Remember all those people who used to dress up like Neo and go to the latest installment of the Matrix trilogy? They talked about “there is no spoon” and all that jazz, and normal people just shook their heads? Well, despite all their weird musings on the philosophy behind the Matrix, it’s really happening. And they’re unwittingly putting themselves into the Matrix.

Now what would make you say such a ridiculous thing, you may ask. Simple. It’s called MMOG. For those of you not in the know, Massively Multiplayer Online Gaming. The whole idea is that hundreds, or thousands of users across the globe all insert themselves into a totally imaginary world, where they interact as if they were real people in an “real” mythical world. I remember back in my college days when people played Everquest, then there was Everquest 2, and now you’ve got World of Warcraft, which is obscenely huge, some Star Wars version, and a gazillion other of these games.

It’s scary, really, because these people abandon their real, physical lives for an imaginary one in front of a computer screen for hours upon hours upon hours every day. Rather than get out and enjoy the real world, they isolate themselves in their houses (or apartments, or parents’ basements) and begin to think of themselves as Ganthor or Mithrand or Yodette or something like that. No, I’m not against gaming, and I love to spend a couple hours each week with a RTS or First Person Shooter game, but some of these people trade in their lives entirely, often spending large sums of real money on imaginary items in a false world.

They really do live in a Matrix, a computer-generated world that keeps them blissfully unaware of the pathetic state their real lives are in. Do you MMOG? More than you LITRW? (Live in the real world) Go outside, enjoy the sunshine, talk to a real person, do some good deeds, spend some time seeking after God, who has an actual purpose for you in this real world.

And a totally random thought…

I wonder, how long until we see MMOG missionaries?