Game Burn-out; A Way Gaming Can be a Social Catalyst

With my newly found time management skills, I've found myself enough free time to play some video games after I get my work done, and I've found that I can't get into anything in particular. I've done some thinking about why, and I've realized I'm not the only one who came to the conclusion I've thought of. So, the following is advice for both kids and their parents of all ages if there is any concern of not doing your work because of any supposed "video game addiction":

During summer vacations, play a ton of games. Just do it, play through games again, go for online achievements, and if you are willing, play a lot of online games. 

As someone who has played video games my entire life, I've found that the amount of gaming I did over the summer has made me indifferent to it. Right now, the only gaming I do is for social or laborious purposes. For example, during lunch, I talk with some of my friends about the game Fallout: New Vegas, a game whose acclaim is centered around ego- insertion and decision-based personalization of the story and world. We talk about those decisions, and what paths we take. Because I've grown tired of playing without purpose on my own, now I take my friend's advice and try different playthroughs with their advice and see where it leads, and then bring whatever the results are to the discussion the next day, making the gaming a much more social experience, and giving it some sense of purpose and motivation instead of mindless time-burning. But, if I have no one to play with or no one to talk with about the game, I don't play it, unless I'm writing a review. Because of my summer gaming spree, games have now become a connection between my social life and my free time, instead of something that separates the two, and has made my life arguably a much healthier one. 

Now I can effectively pace out my free time and my work time, all because I did no such pacing or monitoring for most of a summer. It may not work for everyone, but I suggest it in the hopes that it will help someone, and, as odd as this statement seems, this can make video games an enhancement for your life instead of simply an escape from it.

Reviews (Do you care?)

In my journalism class, we've been working still on basics, learning to answer the primary questions any reader will want to know when reading any article, and one that caught me when thinking of reviewing old movies was the question, "Who am I writing for?". I thought people that wanted to know of a movie before they see it, but then I thought about why people review old movies. If I'm talking about the old Super Mario Bros movie, what would a journalistic review offer as opposed to a forum commentary? What reviews matter that don't come from experienced directors? I get that any sort of criticism requires some credentials, because I wouldn't take my little brother's recommendation of a movie with any seriousness, but there isn't really any set standards of what constitutes credibility in terms of escapist reviews, reviews of movies, games, books, and so on. This case seems to be one where every coin has two sides. One could say my review of an old game means nothing because I'm a kid with limited game creation experience, another could say my review means more because I represent the body of people the game is marketed towards.

I don't bring this up to talk to myself, I genuinely don't know. I take other people's criticisms and recommendations of games and movies seriously while considering their credibility and general opinions, but not every one does, and watching random reviews is much different than writing successful reviews. So, whether you're a close friend or acquaintance reading this, or someone who stumbled dickfirst onto this blog, please comment on this post with your opinion and pseudoanalysis of reviews in general, so as to give me some external perspective on what people look for in them.

Bird Funeral

So, I was walking with a friend of mine after class, and while talking, we look up and see two birds. I thought nesting, she thought fucking, either way, initially, neither of us had any reaction. Then, she realizes that one of the birds is a hawk, killing a smaller bird wo is flapping and fighting for its life. So, I throw a rock at the dicksack of a bird, and the victim falls into a long, thick bush. My friend digs the bird out from the bush and we check its body for breath or pulse, and no such luck. The motherfucking hawk crushed the birds torso and wing, and the bird lost a lot of feathers fighting the hawk. My friend being an animal loving future veternarian, and me being an admirer of survivalism, we decided to take the bird corpse and bury it down the road, taking a moment of silence for it. For both of us it was the first time we had literally watched a life end, and I figured had that bird been a person, he'd have gotten the purple heart for the fight he put up against that violent abortion of a predator. She was traumatized, I was depressed, so we went and had a drink to dull our pain.

So don't tell me an animal's life isn't worth anything, because (not to get conservationist. but) that bird was more badass than most humans, considering the fight it put up against a much bigger bird after having its spine and torso crushed, then falling from 15 feet into a thick bush.

Why High School Rallies Don't Work For Me (another ranty argument)

I just joined a journalism class (relevantly enough), and being a social creature, I've taken to talking to my peers, and a lot of the kids in the class are part of my school's student leadership programs. Talking to them, they talked a bit about the upcoming rally, and I expressed that I don't like the rallies so much. A couple of them were just awestruck, like I had just suggested that The Real Housewives was a show about patriarchy being good. One of them, however, understood and suggested that rallies were more fun for people participating in the cheery dances and flamboyant chants that compose the rallies, and this brought up a concern that I feel should be brought up more often in school settings, and that is the ineffectiveness of rallies in arousing school spirit in terms of "recruiting". 

