Gaming

The author talks a lot about the addictiveness of the flow state, and how most players try to achieve thjs state to just stop thinking for a while. I found it interesting what the author said about the teacher trying to get their students to recognize the feeling of games, because that's exactly what I've been trying to do lately to counteract that state of not really taking things in and just passing through the game.

There's a youtuber named "Any Austin" who really opened my eyes up to this. Now instead of doing the quests and advancing the game, I take my time with games. I actively get annoyed when games don't give me some quiet time to not play the game, and I really appreciate the beauty of games beyind the gameplay.

I highly recommend everyone to try this out: pick your favourite game, preferably one with an actual game world you can move around in, rather than just a board like balatro, and just sit. Don't play the game, just find something interesting and stare at it. Think about how it was made, and what purpose does it serve in the game. Keep doing this, just walk around your world and try to appreciate its existence. Stare at the skybox, the grass, the buildings, the mountains.

This has given me both a new appreciation for games, and a way to break free from the endless treadmill of going from one experience to the next, with no thought put into the inbetween. It's a sort of mindfulness in a way, and something I feel has actively improved my real life rather than just distracted me from it. Now I find myself able to appreciate these small beauties and curiosities everywhere I go.