Difficulty Levels · 4:17am Aug 7th, 2018
TL;DR: People have different difficulty levels on—sometimes you ought to give help and sometimes you ought to seek it out.
I just finished my once-every-couple-of-years replay of the entire Mass Effect trilogy. This playthrough really got me thinking about difficulty levels.
I always play on the easiest difficulty setting, regardless of the game, and a side effect of playing on Easy mode has made me wonder what exactly would be the true impact of my character on everyone else there. My character is set up so I can basically one-shot anything and (especially in the third game) I’m practically immortal. So the other characters will talk about struggling against impossible odds and I’m like: “Chillax bros, I put the game on easy mode so I can’t die.”
Nothing made this clearer to me than when in the second game I got to this interaction between a side character, Kal’Reegar, and the main character. You can watch this scene on YouTube if you want.
It’s really easy for Kal’Reegar die. I have to make sure I pick the right options including a quicktime event so that he doesn't throw his life away. But during this entire exchange talking Kal'Reegar down, I just wanted to reach in and say to him: “I’m playing the game on easy mode! You’re playing on hard mode! Let me handle this!”
That particular thought got me thinking about life. How often am I playing on easy mode, while those around me are playing life on hard mode? And vice-versa?
With life, everyone is on different difficulty levels. Some people will kill themselves to do something that they really can’t do, while others can accomplish that same task with ease. Some people have to wade through 25 layers of depression and anxiety just to get out of bed in the morning. Others are awake and on fire right from the get-go.
It’s part of what makes people so different, and so specialized. Some things are easier for people and harder for others. I know this is a basic fact of life, but it took blasting down a giant robot in a video game in a few seconds while an NPC was fighting to stay alive to really get this concept.
It’s also worth noting that a significant portion of one’s actions in this life are spent trying to just bring the difficulty level down. It's the old adage: "Everything is hard before it becomes easy."
Let’s take mental health as an example. My anxiety used to be on “Extreme” difficulty at all moments of every single day. Now it’s just on hard mode. And I’m so used to dealing with it and have gone through so much therapy and drugs, it might as well be on easy mode. Sometimes it’s spikes back up to Extreme, but it’s gotten better. And I’ve spent a lot of time and effort trying to get it under control.
Or take financial situations as an example. Being poor is living life on hard mode. And it takes so much effort to get out of that situation. The whole goal of life seems to be getting out of poverty so the difficulty level becomes at least bearable.
I guess my point to all this is that sometimes we are the hulking death machine of a person that can tackle the problem in two seconds. And sometimes we’re the poor sap that’s going to die trying doing the same task.
We’re all both of these people at the same time depending on the task. If you’re the person that can tackle the problem in two seconds, please help out the guy that’s going to die trying. And if you’re the guy that’s going to die trying, it’s your imperative to recognize that and ask for help. The guy that can tackle the problem in two seconds has reached the point where they are no longer aware there’s any difficulty whatsoever.
Good Post
This reminds me a bit of the book that the founder of the Spartan Races put out. That book had a lot to say about doing difficult things to help reset our expectations of life's normal challenges.
This metaphor needs to be propagated.
To extend it, there are something like six difficulty settings going on at once. I get so focused on one aspect of my life that's set to Hard, where everyone else seems to be playing Easy, that sometimes I get blindsided when someone shows me they have a Hard setting in something I didn't even know could be Medium.
I'm definitely going to be looking at things from this angle, now.
This post made me realize that I need someone to get out of bed for me in the morning. I'm adding it to my blog index.
It is also important to remember that the difficulty is felt differently by people in different situations. For instance, having migrated from a 3rd world country to Canada, I'm constantly impressed by just how easy everything is here, to the point that I have a hard time taking anyone who considers themselves "poor" seriously – A word I would use loosely, considering how their income is higher than the typical middle class family back in my country.
Of course, anyone that is used to the easiest setting, will feel the impact of even the smallest challenge much more strongly. So it is important to keep that in perspective, and know that even if you can't sympathize with someones situation, it is important to not lose your empathy.
Good point, well made.