It has been just over two weeks since I quit playing video games. In terms of an addiction you might say that is very little, and not even an addiction at all, that it is more of a habit a time waster and a cash sink. Certainly it is all of that. For myself I would have also looked at all the “benefits” it has provided me over the years, that it ended years of nightmares, that it brought calmness, and soothing, and that it occupied me, and made me easier to live with. How much of that is true, and how much is justification?

I liked playing video games. I had some incredible online times, but the detriments have been great as well. A conversation I had with a brother in law helped to reinforce one side of a long waged, internal war, within me, that video games were very destructive. In that conversation he said that he had seen lives destroyed by these games. Destroyed. He didn’t mince words, and I respected him. I saw in him a path not taken, and we had similar enough, early life experiences (or unique psychological makeups) to see where I would have been had I taken that path, and, I was able to let go of some long held regrets.

I have served the Holy Spirit since I was very young, and, I have been there for others during some very dire circumstances, enduring years of abuse. I have been motivated by love even though I have long felt I didn’t truly understand what Love was. I have done a portion of hurt, and harm, and unintentional good. So I find myself in a similar end / mid game position to where I see my brother in law. My view. And I take his words, and I see our lives diverge. I have something in my life that needs to be gone. Family is chaotic, no matter what. We can be a good example, do our best to teach, etc but THEY can’t make US be what they want us to be anymore that the converse is true. What can we affect? Ourselves. Video games are a glaring weakness in my character. They do hold me back. How?

What would I do if I did not play video games?

In these last two weeks I have tended my garden almost every day, I have spent far more time with my wife, I have read my Bible almost every day, I have begun attending Church again, and I have spent more time sleeping, stretching, and otherwise helping my body recover from the brutal physical work I have subjected it to five days a week, 5 – 8 hours a day. During this time I have often felt the urge to play very often, and I resist. In the beginning it was far easier to resist, now, the pulls come stronger, but I have created more options, more things to do, an ongoing list of priorities, of things I actually WANT to do, that I wouldn’t be able to do if I were spending that time playing, and I have had the realization that the appetite to play is insatiable, that playing an hour a day, or a session, would never be enough. I’ve gone that route, of setting up a schedule and of pretending to keep it, and then… And then at some point I invent rewards, or rationals, that allow me to play whenever I wish and I find myself consumed once more. I can now say with certainty that I have a problem with this, that it isn’t like anything else I do in my life and I have played… ALOT.

I watch the urge to play, almost from afar. In quiet moments, I find scenes from past games laid upon my mind, I hear the siren song of a life with purpose. I am very susceptible to the offering of purpose, and games give you purpose by the numbers, endless purpose. As I say, as far as addictions go it is small, but, I can say that my brother in law is right, it is destructive. Period. For me, with my personality, and the responsibilities, and opportunities I have in my life, at this time, playing games means choosing between those things which I truly Want, and something which gives almost nothing, and, takes away much. I am highly competitive, and, giving in, even a little, means giving in to something utterly consuming, with no real reward, just the illusion of reward.

As I re-awaken to the world around me, I see that I must choose between the things that I want to do. The fiction that I lived in before was that gaming filled an emptiness, a void, that I was waiting, that when the time came to act, I would know it, but that, in the meantime, I was in a holding pattern and, since I enjoyed gaming, why not partake, it was as “real” as anything else, since everything was ephemeral anyways. I don’t have a void in my life. I never did. The truth is that I created a void in order to fill it with what I craved. Another truth is that life is not ephemeral, that sitting in my yard, with a cup of coffee, and a bowl of cereal, listening to the wind in the trees, judging the ripeness of the hanging fruits around me, and cataloging the work left to be done, and the trees I wish to plant, and the site of future additions, is far, far, superior, and valuable, than sitting in front of the computer in search of some orange weapon, or one more level, etc, etc. They are in no wise comparable, even should I pack everything up tomorrow and move on. One is a real world, and one is not. Climbing a rope in my back yard makes me stronger, running 10K in a game world and blowing up baddies to save the day actually harms me physically, isolates me, and saps me of motivation, among other things.

I once had 47 acres, and a beautiful house, friends, a community, a career, and a recognizable name, and it all went away. After this, after being lost, after drifting on the wind, it is easy to say “why bother?”. Everything I build I could lose. For years I told myself that the difference between life and games is that in games you at least knew it was temporary, but in life you believed the illusion that everything you did had some permanence. I think, though, that what it comes down to is character, and discipline, and the belief in God. And God is not a generality, able to be replaced with “something you deeply believe in”. I am a follower of the God of Abraham, Issac and Jacob, and the Father of Jesus. That is a statement. That is me. I am not out to convert the world, the world can do exactly as it wishes. My God even says this, if you want to go off and do your own thing, then do it. He won’t help you if you do but… hey, it is called free will for a reason. So if my God doesn’t feel the need to twist arms, then I certainly don’t, but I’d like others to know who I serve.

