the funnest part, by far, was creating new Sims: choosing their name, appearance, outfits, personality, voice, strengths & weaknesses, basic relationships, & etc. I’d spend so much time on this, on figuring out who my Sim was. It was pure molten fun, almost too much fun. I get a little ghost of a thrill even remembering the Create A Sim screen and its little elevator music.

Designing and building the Sim’s home — that part was exciting, initially, but it got boring quickly. All that constructing, shopping, installing, color-coordinating, making sure things were in the correct places: it got kind of tedious. I’d often rush through it, towards the end.

And then, the game itself: actually playing. Doing life. Events, occurrences, interactions, incidents. Eh; that was cool and all, but significantly less thrilling than making a new Sim. I’d often get bored with the action and just go back to the drawing board to start over with a new character. Designing the Sims themselves, that was the most engaging, and for me the most time-consuming part – the one part that I was a perfectionist about.

Sometimes, I get the sense I’m doing this same exact thing with my actual life. Spending all my time trying to figure out the character, rather than just playing the game.

Look at this blog. All this navel-gazey business of “figuring out who I am.” Questions that keep me up at night. My thoughts. “About Me.” Look at me, I am this way, I am that way. Personality typology. Daily prompts. What is going on in my brain. I am this, I am not that, I hate this, I love that, and why? Even writing this post, right now, I’m doing the thing. I’m still in Create A Sim, at 36.

Maybe this is a bad way to be? Maybe this is the wrong way to play the game? I wonder if after I’m dead I’ll look back on my earthly life and go “damn!, I spent all that time figuring out the character, and so little time being her. Did I even play? Where was the action? What was the plot?”

But on the other hand, ya know, maybe, this is how I be this character. Our society loves doers, but thinkers are just as valid, aren’t we? Maybe this is an okay way to exist. I do love a good character-driven story; plot is, after all, overrated. And I mean, The Sims was a game with neither plot nor rules, after all. I think that’s why my brain liked it.