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I'm the same way; from ages ~5-21 or so, I played video games almost-daily, but now I tend to keep myself entertained by programming something...not necessarily for my employer, but also not necessarily not for my employer.

I can't quite tell if it's because I like programming more, or if it's because as I get older, I have trouble justifying stuff that I know won't help with monetary or intellectual fulfillment.



I think this is accurate. As you get older it’s more obvious that video games are kind of an artificial happiness, similar to doing mushrooms or something. It’s not that they’re not fun per se, but it’s hard to actually feel good about spending lots of time doing something that’s not going to contribute to your long term wellbeing.


Almost everything we do is technically artificial happiness, it just matters how personally satisfied you are with what you do for entertainment.

I don't think it really has anything to do with recognizing something as being artificial happiness. It just has to do with change. There are speedrunners who code for a living, come home and compete for the fastest times on any number of games, spend their time attending things like AGDQ or contributing to the various micro communities within the scene.

I think people tend to fall into either passive or proactive mindsets for their hobbies. And it's a sort of spectrum over time influenced by the communities you belong to. If you're part of a community for your hobby, then you get more out of it due to community momentum. Sort of like the person who plays games to relax after work, versus the person participating in a speedrunning community for a specific game.




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