Bonus Post- How Video Games Help Me

Today I am going to talk about video games, probably about Minecraft specifically, but others may come up. I am an adamant gamer and enjoy a variety of different video games but tend to hyperfocus on one at a time for long periods of time. Currently that is World of Warcraft, and when it’s not that it is usually Minecraft. 

In the general sense, games do a lot more for me than just providing idle entertainment. Often they are a source of escapism, social interaction, and stress relief. Achievement hunting in WoW can be an excellent way to feel better about myself if I feel like I am not doing really great at anything in real life, and mount hunting is a double edged sword that both irritates and scratches the never ending completionist drive. 

But what I want to talk about today is how video games are helping me through this whole major life change process- specifically, how Minecraft has helped my mindset. 

Because of the way I play Minecraft -and the way that Minecraft plays- it has been immensely helpful in adjusting my mindset for my real world. I play Minecraft on survival mode, and I like to explore. I often play with mods that add more stuff to the world so I can find new biomes and creatures and recipes etc. I like to find new things! I will mine for materials and build fun stuff on ocassion but my favorite thing is exploring and seeing new stuff. So, while I may have a big homebase that I return to, I also have multiple smaller bases that I set up on my travels and it is a very normal thing for me to just pack a minimal inventory of food, tools and some wood and head out into the unknown to find new things! 

This is the first lesson I have taken from Minecraft. I can leave home with almost nothing and start fresh wherever I land. So long as I can punch trees, I can rebuild from scratch! 

This mindset has really helped in the reduction of all my real life stuff. Thinking like I am playing Minecraft made it a lot easier to part with things that really aren’t that important to me or that I could replace or just go without once I get to my destination. Do I really need three full stacks of pink wool? I never use pink wool. And it is easy to get more if I decide I do need it. Lets ditch the pink wool. 

I mentioned playing Minecraft with mods (Better Minecraft ftw!) but one of the mods that I do NOT play with are things that preserve your inventory if you die. There have been some VERY, very painful losses in Minecraft due to unfortunate lava incidents- RIP to my very fist set of diamond armor. But this has also given me a really great lesson to internalize. 

I can lose everything, and eventually gain it all back with time and effort. 

I feel like I have lost almost everything in the last few years of my life. Things just keep getting worse and not working out and just one more failure after another, over and over and over… It is exhausting, and disheartening. Like falling in lava. But when I respawn back at my bed, with nothing left that I had on me, I can walk out the door, punch some trees, and start again. 

Minecraft is amazing game because you can basically do whatever you want with it- especially with mods and servers (Java superiority). 

Sometimes it is a comfort to just spend a few hours mining a giant hole down to bedrock. The peaceful music, the repetitive motion, and the satisfying sound of blocks breaking can be hypnotic and meditative. Sometimes it is an exciting and dangerous adventure when you finally decided to take on the Ender Dragon, battle valiantly and emerge victorious! Or maybe you get stuck in a death loop just trying to recover what you can and take down the dragon, only to realize you need a better strategy and you abandon your stuff in the End to try again after building your gear back up. And sometimes… Sometimes Minecraft is the inspiration and the lessons of life. 

“Sometimes the player created a small, private world that was soft and warm and simple. Sometimes hard, and cold, and complicated. Sometimes it built a model of the universe in its head; flecks of energy, moving through vast empty spaces. Sometimes it called those flecks “electrons” and “protons”.

Sometimes it called them “planets” and “stars.”

To this day, I cannot read through the End Poem without crying. It is amazing how profound and significant a game can be in one’s life. In my life. 

“and the universe said I love you because you are love.

And the game was over and the player woke up from the dream. And the player began a new dream. And the player dreamed again, dreamed better. And the player was the universe. And the player was love.

You are the player.

Wake up.”