The rallies at my school are all basically themed performances by various clubs, mostly dances, and they all wrap themselves around the theme of the dances or sports they advertise. The issue with that is it really only brings about any form of school pride from those who already have it, which makes it seem like the school isn't even trying to convert the skeptics and unite the school under the elitist flag it flies. As dissatisfied as I am, I understand why they do this, and my issue isn't as much with this focus on the zealous as much as my issue is with those who want rallies to be about the skeptics. What I mean by that is that these student leadership kids were concerned that I didn't have the school pride prerequisite that I need to enjoy the rally, and I find that this is a very common problem, where there are kids without school pride, and the kids who want everyone to have it. While it isn't necessarily that simple of a division, it does manifest itself in school. I ended up explaining that division by using myself as an example of someone without school pride. I moved to California in my sophomore year, and before that I was in a chartered liberal arts school, meaning I didn't get a freshman orientation to the public school I attend, nor did I know any of the 3500 kids attending at the time. The friends I gained and the familiarity with the area I gained thus wasn't associated with the school, because I didn't grow up there, and I had no particular attachment, as my figurative heart stays in my Arizona home to this day. So, a series of dances and announcements just isn't sufficient enough to bring me onto the school bandwagon. 

I rant about this because I know firsthand I'm not the only one who feels this sense of detachment from a school I spend so much time at, and I know that that isn't necessarily the only reason to be detached. My hope is that kids with this sense of pride will read this and have an understanding of why school pride isn't universal, and thus there won't be any form of animosity or exclusionary feelings between groups coming on a major dance or sporting event. To end on a personal note, now you may have an idea of why I have no school pride, but I don't bitch and moan about others having that sense of attachment to their alma mater. I try to be understanding about it, but I accept that rallies and other sort of motivating demonstrations just aren't my cup of tea.

Fake Workouts in Real Life: Sales Pitch

I had an idea for a comedic YouTube video in which larger kids would go to a public space like the mall, the school cafeteria, etc., and mime-act intense workouts while yelling, tensing, and flexing. For example, I would lie down on a table during lunch and pretend to do the bench press, and have my brother pretending to spot me, yelling in my ear all the profanities that an over-intense trainer would yell. I wasn't sure where to go with it, though. Considering it is a profane public disturbance, I'd probably only end up putting it on YouTube. My school's weekly video series is (supposed to be) very careful about being PC and reserved in terms of anything beyond characterizing broad cliques in school, but if this was done at school, I'd have to clear it with them, and it'd have to be held to the same standards as the video series, which means the idea is screwed at school, and if I did it at the mall, I could be arrested. I mean, that risk may be half the fun, since people would recognize how bizarre it is, but still, I need to think about how to work around that. But regardless, this is an idea in development for the future.

Brotherly Love

Here's a short story that sums up the relationship between me and my brother.
With senior pictures coming up, my mother began insisting that I get a haircut. I agreed wholeheartedly to a haircut, but her definition of a good haircut turned out to be some specialized stylist. Given that the "stylists" we used to go to tended to be elderly women who didn't give two shits what your hair preference was, I figured I'd go to Fantastic Sam's with my dad. I'm used to having long shaggy hair, but this time I got a very short cut, and I have to say, the more I look at my cut, the more I like it. But when I came home, my mother was bitter about the haircut because I didn't get the same haircut from her expensive stylist.
So I become bitter because she finds something so pointless to fight about, and in my frustration, I go upstairs to clear my head in my room, and I run into my brother, lying half-naked in a sheet on the loft's couch, having just woken up from a nap. He looks up at me, takes a look at my new haircut, and he says, "Still ugly". Instead of bitterness, I start laughing with him. With one joking insult, my little shit of a brother took all the frustration and replaced it with hilarity. We laughed and I fake-punched him, and all was well. Goes to show that tone and intent carry just as much weight as words, if not more.

Cordyceps and Consciousness

Over the past week or so, most of my free time has been devoted to The Last of Us, a game that explores a more plausible zombie apocalypse. Instead of radiation, disease, or necromancy, the game uses a form of un-death that already exists. The cordyceps fungus already infects and controls ants, forcing them to relocate to a dark, secluded area, where the ant's tissue is replaced by chords of fungal matter, and at the end, what's left is an exoskeleton, fungus, and spores to continue the intimidating cycle of life. One of the game's minor protagonists, the 13-year-old Sam, the day before his "turning", puts out his fear of one's still being inside that fungal mass, with your body out of control, being aware of the havoc you're wreaking on everything around you. The fictional teenager delves into a fear that, in my mind, can manifest itself in many ways. The concept of zombies could be a manifestation of a fear that, in reality, is just as common as zombies are in games and movies. 

The fear of getting old includes such a fear, where a potentially limited mental capacity results in a diminished quality of life. Alzheimer's is a very real fear for those who may inherit it, because it represents an inevitable loss of mental control, to such a degree that you forget the names and characteristics of those you hold closest. This same fear parallels the one shown in The Last of Us, where many sooner choose to commit suicide than become some demented fungal shit with human limbs. While the conditions vary in degree and effect, the driving fear and resentment towards both is the same.

