The one about leisure

When Elder Scrolls 3, Morrowind, came out, I remember playing sometimes 15 hours straight.  It was the first game like that I had ever experienced, and it was completely blowing me away.  Before that, all I had ever played really was Age of Empires.

That wasn't exactly good for me, though, playing long stretches at a time, so when Elder Scrolls 4, Oblivion, came out, I promised myself to play only two hours maximum at a time.  

I lied.  

I ended up playing Oblivion hours on end, too, because it was just so cool and so much better than Morrowind, I honestly couldn't get enough of it.  I even bought a new television to make the Oblivion experience all the better.

So now Skyrim has come out, Elder Scrolls 5.  It's compelling just like the others in the series, but for some reason, I have not sat on the XBox hour after hour playing it.  I have played for a couple hours then gone off to do other things, all without threatening myself or setting alarm clocks or anything more extraordinary than simply glancing at the clock and saying, "Hey, I want to go outside now."  Maybe I'm finally growing up?  Unlikely, but maybe.

The graphics and scripting and character interactions are the best ever in Skyrim.  For the first few days of play, I really didn't do much except wander around the game world enjoying how beautiful it was, how the butterflies flew, how the grass waved in the breeze, how people chopped wood and smithed blades, as well as how the occasional sabertooth cat could slice me in two with one swipe.  Fascinating.

But now I'm down to business and getting into the actual meat of gameplay.  I got married in the game world so I could have a steady and daily flow of income from my spouse.  That was never possible before.  There are children in the game, too.  Elder Scrolls games never had children characters before.  A lot of the grooviest stuff must have come from the game makers' experience with Fallout 3, because there are aspects of Skyrim that remind me of Fallout, and some of the voice actors were also in Fallout.  

Games like this are little escapes from reality, and that's not a bad thing.  It's a hell of a lot better than watching television.  TV as entertainment is a total waste of time. Everyone needs to have and enjoy meaningful leisure on a regular basis.  My job affords me the time and opportunity to engage in several different leisure activities; Skyrim is just one. 

I hope that you, too, have something fulfilling and fun and challenging to do when you are not working to make a living, be it reading great books, building things, fixing things, playing games, hiking, biking, or whatever.  Make sure you create leisure for yourself regularly.  It's what helps us stay sane in this crazy world.

All the photos here are swiped from the Internet because I cannot find my Morrowind screen shots, and I never played Oblivion or Skyrim on anything other than the XBox where you can't take screenshots.