Balance

DURING GRADUATE SCHOOL, i had a couple of neighbors from india, engineering students. One afternoon i was watching soap aperas, like any good dedicated grad student, and ny indian friends made the remark that if such entertainment ever came to india, nobody would leave the house.

That was thirty years ago; in fact such entertainment has come to india, and, well, we hope somebody leaves the house, at least occasionally.

The other day a chinese man became concerned that his twenty three year old son had no job, and instead played online video games all day, everyday. Feeling desperate, the man hired some friends of his son to go online, and immediately attack and destroy whatever game was in progress. The gaming kid wondered his avatar was being destroyed at the beginning of every game, and he explained that he was merely waiting for the right job to come along.

all over the world come stories of children being locked in rooms, locked out of rooms, and dealt all kinds of horrible consequences for excessive video gaming, so its a world wide phenomenon,  worldwid problem; video gaming to the exclusion of other activities by perfectly intelligent folks.

Or is it a problem? According to spokespeople for the gaming industry, which if of of multi billion, the kind of person who excels at video games excels at life in general. Quick witted, resourceful, persistent,  oriented toward problem solving, goal setting and achieving; all the right attributes for a successful career.

Of course, look who's talking. INdustry spokespeople also claim gaming drains away energy and tension, and makes for a happier, more relaxed, productive person. Bear in mind, that there was a time when tobacco companies touted cigarette smoking as beneficial to one's health.

Well, maybe all these alleged  benefits of video games are real, but either way, you don't want to spend huge segments of your life playing them any more than you want to spend most or all of your time doing any one thing in particular, to the exclusion of all other activities.

After all, just how much successful problem solving relaxing happiness can a person stand?