The most important element of my experience with World of Warcraft is summed up right there: the community I’ve discovered as a result of the game. World of Warcraft, more than any single other activity or hobby I’ve ever had, has brought me some of the best and most treasured friends of my life. It’s opened my eyes to new possibilities in my career pursuits. It’s challenged me to flex my creative drive in ways I never dreamed I would.

Through World of Warcraft communities I discovered modern thinking on social justice and I met many people from diverse backgrounds who have challenged my perceptions in ways I will forever appreciate. I do not wish to insinuate that I never could have developed these things without World of Warcraft, because I certainly hope that I would have, however it just so happens that in my life Warcraft was the medium through which these things came to me. Surely that is something special.

Life sometimes takes us through dark places, and often the light we rediscover while there is cradled in the hands of other people. One of my favorite quotes is from the book Contact, by Carl Sagan, and it sums up what I feel rather well:

“You’re an interesting species, an interesting mix. You’re capable of such beautiful dreams, and such horrible nightmares. You feel so lost, so cut off, so alone. Only you’re not. See, in all our searching, the only thing we’ve found that makes the emptiness bearable… is each other.”

Thank you, World of Warcraft, for giving me more of the each other.