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Like Erdos, I found myself overly involved with mudding, and watching 10 years of my life pass me by. That said, I don't blame MUDding for that, because I made the personal choice to become deeply involved in an online life.
I do agree that Mudding is educational, however. Here are some of the things I've learned:
How to type.
How to treat people kindly and respectfully, regardless of their education level, age, political affiliation, country of origin, or other general categories of difference to myself.
How to recognize opinions from facts, and how to seek citations to back either of them up.
That the world is bigger than I ever imagined, and there are interesting people with interesting views all over it.
That people are willing to invest substantial time, effort, and emotion into things that many consider "just games".
That there are generous, kind people who do volunteer work because it interests them, and even when recognition of their work is scant to nil, they will keep at it anyway, even when the people they are working for are thankless and unkind.
That there are many solutions to any problem, and I don't always have the best one.
That anger and emotional pain can be caused by words alone, and if it is absolutely necessary to divest myself of these things, it is better to do it in private than in public.
And...
That the world, for better or worse now, includes the Internet. It is a reality, a tangible thing, and people live 'in' it as well as in RL. The genie is out of the bottle, so to speak, and MU*s, boards, chatrooms are real people connecting in a real way. Online life is now a part of Real Life, and the distinction and separation are not always as clear as people want them to be.
There are a lot of other things I've learned as well...this list could go on and on. But a lot of the things I've learned via mudding are things I've learned with my heart as well as with my head. Life lessons, if you will.
Maybe one of the most important things I've learned is this: RL comes first. Even when I don't want it to, even when I've backburnered everyone and everything in RL, it still comes first. I've learned to respect that, for myself and my fellow gamers.
I just felt compelled to post here, because I've learned a lot by mudding. I don't know that I could explain what I've learned to non-MU*er folks...but, I can relate to them much more maturely IRL because of my online experiences. I'm grateful for that.
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