I look at my own life. The reason that I'm writing this rather than playing some sport at the park is because I take pride in my mental control and ability. Critical thought, exercise of the consciousness, is one of the most important characteristics of human life, in my opinion. The thought that I might lose that by any means scares me shitless. What if tomorrow, I wake up with that fucking terrifying fungus growing out of my cheek, and I realize I'm doomed to its control in less than a week? Do any of us know what action we take? All I can imagine is the most drastic of choices, whether it be running across country to find a medical expert, or burning myself to death to starve the fungus out of spite, or worse. Whether or not survival instinct factors in, I can only imagine these extreme measures, and it scares me that I'd ever have to make that call, and it scares me more that it doesn't have to be a zombifying fungus that plagues me to force that decision. Brain cancer, severe cases of rapid dementia, non-lethal headshots, and so many other causes I can't even imagine, they could take away everything I love about my human life, and there could be nothing I could do to stop it. This fear scares me more than the fear of death, and even more so because it isn't predictable. I know I will die, but I don't know when. I can take steps to keep it away for a time, but I know it comes, and I can eventually accept it. How does one do that with something so uncertain? How can one accept and brace for the symptoms of something they can choose not to think about? 

But now I'm droning on into subjective territory again. I don't know what other people would do, because I'm not anyone else. All I can say with certainty is my opinion on the hypothetical situation, but I can't give any concrete conclusion on any uniform human reaction. But I do still offer this terrifying question as something to think about: What would you do if you were faced with the option of living without self-control, or not living at all?

With all the shit scared out of my body,

Vincent Weis

First World Problems

So, its late in the evening on the Friday before my classes start back up, and my day has consisted eating a bag of grapes, watching YouTube videos, and playing The Last of Us game, and now all I can really think of is how other people could spend their summer. I imagine some of my friends still celebrating youth abroad, travelling everywhere from Argentina to Siberian Russia. While in my mind I know the most they're probably doing is kicking a ball against their wall, it does make me think about what I'm doing with my time. I know I could be doing more active, productive things than sitting around trying to tell myself I'm not fat, but those things are all worn on me. Since I was very little, my mother was always taking us to different places, and we ended up travelling so much that I'd say our average number of "vacations" per year came to about 3,4 trips per year. the intention was to expose us to multiple areas and historical experiences, but for me, it made me indifferent and cynical, if it wasn't obvious. For example, when we went to Paris I found the most interesting thing about the trip was the street vendors and performers, things that could be found, though more scarcely, in my local community, and in London a couple years later, I pretty much just played through the shitty game Candy Crush Saga in the bathroom of every museum, restaurant, and rental car I was in. Every summer, we take another trip, and the focus is always the historical monuments, and because I've developed a habit of indifference, even when something compelling comes up, I dismiss it as run-of-the-mill. But now the alternative is a more objective form of a boring routine. Sitting around, essentially doing nothing, and all because the experience nail was hammered in too deep. 
I look at my life now and my life on the road, and it seems to bring up a bigger topic of the nurtured effect of luxury in youth. Living as a teen in Southern California, I get an answer to the question of, "Who would give their kid a Mercedes?", and I know of at least three kids who are on their second, third luxury car. They get it, they drive freely without enough experience, they crash without fatality, and the cycle repeats, to the dismay and wonder of everyone around them. Their indifference to the value of their parent's property and their life is reduced by repetition. However, the difference between this and my dilemma is that their predicament breeds entitlement, and mine breeds indifference, so the manifestation of the problem of luxury may differ from case to case. But the thing that appears to be common in so-called "first world problems" is that by becoming accustomed to subjective luxury, one becomes detached from objective realities. I developed such a distaste for travelling that beyond moving out, I never want to go out, and the Mercedes-mashers get so used to luxury items being handed to them that when the time comes for them to come into their own, they'll be so used to being hand-delivered luxury they won't be bale to work for it, the same way I'll generally have issues forming more active hobbies and skills, and all because a parent in some way or form worked too hard. Some parents try too hard to win their children's affection and loyalty by being the nice old people in the house, and some try to hard to provide opportunity with vacations and parental micromanagement, when at some point, the child has to develop the natural desire to strive for these benefits, and hand-feeding them hampers that development. Now when the time comes for me my kid(s) want to go on vacation, I won't be able to enjoy it with them, and bond in a way crucial to their growth, and the aforementioned kids will have a harder time living within their means when their parent's money runs out or the time comes for them to live on their own coin. Again, the problems may be different, but the cause is the same. 
Long story short, luxury is bad, independence is good, vacations bore me, and my shitty rant is over.
Done for now,
Vincent Weis