game. Games are
awesome.
But
this fucking Candy Crush is a life killer. Just like heroin.
Now
if you’ll excuse me, I’m just going to see what this Pokemon Go is all about.
