Escapism
Gordon PepperAs
you all know, all of us here at Gameshownewsnet.com
express our prayers any sympathies to everyone in
Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and the rest of the
areas of the United States that have been hit by
Hurricane Katrina. This is easily one of the hardest
columns that I have ever had to write. Please bear with
me as I go back and forth from the past to the present,
as these moments automatically propelled me back into
New York's moment of anguish, which happened almost four
years ago exactly, but feels like yesterday as those
feelings rise back to the surface.
We know what happened in the past week. We know about
the damage that Katrina has caused. We know about the
lives that have been lost. Seeing the pictures, being
bombarded by the images of what's going on in New
Orleans and the surrounding regions only reminded me of
my own surrealistic sojourn around the Big Apple and the
time that it took me to get home on the fateful day of
September 11, 2001. As someone who was a mere 20 or so
blocks away from Ground Zero on the morning of September
11, I can feel the pain and suffering that has been
caused by this natural disaster.
Or can I? Can I truly feel the pain as to what's going
on in Louisiana? I 'only' lost friends that day.
Thousands of people, people who for whatever reason
didn't leave the area, lost their lives. Thousands more
are missing, or are in grave peril. As to the people who
evacuated the city or who were rescued, almost
everything that they have saved up their life savings
for or put their life savings into has vanished from
the Earth or has been transformed into an unrecognizable
mass that is far beyond salvaging. From a physical
standpoint, the damage that Katrina has wrought far
exceeds September 11 or any other natural disaster in
the United States in our generation. I couldn't possibly
begin to feel the pain and suffering that thousands of
people are going through as they have not only lost
loved ones, but have lost almost everything.
Both of these events had the same effect on me my mind
went numb. Both of these events also elicited the exact
same reaction at the end of the day, after being
immersed in these experiences, I just wanted to go home
and get away from everything. Away from the internet.
Away from people and their chatting. Just away. Back on
September 11, the only station that wasn't flipped over
to World Trade Center coverage was the same station up
here that wasn't flipped over to Katrina coverage GSN.
For three hours, the network for games comforted me like
it comforted me almost four years ago, taking me away
from the events of the world if only for a few hours.
It was, however, a few hours that were needed, as slowly
but surely, my mental balance was restored and I would
be ready to face the world again no matter what it
held for me the next day.
This is the reason why we need game shows. Without this
sort of escapism, we would be living on egg shells every
single day. As much as we blast GSN or bad reality
shows, we need them in our lives, because without them,
we'd go off-kilter. In fact, this is probably why we at
Gameshownewsnet.com go out of our way to blast the bad
shows we would never want to see a day where we don't
have that escapism on our television or on our internet
or video game console system, and relaxing and escaping
for that limited time that we have may be the only way
that we can get through events like Katrina or any other
disasters that happen in our own personal lives.
After September 11th, and after the donations, all of us
at Gameshownewsnet.com realized that the only other
thing that we could do was to continue to provide
escapism and give us all another form of entertainment
to have through the trying times ahead. Giving you our
e-mail addresses to contact us and to use us as an
outlet is the very least that we can do. To everyone who
is reading this, and to everyone who has been affected
by Katrina in any way, our prayers are with you and God
Bless.
If you're reading
this and wish to help, go to redcross.org. Gordon Pepper
can be reached at gordon@gameshownewsnet.com.
|