Thank you for personally attacking me!

“It’s worth it to push through the pain!”

Neither, I personally determine the meaning of art. Please feel welcome to ask about any pieces you are unsure of

Well, you can hardly call it “uncontroversial” if “so many people” so strongly disagree with your absolutist characterization of an entire medium of art, right? It seems to me to be quite divisive in fact

But I’m intrigued by this, you consider not only games but also shows and movies to be childish indulgences? I think a more reasonable assessment would be that they have the capacity to be such. But what people want to communicate to you is that through these mediums, they’ve experienced powerful artistic catharsis that has improved their lives, and yes, even connected them with and strengthened their relationships with others.

Sure, a child may have all the time in the world to rot their mind in Fortnite. But there is an artistry to experiencing a craft, just the same as there is an artistry to crafting it. Investing in your capacity to be critical of cinematography, as opposed to simply letting the film flash before your eyes. Eventually you learn to tell the difference between reality tv and great works like Twin Peaks.

If you think these differences are simply not present in the medium of gaming then it’s no surprise you touch the nerve of people who have invested in the craft.

In summary, it’s inconsistent with the lived experience of countless millions of others for you to propose that “appreciating a painting” is a valuable use of an adult’s time, but “appreciating interactive art” never can be, and should be discarded as childish.

And as an aside, whether someone only plays games with no other pursuits to the point where their life falls apart is not really relevant to the discussion. Yes, of course that is a terrible and childish way to ruin your life. It would be equally terrible if you stayed up all binging Netflix and lost your job as a result. Once again the issue here is your perspective broadly, and how you are trying to justify it. Not the medium itself.

As a final aside, I’m (obviously) a gamer myself, as well as a multi-instrumentalist. I find creating music and playing games to be similarly enriching. The high level discussions I have with participants between the two mediums are equally thought provoking. It is a great blessing as well that games are so thoroughly intertwined with music, giving me a lot of carryover between the two pursuits.

This is however, essentially the limit of what I can manage to sustain dedication to as an adult. I would also love to get into painting, and read two novels a week, and watch all of history’s greatest films, and train for a marathon, and sail around the world, and so on. I have confronted the fact that, having only one life, I will only ever dabble in most of those things, if I am lucky enough experience them at all. But I would never think to myself that the things I have chosen to invest in primarily are inherently superior to the things that bring other people fulfillment. Entertaining thoughts like that would make me feel very childish

Yeah that’s part of what makes games specifically so valuable. It asks a lot of you. You have to meet it where it’s at. You have to muster the energy to be able to appreciate it even when life drags you down. Otherwise you can’t progress.

I obviously don’t know you, and reading books and investing time in your family is obviously great. But to anyone generally, I would say be careful and make sure you advocate for your time and energy. It’s very common for people to fall into a loop of passivity. The audiobook is on in the car but their mind is elsewhere. They endlessly scroll algorithmic slop on their phone without it ever actionably enriching them. They turn on a show at the end of the day just to tune out.

If your life is already full of the experiences that make it worth living, great! Again, I don’t know you. But irl, what I see most often when people complain about not having time for deep passions is that their job drains them, then their responsibilities drain them, then they lay, crushed, letting images on the screen flash by them as the days turn into months. Then somehow years go by and they’re left without the memory of ever living them.

In the midst of this, many people adopt the belief that they’ve simply aged out of participating in deep passions, and the way life slips through their fingers is just the way life is. This is a difficult belief to weed out once it has taken root. Ironically Outer Wilds specifically is a great way to confront this mindset lol

The real issue here is actually just your opinion of games. You consider games to be “sit around dick around” time wasters.

If that’s all it is to you then yeah you’ll naturally find yourself moving on as basically anything else will be more fulfilling.

Games to me are a form of art which have the power to change lives. A medium I’ve been continuing to develop an appreciation for my entire life, alongside other pursuits such as music. As life gets hectic into adulthood I’ve found that games are far more meaningful to me now than ever before.

