{"id":2518,"date":"2014-08-25T16:00:10","date_gmt":"2014-08-25T22:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mountainouswords.com\/mountain-air\/?p=2518"},"modified":"2014-08-25T16:00:10","modified_gmt":"2014-08-25T22:00:10","slug":"8-bit-muse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mountainouswords.com\/mountain-air\/8-bit-muse\/","title":{"rendered":"The 8-Bit Muse"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It is well-documented though rarely mentioned that Thoreau&#8217;s \u201cisolated\u201d cabin in <i>Walden <\/i>was only about a mile from town &#8212; a short enough walk for his elderly mother to regularly bring him fresh cookies. The myth of seclusion fits so neatly with the ideas in his writings that it\u2019s easy to overlook the fact he was a 15 minute walk from civilization.<\/p>\n<p>I bring this up because at age 38, I\u2019m working as a professional writer &#8212; have been now for almost 20 years. Like most writers, I have my routines that help the words flow. And like most writers, I do a lot of stuff that isn\u2019t all that interesting or particularly artistic to pay the bills (unless you are a cat food label aficionado). There are times when I wish the myth of what I did was more in line with what I actually do. I do have a cat and I do brood from time to time but otherwise, it\u2019s far less interesting. I mow the lawn or play darts for inspiration. Sadly, I don\u2019t own a mountain cabin to isolate myself to channel genius and even if I did, my Mom\u2019s cookies would still be 2,000 miles away.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_2519\" style=\"width: 266px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2519\" class=\"size-full wp-image-2519 lazyload\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.mountainouswords.com\/mountain-air\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/Ultima_-_Exodus_-_NES_-_Lord_British.png\" alt=\"You can say that again, Lord British!\" width=\"256\" height=\"224\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 256px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 256\/224;\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-2519\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">You can say that again, Lord British!<\/p><\/div>\n<p>One of the things I regularly do to prime myself for good writing, however, is play video games. Old video games, great and primitive, are at the start of many an article. I bet Thoreau would have had a Gameboy if he could have and with good reason &#8212; science is keen to point out that gaming can be<a href=\"http:\/\/discovermagazine.com\/2005\/jul\/brain-on-video-games\"> incredibly good for the brain<\/a>. New studies have shown that certain types of games &#8212; mostly those with complex goals such as the <i>Civilization <\/i>series &#8212; contribute to brain development, specifically in creating new neural pathways. But of course you don\u2019t need studies to know this &#8212; the people you know who are dedicated gamers tend to be pretty bright.<\/p>\n<p>Am I saying video games make me smarter?<\/p>\n<p>Yes, yes I am.<\/p>\n<p>I say this based on how much easier it is to actually work after 30 minutes (or, uh 4 hours) of playing games that involve deep memorization, concentration and focus. It\u2019s kind of like yoga except instead of babes in yoga pants, there\u2019s fat Italian plumbers. Gaming presents a trance of its own, where one\u2019s intention and purpose are clear and the outside world simply disappears for a time &#8212; kind of like how many practitioners of meditation explain their own heightened states.<\/p>\n<p>Whether we like it or not, we all have our processes that let us develop our expressive talents. And while it would be awesome if they had some kind of mystical, deep beginning, sometimes they involve a hyper hedgehog smashing into a mechanical flying chicken. As the mostly unstable Hunter S. Thompson famously said,\u201dI hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they&#8217;ve always worked for me\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s like that, but a whole lot nerdier. And it works for me.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_2525\" style=\"width: 710px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2525\" class=\"size-full wp-image-2525 lazyload\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.mountainouswords.com\/mountain-air\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/GhostbustersJessElliottend.jpg\" alt=\"Ok, so some games might actually make you dumber. \" width=\"700\" height=\"538\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/www.mountainouswords.com\/mountain-air\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/GhostbustersJessElliottend.jpg 700w, https:\/\/www.mountainouswords.com\/mountain-air\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/GhostbustersJessElliottend-300x230.jpg 300w\" data-sizes=\"(max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 700px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 700\/538;\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-2525\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Ok, so some games might actually make you dumber.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It is well-documented though rarely mentioned that Thoreau&#8217;s \u201cisolated\u201d cabin in Walden was only about a mile from town &#8212; a short enough walk for&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2524,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10,20],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2518","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philosophy","8":"category-video-games"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>The 8-Bit Muse - Mountain Air<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.mountainouswords.com\/mountain-air\/8-bit-muse\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The 8-Bit Muse - Mountain Air\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It is well-documented though rarely mentioned that Thoreau&#8217;s \u201cisolated\u201d cabin in Walden was only about a mile from town &#8212; 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