Digital Community Service [video games]

I spent about two hours yesterday helping out the digitally less fortunate. No, not anyone with an actual “need” in the physical world. I assume that pretty much everyone who has the time and energy to play WoW is pretty much set for physiological needs: oxygen, drink, food, and heated shelter with plumbing. At the base of the pyramid of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, everyone logging onto WoW is probably set for 6 of the 7 real “needs” (sex being the missing element of the pyramid for many WoWers, I suspect).

Rather than go outside (where it’s cold and sometimes rainy), I did my community service digitally this weekend. For two hours, I helped struggling WoW players get through Razorfen Kraul despite the fact that it’s dramatically too low for my current level. I get nothing out of an RFK run, except for the joy of help less fortunate characters and their owners.

In Maslow’s terms, the WoW can be a dangerous place, and my flock of newbies received Safety, both immediate safety as a result of my towering presence and the tools for future Safety through the resources they were able to extract from our dungeon run. I’d like to think that a little Love/Belonging developed in our party as well, because there sure were a lot of “lol” and emote actions flying around by the end. And if I added to their Esteem of each other and perhaps of me, then we’re getting up there closer and closer to Self-Actualizing, all of us.

Sometimes it’s more about the Chicken Soup For The Soul than the actual can of Campbell’s, you know?