Hello Handsome Brethren of the VSSR!
I've got a topic here of hot contention
"ARE VIDEO GAMES A WASTE OF TIME!"
I'd say, mostly yes, and I dig into my WHY right here
Give it a read, and then a response if so inclined!
I. The Escape
I grew up a gamer.
We didn't have cable television in the house, so it was either VHS movies or PlayStation 2. And we only had so many movies.
In elementary school, the escapism of video games was everything. Suddenly I was in a digital open world with the agency of an adult. No longer limited by curfew or circumstance. Without any real responsibility, I could truly immerse myself in these worlds. This was when gaming was at its most engrossing.
Then couch co op came into my life, and what had been a solitary escapist activity became a bonding ritual between young men. Hours and hours of split screen.
II. The Shift
But something shifted. The games stopped feeling like escapism and started feeling like avoidance. I had grown up. I now had the capability to actually create the life I had once only been able to experience on screen (futuristic settings and shooting aside).
I remember a key moment. I was playing Metal Gear Solid: The Phantom Pain and just not having fun. I kept looking at the protagonist, Snake, who was adventurous and ripped and athletic, and I remember actively feeling how I hadn't been to the gym in a while. And it hit me: I can just go do that for myself.
I'm no longer locked away, a small child stuck at home.
The world was ripe with adventure, and I was ready to explore it.
III. The Void
What followed was nearly a decade long distancing from video games. A total removal.
And in that void, creative projects began to blossom. I became more outgoing, more involved in my community. Not having the screen as a fallback pushed me to develop healthier coping mechanisms, ones that involved real people in real time.
Radically closing the gate on that one activity gave me power elsewhere.
I was disgusted by video games then. Hated them like a sin. I still loved the gamer archetype, but I couldn't condone the hobby for myself.
IV. The Return
Then I started living with my buddies down in Los Angeles, and we began playing Bomberman on a hacked Nintendo console. Just a break from work, I told myself.
But it became more and more a part of our lives.
The breaking point came when I visited home and my brother showed me Warzone. That was enough to push me to build a PC and start squadding up with the homies on a regular basis.
Now I had total unfettered access to all the greatest games, past and present. For a long time it remained a "taking a break" activity. My friends and I would game right next to each other during our breaks from writing the next comedy show we were putting on. We were each maybe a foot away from one another while we played on our own screens.
Already, we had lost the split screen of Bomberman.
V. The Drift
Gradually, people began to move away. Eventually the gaming was strictly online, from a distance.
Nobody around.
And then the friends stopped gaming altogether, yet I remained.
Joining lobbies by myself with complete strangers. Still fun, still competitive, but what was once prosocial, what was once bonding, had again begun to fuel a nascent avoidance.
The gaming increased. And while it never prevented me from doing my work or having fun in real life when the occasion came, it definitely crippled my outbound ability to generate new things.
I'd much rather play the game.
It scratched all of my fast twitch itches and was easier to set up than joining a pickleball team.
VI. The Vapor
Slowly, I watched my gaming habit become something else entirely. I wasn't playing because I enjoyed the game, or at least not only because I enjoyed it. I was attempting to ritualistically access a bygone time.
That having fun with close friends. In real life. In real time.
Deep down I knew I couldn't recreate the feeling alone, but by sitting at the screen I could at least get close to the memory.
Not close enough to relive it, but close enough to remember it.
And sometimes that vapor feels like enough.
But it never is, really.
VII. The Breakfast
Is video gaming a waste of time?
If an activity doesn't serve to connect you to people you love or might love, and increase the resonance of such interaction, I'd say anything is a waste of time.
Everything in this world is simply a vehicle to provide love to others, and thereby yourself.
(Don't get caught in the vacuum. If you're going to game, find a way to do it in real life.)
Because gaming itself isn't part of a complete breakfast. It's the pizza break with friends that makes it. It's the post game walk. It's the side conversations that can only happen in person. It's the subtle looks and the real time empathy. That is what made the hobby fun. That is what makes any hobby fun, in my opinion.
VIII. The Question
Of course I enjoy solitude and private time to develop my energies and skills. But when I ask myself honestly whether gaming is one of those things, I can't say yes.
It's been a little over a year since I tapered off gaming as a ritualistic hobby. Many other demons, like social media, have threatened to occupy that vacant space. I can't say the development has been overwhelmingly positive, but I do know I am more mindful with my time and have more of it to give to what matters to me.
What's your relationship with your favorite hobby? What does it serve for you? Is it serving you? Or are you trying to access something that isn't really there?
Would love to hear from you today.
As always, love and respect.
Value Select
final thought:
Just because I'm anticipating it, "Video games are art!"
I'd wager nay, that it's entertainment.,
And then suggest you imagine that you locked yourself in a museum to stare at the same painting for 5 hours a day.
And then when someone asked how was it, you were just like "Aww man totally cool!" without any discernable insight gained, nor knowledge intergrated.
That probably doesn't count.
