1276: Be Patient

Those who are “against” video games are always quick to mock how supposedly “brainless” and “useless” they are — the other day, for example, a writer for The Times displayed a staggering amount of ignorance on the issue, which resulted in this article.

But video games can teach us all manner of new skills and abilities. Besides the old favourite hand-eye co-ordination — everyone says it because it’s true — games also help train our reflexes, develop the problem-solving parts of our brain, express our creativity, socialise with others and all manner of other things.

One of the things they’ve helped me with most over the years is the matter of patience. I have a significant amount of patience for irritating situations, which is something I was regularly complimented on back when I was a teacher. (Having patience to endure irritating situations is very much a benefit when you’re dealing with a class of 30 misbehaving little scrotes.)

Actually, it’s not just irritating situations I have patience for; it’s the patience to keep beavering away at something until I’m successful (also file under: stubbornness); the patience to try and achieve something even if I don’t know that I can do it; the patience to learn things that initially seem difficult.

A combination of video games and learning musical instruments growing up taught me this particular virtue. And it pays off.

My patience means that I have a lot more time for, say, games that take a while to get going; games that might not be the most accomplished technically, but which have their heart in the right place. My patience means that I am able to keep trying a particularly difficult part of a game until I’m successful at it; my patience means that I’m willing to explore beyond the superficial in games that have hidden depths.

This sense of patience has persisted over the years, too; replaying old first-person shooters such as Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold recently has revealed that they’re a lot more difficult than I remember, and people with less in the way of patience would undoubtedly give up very quickly. But I’ve been persisting, and it’s been an enjoyable experience to return to these games that I grew up with — while they may look dated, they’re still extremely fun, so long as you can deal with the fact that these are games that make much more of an effort to actually kill the player than a lot of modern titles.

I’m weirdly proud of my sense of patience, because it means I can find a lot more things enjoyable than some other people. The games in which I’ve made use of my patience to look past flaws and problems have become some of my favourite games of all time, no exaggeration, and it’s largely due to the fact that I know relatively few people have seen the things I have.

That may sound smug and superior and for that I apologise (a bit, anyway) — but I wouldn’t have things any other way.