Over the holidays I got sucked into the new Sims Freeplay game on my iPad. I have a huge weakness for time-management and micro-management games, and Sims fulfills both of these items to the max. Once I got far enough into the game that I had more than a handful of Sims, I was finding it hard to juggle them all. So instead of continually flipping from one house to the next, I decided to create my very own Sims commune. The game provides the option to build a “share house” which is basically a replica of any house you lived in while in college, but that is not what I had in mind for my Sims commune. So I set off to create the most Shanti-esque dream commune which included 6 individual bedrooms, a community kitchen, bathroom, and fun room, plus one really large garden. 
When my husband saw my Sims commune he laughed, then told me that my game play said a lot about my personality. He knows that I one day would love to live in a commune of our own, and am most likely vicariously living through my Sims at the moment.
His comment about game play telling a lot about people’s personality really got me thinking, so I did a bit of (super) quick research to see what other people had to say about game play and avatar creation.
I found there are roughly 5 different types of avatar creation. The clone, the dream, the monstrosity, the look-a-like, and the badass (read more about all of them here.) I am always the clone, from making my character look and act like me, to always naming her Shanti. Apparently this means “A well-adjusted childhood has led you to believe that you do not always need to look the best. You, with your incalculable number of flaws, are fine just as you are.”
So when people look at my ipad screen and make fun of me for all of my Sims living in a commune, I am not offended because I know I may have flaws, but I am OK just the way I am. I am secure in my dream to one day live in a modern day and very non-creepy commune, although I think I will opt for individual family bathrooms as opposed to a community bathroom! I think that living a more self-sufficient life is a whole lot easier when you are in it together. With a sense of community comes a lot of support from your neighbors, friends and family. Because anyone who has spent the day weeding the garden knows that it goes a lot faster with an additional set of hands, but more importantly, good company. Plus once the work is done, you have your veggies harvested, your meal cooked, and have tapped into that keg of homebrewed beer…it sure is a lot more fun to celebrate in community as well.
