The thousands of things I learned by returning to video games.
In the 90s, ‘Basement Boys’ were a dime a dozen in our lives. Everyone’s younger brother was peter panning out. Lack of ambition was clear then, the gender already failing in their early 20s. But we’re not here to talk about that. We’re here to talk about the time I was a cool girl and became friends with a bunch of basement boys, and I had to learn how to play video games.
I have my ten thousand hours of being back seat driven for first-person shooters, space adventures, and enjoyed my losses right up in my face. My hippie mother didn’t teach me to be competitive, and that made the boys even madder. Worse, when I realized I was a button masher, and that I wasn’t that bad, and that maybe even I was getting better, and also - sometimes I will win, fair and square; it’s just Murphy’s Law, David. You can’t win all the time; you can’t control the game, and if you can dish it out but not take it? Sorry, Basement Boy, it looks like your Partiacrchy is showing.
(I literally watched a man in my life fall out of lust with me as I kicked his ass at a racing game at the arcade; don’t be better at their things than them, ladies, or they won’t like you anymore.)
I aged out of video games and being friends with straight men in my mid-20s; replacing the basement boys for travel and exciting work was the first step towards mental health. They all ended up married or teaching English in Asia. Not my problem. Then I had to start taking care of my dad.
Downtime is gold. My work steals all my brains; and at the end of the day one must counter the drain with something fulfilling. Your ADHD doctor calls them dopamine hits, like you don’t deserve them, but you do. And when I returned to gaming, offline, solo journeys of cowboys and assassins and tomb raiders, I remembered a whole bunch of things I could take to my life:
THIS IS THE ONGOING LIST OF LESSONS ABOUT LIFE I NEEDED VIDEO GAMES TO REMIND ME OF
AND WHY EVERY CAREGIVER SHOULD BE GIVEN A FREE SYSTEM UPON THEIR ELDER’S DIAGNOSIS:
Pay attention; like in life, you might be thrown into the action at any time. One second it’s a cut scene, the next, you're fighting Spartans.
As Dorothy Parker said, “Sidequests are cute, but you don’t have to do them just because they’re close.” You don’t have to attend every argument you’re invited to; they can be distractions.
Sometimes you have to backtrack to make the game go forward. Sometimes the side quests are good practice. Sometimes nothing matters, and you can give up halfway through the mission — AND NOTHING BAD WILL HAPPEN.
It’s OK to ride your horse around all day. It’s OK to spend three hours gathering loot and making arrows by the fire. It’s ok to stop and smell the roses in these worlds. It’s your time.
The struggle bus is a state of mind. AND, you have unlimited chances to get off that bus. It’s up to you; failure is an option; skipping the action sequence is an option; lowering your experence level is an option. Not every day has to be challenging af.
Come in guns blazing every once in a while, just to see what happens.
Come in like an assassin, just to see what happens.
Playing video games with a puppy dog in your lap is what God wants for you.
Gaming has been shit-talked by Boomers since the 70s; throwing slacker shit in their faces is very satisfying.
So, there’s science behind this… look it up, I’m no doctor - but cognitively, video games keep the brain thinking. I admitted to being a button masher, but each game drives different - tell me that’s not more advanced than the TikTok hack to brush your teeth with the opposite hand.
I do not believe violent video games make you violent, but it sure does feel fun killing Templars after a hard day of taking care of the ungrateful.