Last week a patient of mine began discussing the video game “Fortnight” and mentioned the cost of buying a new design for one of the guns was $30.
It dawned on me that he was in a world that I knew nothing about. I was told that “Fortnight” has over 100,000,000 players worldwide and that each player forks over approximately $500 per year to buy aesthetic accessories like hair color, facial characteristics, body size and gun design.
That’s a fast $5,000,000,000 per year made by the owners of “Fortnight.” This is worrisome but maybe I’m being too old-fashioned.
After all for the small price of $500 per year, you get to travel to faraway places, see strange and wonderous things and kill people along the way. What could be better? Maybe real life could be better?
So, to test the question of which is better, the virtual world or the real world, I decided to make an experiment.
I would take a virtual hike and then take a real hike and see for myself which is better. On the day of this experiment, it was dark and dreary with the temperature hovering at about 28 degrees and a slight drizzle falling. The temperature is of no importance in the world of virtual reality.
All one needs to do is to sit in front of the computer and type in “virtual hike” and see what you get. I was offered a number of hiking experiences and chose one with a big Canadian hiker who was making his way up a snowy mountain in the Yukon.
His adventure was astonishing. He had before him beautiful vistas as he raced up the mountain. He saw some little birds that he kicked out of the way and then when he least expected it, he encountered an angry black bear on the trail.
The fight was savage, he did some Tae Kwondo kicks and pummeled the bear as the bear ripped away at his coat. Thankfully, the Canadian hiker had a knife and managed to finally kill the bear. All’s well that ends well and as he walked away from his kill, he met up with a friendly fox and they both traveled on.
This excellent adventure took only about 10 minutes.
And now for my actual hike.
As luck would have it, I’m doing a series on the New York State Parks in Nassau County and wanted to explore Belmont Lake State Park, a place sure to have trails. Belmont Lake State Park was the former thoroughbred horse farm of August Belmont and is now the home of the Long Island region of the New York Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation.
It is a 463-acre nature preserve with a 26-acre natural lake for fishing and boating, Carlls’ Creek and over 7 miles of hiking trails.
But first I had to persuade my hiking companion to join me. This wouldn’t be easy since it was so nasty and cold outside but I tempted her with the promise of making homemade pancakes covered with peaches, slabs of fresh butcher cut bacon and hot coffee before we started.
Of course, we would also need to have proper clothing including thermal underwear, lined pants, new Merrell hiking boots, extra wool sweaters, warm gloves, down jackets, and wool hats.
Next, I had to look up how to make homemade pancakes which means you need baking powder, baking soda, flour, eggs, buttermilk, maple syrup, lots of butter, a good griddle, and of course some good coffee. I embarked upon making breakfast.
It took about 1 ½ hours to prepare and consume breakfast and now we had plenty of energy for our hike.
I persuaded my partner to accompany me and off we went, bundled up from head to toe and racing towards Exit 38 on the Southern State Parkway.
Since I’m a relative novice to the process of hiking, I casually asked her what was the purpose in hiking and she told me “Hiking is not about excitement. It’s more about observing the subtle beauty of nature. There’s magic in the woods if you’re quiet enough to see it.”
At that point, we were meandering along the winding road that led up to the lake, parked the car and embarked on the hike. There was snow on the ground and not a soul in sight as we made our way to the lake.
We were in the company of a group of swans and ducks who quacked at us in the hope that we had brought some snacks for them but they were not in luck. We walked along the snowy trail, through the woods and watched as two dogs, with owners in tow, said hi to each other.
We came upon the mystery of Carll’s Creek very deep into the woods and after a few moments to pause and smell the winter air we made our way back to the car. The hike took about 1 hour.
We got home by about noontime so the entire affair from beginning to end was four hours or 240 minutes in total. That is compared to the 10 minutes it took to virtually hike up a mountain in the Yukon and kill that bear.
Experimental conclusion: If you enjoy feeling like an invincible cold-hearted cyborg that feels no pain, has great courage, is never tired and likes to kill vicious black bears, you ought to get more involved with video gaming.
I can see the appeal. But if you want to remain human, learn how to cook pancakes from scratch, wear good hiking boots, spend time with your significant other, burn some calories, build up an appetite and explore the magic of the parks of Long Island than you should stick to real hiking and leave the virtual world to the kids.
