The Guilt of Playing videogames

Note: For this post, I'm listening to music, and will insert lyrics of the songs I'm listening to while writing. Lyrics will be in [brackets].

It's something I struggle with on a daily basis. No, it's not ED, it's the guilt associated with playing videogames.

I don't feel guilty when I watch TV, or screw around on the internet, why do I feel guilty when I play games? They aren't any less productive than the former activities. It's because of society, man! Society tells us that games are bad. It's all the man not wanting us to save princesses or arrange coloured blocks. (No, I'm not British, but you thought I was for a second, didn't you?)

We're constantly being told that games are bad in some way [cocaine make you grind your teeth all night]. Even if the message isn't explicit, there's an implied message there. Even if games aren't completely bad, you're still damaging yourself in some way by playing them.

Honestly, this didn't start until I became a relatively busy person, when I started working on Double Jump [it's a freaky celebration of a natural kind]. Then I felt guilty when I wasn't being productive. But playing videogames actually is productive for the host of a videogame TV show! I can't lose my credibility by not playing many games!

Let's run through my thought processes right now [let's take the boat out/wait until darkness comes].

Dan: I'm going to play some games right now, I have some time to myself, what better way to spend it than stimulating my brain. Tickling my intellect. Engaging my frontal lobe and so on.

Brain: Couldn't you be doing something else? Like watching TV or screwing around on the internet? [we can fight our desires/but when we start making fires/we get ever so hot]

Dan: How is that any more productive? I don't need to be productive 100% of the time, but watching TV definitely isn't more productive than playing games.

Brain: The world doesn't waste a lot of time telling you how TV is bad for you. They stopped bothering with that decades ago. Videogames are the newest thing that's bad for you.

Dan: But videogames aren't actually bad for you. Not in any ways that film isn't also bad for you. Or reading for that matter. Reading (derisively), sitting there on its high horse. You know, if we spent all day reading we'd be fat, just like if we spent all day playing videogames. Nobody talks about that, do they? Not ever.

Brain: Quiet, you. If you screw around on the internet, you can multitask so that it creates the illusion of productivity. You can watch videos, read articles, listen to music, chat with IM all at the same time. [it looks a lot like engine oil and tastes a like being poor and small/and popsicles in summer]

Dan: This is butt, and you know it.

Brain: Perhaps it is, you do use your butt enough.

Dan: Why does every conversation with you end with my butt? [I wish I could speak in one sweep/what you are and what you mean to me].

All of this just shows that someone like me, obsessed with the real value of videogames, can't escape the kind of conditioning that leads to a guilt in the style of Catholic Guilt. I will push though, people, don't worry. And if you're suffering from the same guilt as I am, we shall overcome. Together.

[Eyes are sober, this is the plan/I'm sitting in a car heading Neverland/A fancy man, a fancy man/He's point with fingers that are left on his hand]