Gunny,
What's up with the name? Mine's from a Clint Eastwood film.
It's a lengthy and annoying explanation. I'm considering phasing this name out in favor of something more accurate, but I'm not sure yet.
I see where you're coming from and in one sense you're right. There is a matter of prejudice in my case. When I was growing up in the 80's and 90's, I rarely saw adults play video games, so it definitely seems like child's play to me. And I am just an old-fashioned curmudgeon anyway, despite my tender years. Many forty-somethings have hobbies like scrap-booking or building model planes that are essentially pointless, and I think they rank alongside video games. I find all those things more worthwhile than watching sports. People that age who spend more than a few hours a week on such things are somewhat pathetic. These activities are frivolous. And that's not a matter of opinion or taste. For the most part, video games teach one only how to play video games. Sure, you'll learn a little about history from playing a WWII game, but it's a terribly inefficient way to learn. Watching a baseball game only teaches you about baseball, while keeping you on your backside, drinking beer.
But you can't compare playing video games, board games, RPG's, etc. to hunting, shooting, playing soccer, restoring old cars, or even playing the guitar or reading Shakespeare. By the way, only two of those are hobbies of mine, guess which.
Hobbies is hobbies. Trying to compare hobbies objectively is like trying to find the objective worth of anything: it doesn't exist. Something is worth only the value you assign it. It doesn't matter, on a subjective level, whether I spend eight hours crawling around in the bushes to ace some quarter-ton beast or whether I spend those eight hours hunched over a keyboard and mouse, laying into Ze Germans; or scrawling numbers into a sudoku grid; or over a table which is surrounded by my friends where we all imagine an epic, pitched battle involving Orcs and.. freakin' pixies; or at a table drawing furry porn comics; all that matters about any of those activities is that they give me some utility (in the economic sense of the word, synonymous with satisfaction) in return for the opportunity cost I pay.
Certainly, I
could do other things with my time, and we might discuss whether or not I
should, but I think it's silly to try and make up some objective "worth" that some hobbies have and other hobbies don't.
The age difference is not arbitrary, though. Games are an important part of childhood, but in adult life, play-time has to be limited to allow for more worthwhile pursuits. That's part of adulthood. At nineteen, you have plenty of time to kill imaginary bad guys, but hopefully, you'll find more rewarding things to do in a few years.
I'll give you that the age difference is not
arbitrary, but your age has very little to do with what hobbies you can or cannot rightly enjoy, it only really determines the amount of time and resources you should dedicate to that hobby.
~GnSx
"I don't have hobbies, I have interests. Hobbies cost money, interests are free!" ~George Carlin
"Oh, I disagree, I think it's more than a matter of simple economics." ~Strong Sad
