The end of an era?

Well, here we are in 2007. I saw it in with my lady-friend and a couple of friends in Falmouth, Cornwall. On the strike of twelve we heard a solitary ship sound its horn in the harbour, and watched fireworks across the water at Flushing. Beyond that, an occasional blue and green picked out the ridge over which lies Mylor. I drank more wine and we watched Lily Allen and others on the Jools Holland's Hootenanny (sp?) thing.

I'd been speaking to my friend earlier in the evening about creativity and how easily it can be stifled by the many trappings and interruptions of modern life. I resolved to phase out some of the things in my life that I'm unhappy with, and playing and collecting video games is one of the main ones.

I feel that they're sucking out my imagination, wasting my time and turning me into a bit of a zombie. I'm an addict. And I work in an office full of professional addicts.

Playing a video game is an easy option comparing with most stuff I do to 'relax' at home. I've been starting to think that video games are insidious in the harm they cause me: they destroy my creativity. Here's my theory: video games (and TV to a lesser extent) feed my brain with fantastic images, and they feed it fast and hard. My brain soaks this stuff up - I love all this imagery and action - but, oh dear, it doesn't have to do any imagining for itself... And I can easily soak up hours in this state.

We talk about games engaging the imagination, but I reckon what they really do is replace it.

So, I'm cutting down. And I'm not expecting it to be easy. I reckon I need to get rid of most of the consoles and games I own, because having them nearby, plugged-in, playable-within-one-minute, makes it the easiest option when I have nothing much else to do. First, I'm going to box 'em up, then I'm going to start looking for ways to get rid. Donating them to my girlfriend's school might be an option, or else flogging them on eBay. And there's a longer-term behavioural change I need to make, and that is not keeping abreast of the latest game releases. I'm going to stop checking gamerankings.com, for example. I'll cancel subscriptions to games-related newsletters.

What am I going to do instead? Things that take more imagination and thought on my part: looking at the stars and planets, playing my guitar, drawing pictures... stuff like that.

You can call them resolutions if you want.

Next time: (not) getting things done on a computer that has internet access...?