Last night came back to me as a dream: a blurry sequence of dark pink and purple autumn leaves; luscious blueberries and tomatoes falling off lime green leaves; and the malicious, nightly threat of weeds and crows. At some point in the night my roommate left me in our cold, creaky apartment to go to the gym; and, apparently, two hours later, she stumbled back in, apologizing for being late because she really got a runner’s high this time and I swear to god I was flying. I did not notice any of it, because it was Summer Day 28 and I was on my own high, hypnotized by moon jellies drifting underneath virtual docks.
At this post-quarantine, almost post-college point in life, my attention span has been shot through and tattered by Instagram likes and random Facebook event notifications. The novel and the movie seem to be archaic artifacts that belong in museums. I need my roommate to sit next to me in movie theaters and whisper the basic plot events in my ear; not even the high-level New Yorker high interpretations, but just the literal sequence of cause-and-effect narrative that structures the plot. I’ve shifted from reading the epic fantasies that I loved as a child to sci-fi and lit fiction short stories; my party line is that it is because the short story is the most concise and meaningful form of fiction but in reality, it’s because I can comfortably live in their story space because of their accelerated timelines.
I miraculously seem to have somehow retained the attention span needed to write my own fiction, which, hypocritically, manifests as long novels that I could never read. Perhaps this is why I was able to immerse myself in the sandbox world of Stardew Valley. Both writing and Stardew feel creative like I am growing a part of myself through them; playing Stardew feels less like watching a film and more like listening to the noisy, self-contradictory dialogue in my mind; there is no continuous narrative to grasp on to, but a series of short tasks that can be ignored or prioritized as I desire.
As I incubate part of my mind in Stardew Valley, I take on new roles that I have not taken on before: I am a risk-taker who fights monsters in dark, empty mines when there are thunderstorms; I am a romantic who spends days making blackberry cobbler and searching for amethyst for the purple-haired girl who compliments me; I am handy, and I cut my own trees and smelt my own metal bars, building things. It does not escape me that many of these virtual roles take on more active, conventionally masculine characteristics than the ones I practice in everyday life; they allow me to, in an experimental, consequence free way, be physically fearsome, take romantic initiative, and develop a playful sort of tinkering intelligence.
Much of Stardew seems to be structured around the expression of a certain kind of ambition or drive. You are given complete control over how much of your (initially meager) money you invest in seeds and grow into crops. You quickly find that the more crops you buy, the more money you make, especially as the season comes to an end (if you have timed the crop cycles correctly). Farming in Stardew mimics a kind of high-risk investing process; if you are OK with spending your all on crops and, for a few days, walking around with $50 to your name, then you will reap wealthy riches as time goes on. However, you have to fight a certain, perhaps scarcity-driven instinct to hold on to what you have. In the short term, it may seem unreasonable to spend $2000 on a bigger backpack or a sprinkler that only waters 8 crops; there is no immediate monetary return on these kinds of investments. However, the game quickly teaches you that these minor improvements have their own kinds of worth in terms of improved efficiency. Stardew thus gently nudges you towards adopting an “abundance mindset” in which you live in a thriving world that will reward you greatly for taking risks, and only slightly punish you if you fail. There is enough of a safety net that you never fully reel from the consequences of your actions. It is much easier to ascend than it is to fall.
This mindset rests on a foundation of a certain kind of privilege. In Stardew we have the privilege of living in an infinitely fertile world which continuously regrows the trees that we cut down and replenishes the streams with endless fish. Outside of Stardew, being risk-friendly is often only possible if you have a security net (such as accumulated wealth) to fall back on, and a social network to emotionally support you if you fall. Still, Stardew pushes us towards developing this kind of “abundant ambition” which can flourish on our virtual farm, as we run among rows of virtual tomato crops and scarecrows.
