Thanks to everyone who has read any of my writing up to this point. I appreciate the patience it takes to read to the end of any large wall of text, if for no other reason than that I also have a hard time doing so.
The more I write, speak, and interact with others, the more I observe and experience the need for purpose. The clearer the purpose is, the more effective the thing made for that purpose—be it action, speech, or tool. Many times I write only for the purpose of chronicling my thoughts. As vivid as these thoughts are when they first appear, they sift out of my brain like water through clasped hands. Because I knew that much about myself, I wanted to observe these thoughts through newer perspectives. The primary purpose of my blog was self-observation, but what drove me to observe myself? Where did the desire to catalog and analyze myself come from? Well, that would be another question of purpose. What purpose does this observation serve? And what does it have to do with “digging a man cave?”
The Man Cave: Digging and Dabbling
When my wife and I were looking for an apartment to start our lives together, I wanted a “man cave.” If you’re not familiar with this term, you may think of it as a room set apart for purposes of primary, if not exclusive, use by a specific man. I believe the “study” served a similar purpose, but without expressly being for a man. I wanted a room set apart for myself to set up my games, computer, entertainment equipment, and other various toys. This is why we went with the term “man cave” instead of “study;” the only studying that would be happening in there would be studying of video game strategies.
The Lord has seen fit to bless me with a wife who enjoys video games, and she liked the idea of having a section of the apartment dedicated to my entertainment equipment, provided we call it the “play cave.” When it came down to finding our first home together, we had to face reality. Our most luxurious choices in our city, price range and cultural access (foreigners face hurdles when finding a place to live in Japan) had enough room to live in, but not enough to dedicate to one party or the other. An isolated man cave is not an option. The only doors with locks inside the apartment are the bathroom door and the shower door. And the shower door isn’t even completely opaque, nor does the lock provide any actual security since you can unlock it with a finger and no tools. Without going to deep into it, this creates anxiety for me whenever anyone else is in my apartment, including my wife.
When one such as I lacks a place to come to disconnect and recharge, he will usually try to make one. I thought about what I would need in a place of my own and what would make it my own, and then thought of how I could make this place, this “man cave.” I did what most people with limited physical options would do: make a place on the internet. Before I knew what to do with it, I started to dig to make space to do what I wanted.
The Minecraft Allegory
If any of you have played Minecraft, but like me are not very artistically creative, you’ll find that the first thing you want to do is explore. A vast land generates in front of you when the game starts, and in the beginning you are provided with one thing: freedom.
There’s a catch, though. Your game starts at noon Minecraft time, and monsters come out at night. When the sun goes down, you’ll need walls to protect you from the things around you.
If you know what you’re doing, you can punch trees, make tools, craft a workbench and furnace and build a house from wooden planks before the end of your first day and be perfectly comfortable before expanding. These are actions a Minecraft player with knowledge of the game would take right away. They are the house builders.
If it’s your first time though, you may get too caught up exploring to get anything done before the first night falls, and that’s when the reality of the game hits you. You may not survive your first night. To survive, you must adapt. Hopefully during your 10 minutes of daylight you learned to break blocks and place them, because the fastest way to be safe that first night is to dig and seal yourself in. These are the cave dwellers.
I am not an efficient house builder. Even now when I start a game of Minecraft I take a bit too long exploring my surroundings and thinking about all the great things I could do in this place, and it starts getting dark. I quickly make some torches and dig a hole in a mountain and wait for sunlight. This becomes my first base. This is where I put my tools and valuables. I have dug a cave, and its walls protect me from what is outside. When the sun comes back up, I can leave the cave and venture out. Exploring is fun, but I feel safest in the cave. Much of my creative work takes place in there, so I dig deeper and the cave expands
When I started my blog, “Digging the Man Cave” (working title), I wanted a place to express myself creatively without worrying about my surroundings. I had things I wanted to do, so many ideas, and nowhere to put them. I had also become increasingly aware that not everyone understood what I was trying to say or how my thought process worked, so I wanted to start recording it. I wanted a place to put my thoughts: my valuables. And recorded is all they will stay until I figure out how to use them. My thoughts are like all the baubles I find in Minecraft before I figure out how to use them. Sometimes I think of a short story or have an internal dialogue that I want to record but don’t know what use it is. Whether it’s a diamond or zombie meat, I pick it up and put it away for later. Maybe I’ll figure out how to use it. And I do all these things in the safety of my man cave.
image used without permission from gamesminecraft.org
stevemanly 