| A question often asked by people outside that paintball | | | | combatant with a heightened sense of awareness. |
| community is, "Why do people play paintball?" | | | | Time seems to slow down to a crawl. All five senses |
| The simple response to this query is that people | | | | come alive in a way that is almost indescribable. It is as |
| engage in paintball for the thrill of the hunt. The desire | | | | if life becomes more lifelike than it normally is. |
| to hunt is in the human genome. Human beings have | | | | Reality Transformed |
| evolved this desire over eons. Paintball is a way to act | | | | In a way, it's like putting on 3D glasses at a movie. As |
| out this yearning without actually harming anything. And | | | | soon as you do that, the movie screen seems to |
| there is no game more worthy of pursuing than | | | | expand past its boundaries and almost envelop the |
| another person. | | | | viewer. As paintballs are flying all around a player, it is |
| Action | | | | the same kind of experience. Life itself seems to |
| When a player is down in a paintball bunker, holding the | | | | stretch beyond its normal boundaries, wrapping around |
| gun steady, breathing deep, feeling the sweat drip | | | | the competitor and bringing them to a new plain of |
| down the neck, lining up the target and finally pulling the | | | | existence. It is a plane of wonder and enchantment, |
| trigger, it is a glorious feeling. There is something | | | | when all of the normal ordinariness of life is suspended. |
| primordial about the pleasure received when the | | | | Time rips backwards into those days of old. Suddenly |
| paintballs hit the target, splattering their vivid brightness | | | | the contestant is on an ancient battlefield in Rome, a |
| all over the quarry, instantly letting the hunter know that | | | | shootout in the Wild West, a jungle island in the Pacific |
| the pursuit has ended in victory. | | | | in 1944, or any other place historical battlefield the |
| Of course, the ecstasy of victory is not the only way | | | | player can imagine. There is nothing but the player and |
| to experience a rush in the exciting world of paintball. | | | | his paintball markers. |
| When the tables are turned and the hunter becomes | | | | When life is transformed in this manner, all the little |
| the hunted, it can be just as thrilling. After a player gets | | | | worries melt away, and for a time existence becomes |
| separated from their other teammates, and is | | | | very simple. Kill or be killed. Playing paintball is a way to |
| crouched down in a bunker with only a trusty gun for a | | | | put life down into this simple equation. And the whole |
| companion. When the chips are down like that, the | | | | time one is actively involved in this pursuit, nothing else |
| adrenaline courses through the veins and fills a | | | | matters. That is the reason that it is such a joy. |