And I’m not sitting around looking for time to kill. I make time to play because of how restorative and life affirming it is. Games like Citizen Sleeper, Spiritfarer, Outer Wilds, To The Moon, Slay the Princess, Hollow Knight, Eastward, Arctic Eggs. Some experiences stay with you forever, expand the depth of your empathy, and steer your heart towards kindness.

I don’t know what’s gonna happen to you if you try to crank out endless rounds of Call of Duty to the point where it interferes with you taking your dog to the vet. But I’m 100% certain all working adults would benefit from engaging with meaningful art regularly. Be it games, books, film, etc. Whatever strikes you.

Well over 300 hours in BotW here, loved it. It feels a lot more “grounded” in comparison to totk, which feels a lot more “sandboxy” at times. Both great games, just different vibes

I would also say, there were a TON of times in TotK where they riff on previous things from BotW. A lot of the enjoyment I got was the subversion of expectations. In the lead up to the game we all thought they just copy/pasted the map to save time but they actually did a TON of work to it, and it’s very interesting and nostalgic to retread over places that have changed so much.

I would guess your best bet is playing them in order, altho it’s probably fine either way

Oh I’ve been meaning to try these! I think Jeff Nippard is a big fan as well.

It makes total sense, that’s actually the position where your arm goes if you try to stretch your lats on like a doorframe or something

Nah movies are ranked on a set of objective criteria such variety and use of color, the use of varied angles, runtime:budget ratio, and so on. Technically speaking the best movies are usually produced by accidentally dropping a cellphone from a hot air balloon

Definitely, it’s a huge issue for a ton of people in my experience. Sometimes if they’re lucky the pain can mostly subside if they grind RDLs and back extensions super hard for like a year, but other times it’s just always a recurring issue. The hack squat has been the most consistently pain free for people in my experience, as well as quad focussed lunge variations where you maintain a pretty vertical torso. Belt squat likely being added to the list as well, I think it’s known for that in fact, but it’s still early for me to say with confidence personally

I love it lol. Coming up with contraptions in the pulley tower/smith machine is a favorite pastime of mine.

I’ve never had a home gym, but I actually really like socializing and people watching so the commercial gyms work out well for me. Sometimes someone will perform an exercise that just blows my mind and influences my own training positively, whether it be massive power lifts or genius bodybuilding setups. So I really like that aspect as well

I agree. Personally I have made multiple amazon accounts and subscribe to prime on each of them. It costs me more upfront, but I get more cash back on my orders. Plus, by buying different raw materials on different accounts the feds are less likely to discover my moonshine operation

Nope, it seems like you understand perfectly! Absolutely awesome image, very evocative

Thank you for cultivating the vibe!

Wow! This really strikes me, something about it is so vivid. Like the afterimage that lingers for a split second when you close your eyes. Then when I actually zoom in close to study it’s amazing how all that detail is implied

Oh my god they even posted the prompt and explicitly told it not to be skeptical of the post lmao

Congratulations! It’s a really great feeling, felt like I was flying when I got my first one. You’ll definitely smash 3 before you know it!

Thanks for mentioning the context, that thread is wild. High probability of getting deleted at some point I’d wager. There’s something so poetic about the way these hucksters all adopt such a condescending attitude towards people who bother challenging them

Edit: checked back, they’re still at it lol. Huffing and uttered the line “Enjoy your little aquarium of illusions” in response to what we see in our post here lol

OOP also bragged about “leading a group 1.5k strong” where people share their experiences but didn’t want to elaborate further. It is in fact linked at the bottom of their blog, and is a 4 month old subreddit with maybe 8 posts from people other than OOP

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You might just be chronically tired or worn down from the stresses of life. It’s pretty common.

Another thing is as we get older a lot of people will choose more “challenging” adult books and then just be totally bored lol. I read young adult and kids books sometimes (how can I give a book to a child if I haven’t read it myself?) and it’s always surprising to me how they can be ripped through in no time at all.

But in general I think you’re probably right that literacy can decrease with disuse. It seems like most things about the mind and body trend that way