Flashing Lights

In their simplest form, video games are flashing lights that you control. Obviously, Modern Warfare XVII (including real human blood spraying out from the TV when you shoot someone) is a little beyond basic. There's a great Neil Gaiman story about video games. Basically, people spend all of their time staring at the screen, making different colors do different things to the point that they are over-steamed vegetables. Society collapses and everyone dies.

As it happens, I like simple video games... a lot. Move the flashing lights from A to B. Or shoot a few pixels at lights of another color. Magnificent. I let my mind wander as I play Doodle Jump, Tetris and Snood. The next thing you know, I'm Confucius sitting on the can at work, tapping away at my iPhone.

Take DoodleJump, for example. If you have an iPhone and you don't have DoodleJump, kill yourself. The game is beautifully designed. If you play it enough you'll start to see that the game layout is a series of elements and patterns that mix in different ways to present you with familiar-yet-new obstacles. Once you know all the elements, the trick is not to worry about the score. Stay calm. After a certain point, things don't move any faster, so all you really have to do is keep your focus. How is that not a metaphor for everyday existence? Your brain stores the visual information about your surroundings so as not to distract you every time a picture frame moves a millimeter. This is a survival thing. One blade of grass is the same as lots of blades of grass = good. Tiger in the grass about to each you = bad. And voila, Darwin! See that, video games are responsible for the theory of evolution.

Lessons from games: 1, stay focused. If you can do it playing a game, can't you do it practicing the drums? Or sitting at your desk? I wonder these things as my little Doodler jumps from platform to platform. 2, stay calm. The score is an illusion - you focus on it and it makes you think the stakes have been raised. Adrenaline pumps and the platforms are moving too fast and the bad guys come out of nowhere and AHHHHH! Nothing was moving faster except maybe your heart-rate. 3, make sure you take a break. Every few minutes, I pause to take a breath, stretch my hands and relax my brain. Same way I make sure I take an hour for lunch each day at work - I'll perform better in the afternoon if I've rested and recovered after the morning.

Other analytical folks will find the same truths as they jog or work in the garden. For me it's in between the flashing lights.