You’ve heard the stories. You’ve read the headlines. “Video games make people violent. Aggressive. Gaming is a waste of time.” And for the vast majority of my life, I would have agreed with you — not with the former, that has been disproven, but the latter. Halo, after all, is a silly shooting game. Fortnite is facetious. Frivolous. It is pointless, through and through. But after undergoing a series of traumas in late 2019 and early 2020, I have a newfound appreciation for them. Video games, in many ways, saved my life.
Of course, I was (and am) not new to gaming. I got my first system in Kindergarten — a boxy baby known as Nintendo. I played Super Mario Bros. and Duck Hunt for hours on end. Until my hands hurt. Until my thumbs calloused and eyes burned. I turned to puzzle games in my teens and tweens. Tetris was (and still is) my jam. And…
