Thoughts About a Game

[fuzzyred]

A couple weeks ago, a friend came over and we ended up playing a game called "Shit Happens." It is a card game that has various scenarios on each card, given a rating from 1 to 100 on a scale of awfulness. Some examples include dropping your phone in the toilet, car gets repossessed, syphillis, and walking in on your parents having sex. The purpose of the game is to arrange the cards on the "Misery Index" from lowest to highest, and the first player to correctly arrange 10 cards wins. Now, the game purports to have had experts rate the events for their awfulness based on things like long term emotional impact, traumaticness, and psychological impact, but I'm not sure how valid that claim is, and I know my friend and I were very surprised by some of the ratings.

The game is fun to play, though cringeworthy at times based on its nature. What really hot me thinking, and curious about other people's opinions, was mine and my friend's opinion on a few cards in particular.


The cards that we both felt were rated wrong were on the very high end of the misery index and related to losing senses. Going mute and going deaf were both rated at 95 or so, as was Surgeon amputating wrong leg. Now, to me, not being able to speak would be way less bad, maybe 40s or so, with being deaf only slightly worse, maybe high 50s or low 60s. Both things that would change my life but not ones that I would consider catastrophic or traumatic. Inconvenient? Yes. Would require some adjustment? Yes. But personally, I feel like the surgeon amputating the wrong leg implies that you have now lost *both* legs, and that would be far worse for me. I agree with the rating there I believe, because suddenly having no legs would be very shocking and traumatic, and it would be far harder to get around in normal life than the other two scenarios, I feel.

Now, I know there are wheelchairs and accessibility accommodations, and other things to help folks with limited mobility, but I also feel like those services and accommodations are severely lacking at times. I feel the game is slightly biased in its opinion that being deaf or mute would be so bad, but am I also being biased and able ist in thinking that having no legs would be so bad, even though I rate the others as less bad?

Comments

[technoshaman]

It depends on perspective. On the one hand, I'm *prepared* to be blind; I read a life-altering little book when I was ten and spent much of the summer learning techniques described in the book... OTOH, it would effectively end my career. Deaf... might be the most *traumatic* for me b/c so much of my life involves music... Losing the legs? funny, I've just been watching wheelchair videos... you can do a LOT in a good chair if you're prepared to put in the work building strength and practicing. (that and I spent a month in a power chair after my motorbike accident... I know one thing, I Do Not Like the bog-standard wheelchair with the armrests and push handles we all grew up with.. they *suck* for everyday use. OTOH, a good sport chair and practice and you can totally be *faster* than all the folks grinding shoe leather... frankly? Given my issues these days doing long distance walking en mask? I'm kinda tempted to get a chair and learn to use it just for things where I'd have to be on my feet a lot...

[fuzzyred]

I think you're right about perspective. I didn't consider that much before, but something will definitely affect you more or less depending on how prepared you are and what is important to you. Losing your hearing when music is such an important thing would be really hard. On the other hand, it sounds like you have some mild mobility issues that might be made better with a chair ( though that is a lot different than unexpectedly losing your legs).

For me, I've always found the thought of permanent blackness to be rather terrifying. I was the odd one out in band who would have preferred deafness to blindness. And I think the no legs one really does come down to the trauma of unexpectedly losing both legs; the lack of mobility itself might not be quite so bad.