The Bliss of Video Gaming

Waking up to your alarm clock early in the morning, definitely not having had enough rest. Desperately getting yourself out of the bed to get dressed and force yourself to eat breakfast quickly so you’re not late for school, work, or whatever the world has in store for you.

It’s time to get to your destination. What will it be? By car? A 45-minute commute? Maybe a walk, if you’re lucky. Once you do get there, though, it only gets worse.

If not your teachers or managers, then you’d expect at least your peers to brighten up your gloomy start of the day. Those same people you used to run around with, playing silly games as a kid, or going for a drink or two, and having fun with, as an adult. They are no longer the same though, but how could they be, with all the tremendous pressure bestowed upon them by their legal guardians, their caretakers and superiors. Their idea of “fun” sometimes being the use of drugs or anything to numb the pain of reality. Life in recent years for them being nothing but an escape, rather than a search for one’s self. Can you really blame them, though, when you’ve been doing the same?

You eventually come back home from yet another unfulfilling day, only to face others with the same pain, and nothing to provide you with but yet more hurt. Is it your grades that your family doesn’t like, or is that just an excuse to take out their anger at you? Does your significant other really mind that you were intimately chatting with someone else, having a personal moment, or are they simply projecting their own insecurities at you? You can’t ask, you’re a villain, you can only speculate. What you can do, though, is go to your room, your safe place, and withdraw from the emotionally tormenting present, and into one of the last remaining states that make you happy. Whether it was a part of your childhood, teenage years, student years or senior years, it’s one of the few things that remains the same. For a child of the modern era, that would be video games.

Don’t get me wrong, in the vast timeline of human history, many things have created an escape into this childhood reminiscing blissful state. However, nothing is quite like this sensation. Video games are one of the things you can use to step back from a world of constriction and pain, and into a heaven of possibilities and achievements. The video game world is easily accessible. Whether you have a console, a high-end computer desktop, or a run-down used laptop your father passed to you, you can access it. From expensive AAA titles all the way to free browser game sites, video games have but one goal: To make you feel good.

When you’re feeling down, when life isn’t working out, you can depend on video games to lift your spirits. When you’re feeling like everyone is angry and disappointed at you, by completing a new challenge in a video game, you get bombarded with congratulating messages and it instaures within you reasons to be proud. When you’re feeling useless, you get to be a vital part of a story, protecting or saving people, making you the hero.

That’s not all though, video games are not just a temporary escape from reality, but a way to form permanent bonds with others. When looking at the people you played video games with, the people you created amazing long-lasting memories with, such as taking turns to beat a boss or clear a level, these people who genuinely cared about you and still do, you realize that they are your real family. It’s true that sometimes friendships do end, people leave, but you can definitely find more, in the world of video games. Of course, certain bad, toxic people do exist in online video games, but you don’t have to mind them at all. They are not there to stay, and you don’t have to get used to them. Even if they hurt you, you still have had and always will have your close friends to cheer you up. So that’s what video games are all about, what they represent to gamers. A step back into their childhoods, a step into a heavenly world of joy and appreciated accomplishments. A way for people to feel good about themselves and satisfy that inner child’s itch to be the hero of the story.

This is what you think of as you’re the last one to say goodnight and leave the chatroom. It’s already late, you have to sleep, for tomorrow is going to be another rough day. You lay down on your bed, your latest accomplishments and latest challenge at the back of your mind, the sole motivation for you, instead of somewhere else, to go to sleep.