When I was a child, I was beaten a lot by my mother, pretty much every day, sometimes a great many times a day, with lots of other non physical crap thrown in. I was very lucky in that I blacked out just as the blows came, just before they landed, so I don’t have the memories of the beatings themselves, just of fists, or hands before my face, or, as a small child, of flying through the air, and of having a raging giant towering over me, bellowing. This continued until I was about eleven years old, after which she wasn’t able to hit my. I never struck her back, that I know of, but, when I was eleven I recall being there, not blacking out, as she backed me into a corner with a couple of stairs right behind me, and repeatedly kicked at me, over and over again, swinging leg after leg at me, and failing to connect. I was dodging her, and watching it all very dispassionately. I wasn’t afraid, or anxious, or anything. It was simply what was happening.

At one point she finally lost her balance and landed, hard, on her ass. And cried, loudly! Getting up, angrier than before she laid into me verbally, calling me a coward for not running away from home, telling me that I didn’t have the balls to even try to commit suicide, that after she was raped, the first time, as a child, she had at least tried to commit suicide by slashing her wrists and that I needed to remember to cut lengthwise, and not crosswise. After which she went to her chair and cried and cried, and cried saying, over and over that she was sorry, and I watched, still where I had been, with my back to those stairs, in our living room, watching her, and, knowing, that in awhile, the angry, hateful her would be back, that this tearful person in front of me was just another version of my mother, less powerful and more temporary than the angry one. And I was right.

What does all of this have to do with games, etc?

I did some good by taking those beatings, but I didn’t do it intentionally. Years later my brother would tell me, after my mother’s death, after  a strong denial that any of this happened, at all, that not only had it all happened, but that when my mother would go on her rampage, he, and my other 4, younger sisters (6 children in 7 years) would run and hide, mostly outside, and that I would remain behind and block the way, and he would hear the screaming, and the hitting, and that would happened pretty much every time.

When the hitting stopped, it became other types of abuse, and I was a pariah in my own family. When I finally moved out I was very thing, under 110 pounds at 5’8″ tall, and very messed up. I lived in places that were very violent, of my own accord, places that were very comfortable to me. To this day I prefer ex cons and gang bangers to “normal” people, though I know that, in those settings, violence is right around the corner, but, there, often, respect is far more intentional, and, there is little to no casual disrespect as there is in non violent settings, I feel that this is because disrespect is a very clear signal of intention, and that signal is one of impending violence.

In normal society, casual disrespect is the norm and it is about posturing, all this alpha and beta male bullshit that exists because people take for granted that violence is something they control, and dish out, as they deem fit, enforced by outside agencies such as police, and bosses, and lawyers, and their ability to lie, and dominate the theater of public opinion, and to violate the social lubricant we call politeness, and convention, gives them the right to act as they wish, without real repercussions. Violence is a real repercussion, in most of the world. It is currently suppressed, in America, to an extraordinary degree, with physical violence supplanted by public humiliation, and labeling. It is as though we live in an abusive household, run by a domineering woman. It is no more healthy that living in a household run by a drunk, wife, child beathing man, who relies on his physical stature to control his environment.

How does this relate to gaming?

Gaming was my self medication. And I over did it. I am an adult, which means that I can choose. Do I wish to live in the past? Do I wish to live in a virtual reality that has no real bearing on my life? Do I wish to squander my life? Or do I wish to embrace the love that I have, and to nurture it, and to recognize the Love my God has for me, and to see where He has put me, and to tend those things I care about, and to begin to recognize the opportunities that exist, and, to nurture hope, something I was long lacking.

The reason I say that we cannot do anything about our family is that I see in Genesis a lesson on parenting.

The Lord raised Adam and Eve. He provided them with the best environment possible. Paradise. He provided them with the best parent anyone could have. Himself. He gave them the best role model possible. Himself. And, he showed that, in every thing, a bit of evil must creep, and, in all of that, the children face that evil themselves. In this case, they failed, and, rather than punishment, they faced the natural consequences of their actions. He drove them from the garden, not to teach them a lesson, but because of what they would inevitably do. To prevent another wrong. He was a good parent to them. He had the ability to block their initial choice, but he didn’t. He had the ability to excise evil from the garden, but He didn’t. We can’t.

Next he gave his creations total free reign. No rules. Again, He allowed them to know Him, and He walked amoung them, and some excelled, but, the greater majority had such black hearts that He records His only regret (That He created them at all), and destroys all but one family with a flood.

Then He raises a people and, teaches them His ways, and gives them lessons and laws and has them spend 40 years wandering in the desert getting them to bend their necks to His statuettes and commandments. Still, they have problems, but we see some progress.

Lastly He sends His Son, and we enter a new phase. We have the Son as a mediator, and we have the Holy Spirit as a guide, as well as the teachings and the prophets, and we embark on a very personal relationship with our Master, in this life. We can choose to have a willing, or an unwilling partnership.

So I say, I look to my life, games are a barrier to where I want to be, they are a barrier to the love my wife has for me, to the opportunities present, but also a snare. At a very minimum, deep in my own desires, I cannot see the beauty around me. At a minimum, when I allow myself to be consumed by things unhealthy, I live in a fiction of my own making, that allows my to continue to justify my own destruction, and that impacts anyone who interacts with me. Especially those who love me, and those I love, in turn.

God Bless