As you may remember, I've been posting about board games. One of these games that I referenced, "The Settlers of Catan," is new to me, and I have only been playing it for the few weeks that we are on lockdown.
The game, however, is helping me understand the lockdown. In "The Settlers of Catan," players must settle an island by building roads, settlements, and cities, and score victory points through those and other means. The first player to 10 victory points wins.
There are five trade goods in the game, and each helps the player obtain different types of development that will help them to victory. Players can make deals and trade their goods with other players to obtain the goods that they need to develop - and must try to do so at no great cost to themselves.
And this is why "The Settlers of Catan" is the perfect allegory for the effect of the COVID-19 crisis on the family home.
During this time, each member of the family must help themselves through the crisis by doing what they need to do to relieve stress, take care of themselves, and sum-totally get through the period of lockdown, and yet, at the same time, must give and take with the family, and sometimes find themselves being required to achieve a compromise in regard to obtaining their own help for themselves, in case their efforts to help themselves actually wind up hurting others - not unlike "Catan," in which the exchanged trades between players, meant to help whoever is proposing the deal, might hurt other players.
"Catan" is a new game for me, and if I had been introduced to it at another time in my life, I probably would not have embraced it as much.
But in this time, it is an evident metaphor for our unfortunate circumstances.
CLOSING QUESTION (Leave your answers in the comments)
Have you ever interpreted some sort of media as a metaphor that it was never intended to be?
The most important part of reading The Corona Light is to pay it forward - by literally forwarding! Let's bring inspiration, hope, and empowerment to as many people as we can!
There are five trade goods in the game, and each helps the player obtain different types of development that will help them to victory. Players can make deals and trade their goods with other players to obtain the goods that they need to develop - and must try to do so at no great cost to themselves.
And this is why "The Settlers of Catan" is the perfect allegory for the effect of the COVID-19 crisis on the family home.
During this time, each member of the family must help themselves through the crisis by doing what they need to do to relieve stress, take care of themselves, and sum-totally get through the period of lockdown, and yet, at the same time, must give and take with the family, and sometimes find themselves being required to achieve a compromise in regard to obtaining their own help for themselves, in case their efforts to help themselves actually wind up hurting others - not unlike "Catan," in which the exchanged trades between players, meant to help whoever is proposing the deal, might hurt other players.
"Catan" is a new game for me, and if I had been introduced to it at another time in my life, I probably would not have embraced it as much.
But in this time, it is an evident metaphor for our unfortunate circumstances.
CLOSING QUESTION (Leave your answers in the comments)
Have you ever interpreted some sort of media as a metaphor that it was never intended to be?
The most important part of reading The Corona Light is to pay it forward - by literally forwarding! Let's bring inspiration, hope, and empowerment to as many people as we can!
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