Survival
The menacing red eyes of a spider glowed between the trees in the dark pixelated background. “The spiders can’t hurt me in creative mode, but I can kill them if I want to.” “Which mode do you like more?,” I asked her. “Definitely creative,” she replied as she sat long ways across the sofa chair, tapping away on her iPad. It was a gloomy Monday morning and I had the day off since I was working the upcoming Saturday. I had woken up at 4:30 am, but managed to go back to sleep. It was now about 9:30. I methodically sipped my coffee as I sat on a dining room chair and gazed out the window at the downed limbs from the overnight storm. My daughter was happy and my wife was dropping my son off at his first ADHD group session. For a moment, the house was quiet. Survival mode. A game of Minecraft had summed it up in a phrase. This is exactly where I’ve been recently. And like my seven-year-old daughter, I also prefer creative mode over survival mode. Yet unfortunately, unlike a vid