You know that meme, the one with the cartoon dog sipping out of a mug and saying to himself, this is fine? All the while, the room around him is burning to the ground? Yeah, that one. If you've never read the full comic strip, the story continues for a few more panels. He says to himself, I'm okay with the events that are unfolding currently, sips his coffee, and begins to melt, consumed by the flames all around him. That's what the last two weeks (month) have felt like. That's how it feels to be testing a $900 virtual reality headset during a pandemic.
On paper, the Vive Cosmos Elite is a great headset—maybe one of the best. It's the top-tier offering from HTC, one of two companies that kicked off the VR revolution back in 2016. It's not cheap. None of them are, but in the past couple of years both HTC and Oculus have been taking steps toward democratizing VR, making it more accessible for more people by lowering prices and hardware requirements. The Cosmos Elite is a swing in the other direction. It's the high-end option, the luxury choice for discerning enthusiasts, but it feels like a step backward—especially now.
New Reality
Photograph: ViveRegular life has been on pause for about two weeks where I'm at, and the world feels like it's coming apart at the seams. We're all making tough decisions, adjusting to a new reality, and bracing for things to get worse. With everything going on, the best way to take care of myself is to escape. VR has become an unexpected refuge. A small one, but a refuge nonetheless.
With VR, your mind doesn't have to work very hard to step into a new reality; it's presented with one the moment you put on the headset. That's good. It's also easy to maintain focus in VR because it commandeers your senses in such a visceral way, engaging your eyes, ears, and body simultaneously. It drops a curtain between you and reality. Focusing has been otherwise hard for me lately. My mind wanders when I try to read a book. When I watch movies and TV shows all I can see are the things I can't do right now, like eat at a restaurant or get a drink at a bar.
