What I learned from video gaming.

I confess. I am prone to get addicted to anything. Latest example is my writing. Once I start writing, I just cannot stop. Not like thousands of readers waiting for me to write a great masterpiece but just an addiction. I had different similar addictions in the past. One of them was gaming.

I consider  gaming as a waste of time. Just like watching films. Yet I was addicted to playing games once. Candy crush, Far Cry, many more. It is not like I have spent thousands on a home gaming platform. But it could have easily been the case if I had rich parents who had nothing to guide me with. So my persuit of a career blocked me from anything becoming an addiction as I would have to quit at any time unexpectedly when it overspills to my life. 

SuperMario: https://unsplash.com/@kommumikation

Playing video games my experience.

In the college I had a friend who played video games. Not until I went to college I had my hands on a real computer. So I played Far Cry in his machine. Cannot remember which version. Sometimes hours and hours sitting in front of computer shooting hypothetical enemies, trying to save a girl from crazy genetically engineered beasts. That was fun in the initial stages of the game. But as the game advanced I found I am unable to win some stages. I couldn't drive the jeep while shooting at the same time. And I asked the help from my roommate. So while he drove the vehicle I would shoot enemies using the mouse. And it worked. We worked hard for days and both of us were addicted to the experience for just about a fourtnight. We were at it all afternoons. And we found the freaky animals were becoming more and more stronger. Sometimes we would not last a few seconds as they were so fast in attacking. We needed more support. And this time we found a cheat code so we can freeze the game at will, prepare ourselves so we can attack the enemy better. It was just like we had superpower of quicksilver. So once this gaming spree was over and we finished the last level, we even had some fans, gathered around to watch us play. That really did not feel like an imaginary game. 

Fortunately we did not continue to do this after we won. I have tried few other games and it did not stick. Even today I am afraid of these digital realities as I am likely to get stuck in them. So called productivity of mind markedly reduce when I try to involve myself in social media, a true introvert problem. 

Then on the other hand when all these life aspirations calmed down at the halfway of expected life I wonder why it just feel the same. I feel like I have been playing another episode of Far Cry! Far cry express. With all the exams, all the rules, all the people I have met does look like a virtual reality that created by the dreams of the past. There is nobody who can answer that is not. As I have checked with every philosopher from Great Socrates. What should I do now?

GameBoy : https://unsplash.com/@mike_meyers

What Iearned from video gaming

Playing the video game was not a waste of time when I looked at it from this new point of view. I already knew that was a lie, so I did not mind a soldier falls down dead from a head shot. I was the dead shot in a dreamy game. Yet in so called reality when I see the brutality of ISIS or a guillotine of crabs I ask myself what is real? Isn't it again just a memory in my mind Once the act of observation is over? I do not want to argue over this with someone who do not even understand what I talk about. Giving something valuable to you is not the idea. I just write down my observations of life as I understand it is unique, like all other countless consciousness of the universe. I'm just trying to figure out my life, by asking the question What part of it is real when I compare it to the video games I have played, sitting on my partally packed couch. And I cannot rationalise anything real. There seems to be no answers I can arrive at how much I tweaked the words. Such that when I know even a complex video game I played was only possible with a long streak of one's and zeros. How can I be sure what is happening in my brain this moment is exactly not that? Ones and zeros.

If you are confused, perplexed and paralysed by these thoughts now, I think I have won the argument. My advice is do not try to get a meaning. Just keep the information inside and watch the process. The Matrix will end when you are older and wiser.