Sein und Zeit und WoW.

In Being and Time Heidegger describes various attitudes Dasein (beings of the human variety) have towards the things with which Dasein interact. Specifically, Heidegger makes a distinction between ready-to-hand and present-at-hand. The attitude usually maintained by Dasein towards things in the world is that of ready-to-hand. Ready-to-hand is an interaction with the view of achieving some desired end. Present-at-hand is an interaction in which Dasein stop and theorize about the object.

A common example is that of a car. The ready-to-hand attitude would be the normal attitude one has towards a car in which one drives the car to some location. One does not analyze the car or theorize about the car but rather one utilizes the car as a means of achieving some goal. A present-at-hand attitude towards a car would be the attitude one has when the car breaks, when the car stops working. The malfunctioning car draws our attention away from the goal of driving to the grocery store when we instead focus on the car itself.

This weekend my raiding guild in World of Warcraft effectively disbanded and collapsed. While I was ruminating on the collapse of the guild and pondering how I ought to respond I realized how the ready-to-hand / present-at-hand distinction influences the manner in which I, and presumably many others, understand and play World of Warcraft.

In many ways a guild, the members thereof, and the game itself are ready-to-hand, a means of achieving some end goal. When one embraces a goal within the game (obtaining loot, maximizing one's pvp ranking, etc.) then the guild to which one belongs, the characters with whom one plays, and the game itself become ready-to-hand, equipment used as a means of achieving the goal. The guild and its members flow with one's experience and become part of one's weekly schedule.

In this way World of Warcraft enters into one's sense of normalcy and one's weekly routine. As can be the case with a job, a girlfriend or boyfriend, or any other aspect of one's life one ceases to question or analyze the object or activity itself but rather accepts it as ready-to-hand, a means.

When something interrupts the normalcy as when a guild disbands, a server crashes, etc. the experience of World of Warcraft itself ceases to be ready-to-hand and becomes present-at-hand. This shift may allow a player to reassess the experience as a whole and question how one spend's one's time.

All that to say I think it is interesting how one can be engrossed in a game, a relationship, a hobby yet when one's attitude shifts and that object becomes present-at-hand rather than ready-to-hand one's overall view of the object can significantly change. While the thing itself may not change (WoW is still WoW) the attitude one has towards that thing can significantly change how one views the thing. When a raiding guild collapses and one's means of obtaining phat lootz is gone one loses the ready-to-hand guild, the means by which one raids, and is instead presented with a present-at-hand game. One may see the thing for what it is rather than what one previously understood it to be.

I do not think "better" applies to either present-at-hand or ready-to-hand; each have utility in their own way. Rather than fixate on which view is best I think it important to understand how significant one's attitude is in understanding the world in which we live. Also, it behooves us all to recognize another instance in which Heidegger is correct. Because Heidegger kicks ass.