Sunday, August 21, 2005

Would you like to play a game?

I thought long ago that someday I might get sick of playing games as I got older and "more intellectual." It hasn't happened yet. Video games were my main addiction, but now I'm really into trading card games. There is probably nothing more geeky than these card games - Magic the Gathering and my new favorite, the Marvel VS. System, and I couldn't care less. Although I'm 30, have a house and wonderful wife, and a real job teaching high school students, you'd think I would have given up the gaming hobby (especially because it's terribly expensive). But I haven't - and I hope I never will. There is something about it that keeps me young - keeps me smiling and aware that small joys can mean so much. It would be easy for me to be a "serious" guy all the time - sometimes I can feel myself become that way as I worry about the world around me - the world that seems to me to be falling apart. I fear for the future of my students and what kind of world they are entering... I fear for myself and Casey sometimes too. But with video games or card games, the dark cloud goes away, and for a brief time I'm a kid again, where the only true worry in the world is winning the game and having fun.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Well said. I feel the same way when I go to the movies, eat ice cream or play with my kids at work (soon to be no more...)

Youth is not merely chronological, you get it-- and I expect you'll be that way your entire life. It's what makes you able to love so freely. Playing isn't frivolous, it's essential.

Scotty