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@how said:
I was just suggesting that there are simple temporary experiential means for determining how much of our game usage results in suffering's cause or how much does not.

The thing is, I find gaming a very pleasant experience initially and it only switches to unpleasant after a good long while of intense play, when I get sick of it and underlying issues begin to surface.

Craving also goes up and down. Initially there is a little, just some caused by an enthusiasm. Then I get further into it and there is some draw, a yearning to play regularly. Then I get sick of it and there is a revulsion.

I just distrust our mentality alone with its habituated tweaking for stimulation, to be a reliable arbiter in determining whether a game's play is harmful or harmless.

I think you’re right. My brain gets suckered into feeling enthusiastic, when deep down I know it is unreal, illusionary, not of benefit and it will show itself after some play.

I have to say….This thread has been so interesting to me. My daughter is a gamer ( mostly adventure) and as it’s still a very much male dominated field of work and hobby…. How much of this is male mind oriented?? As in the mental masturbation of whether it’s right or wrong. How and in what way is it?. Which for the record, we should discuss and question on most things we spend our time doing. Addresses the delusion thing head on. …Anyway as I was saying…

The just nature of competition and dominance and thrill of a hunt/fight/win that most men ( the animal) don’t experience now. Gamers are only one side of it…Fight for good vs evil…fight for resources, etc …the other side seems to be those who enjoy watching the real fight as opposed to the fantasy. Like UFC and boxing for example.

. I’ve never heard a group of females sit around and discuss…Are we addicted/find too much joy in..housework.. or crafts.. or child raising, even elder care….mostly otherwise female gendered “domestic and social group roles and activities…even fields of work in these said areas. Kinda fascinating.

Any of you ask the females in your life what they think about your time game playing? Do they think it’s too much? Is it taking away from other family bonding needs and wants? Does it fuel any aggression.? Things like that.

Disclaimer…I only dabble in the games…mostly time management for accomplished part and puzzle for the working the brain muscles part.

Adam Conover (YouTube channel called Factually), just did a discussion on games called Your brain is hardwired to love games. Its not about the gender difference.. that's just my own wonderings..

…here is a short

https://youtube.com/shorts/gb1o3T3BUyY?si=_PCWkZUj69h3T5OX

@person

Fair call but I just don't see monastics as having an easier time with attachments than the laity. Both training formulas have their own advantages and disadvantages but the 4NT/8FP & Dependent origination apply as much to one as the other.

I didn't mean to sound like I was advocating for some permanent removal of the games in our lives. I was just suggesting that there are simple temporary experiential means for determining how much of our game usage results in suffering's cause or how much does not. What we do with the resulting evidence is a whole different story.

I just distrust our mentality alone with its habituated tweaking for stimulation, to be a reliable arbiter in determining whether a game's play is harmful or harmless.

Manipulating reality

Our attempts at re-ordering reality are a straightforward definition of suffering's cause, our ego's storyline, our identity's tribal membership, and the very dream that the Buddha exhorted his disciples to awaken from.

It is not uncommon for analytical analysis when remaining passively observative and essentially inactive in any direct challenging of the processes by which the dream is maintained, to be more of a sleeping aid than an alarm clock.

Simply watching those mechanisms in play that continue the status quo of our own ignorance, without some countering to that momentum, is little more than a spectator's view and the support of our own continuing spiritual entropy.

What difference do you think might be required in evolving from a spectator to a participant, in an actual decommissioning of one's own dream productions?

If the most common expression of the suffering of the human condition is that underlying feeling or belief that we are fundamentally separate from others, god or existence itself, wouldn't the feeling of "winning" amount to a feeling of some temporary assuagement of that condition?
From a perspective of practice, doesn't a feeling of winning, or losing, arise to the degree that we still foster an innate sense of separation between self & other?
Perhaps the influence of the feeling of "winning" or "losing" is little more than a teacher showing us what we are still attached to and suffering within.

Says a snooker enthusiast who runs a snooker hall for the over 50 crowd.

@how said:
While limiting my daily screen time…

Maybe an interesting view for you? From the video: An average American 18-year-old will spend 93% of his life’s free time behind screens. A significant amount of this is social media, such as Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook and Twitter/X. Social media carries a message by its very structure, and it is mostly about short contacts and scrolling. Social media’s profits are determined by how effective they are in keeping you scrolling through their stuff. And the value proposition in terms of how much you get out of it compared to the time you spend is really poor.

Worth watching, I thought. Of course, next to social media the other main drivers of screen time are television and games. So it’s not entirely inappropriate to the thread.

The simplest way to test out the effect that a game has on you is to just stop doing it and not substitute the time you would have spent doing it with anything else.
The dis-ease or discomfort that arises from the resulting lack of stimulation can indicate the degree to which that gameplay is actually suffering's cause..

Are we crabs in a cooking pot oblivious to the ever-increasing water temperature?

It is not necessarily the game that is the problem but how we relate to it.
I have long felt that the right "livelihood" of the 8FP's wheel while true, might have been a better support structure for all the other spokes on that wheel if it was re-labeled instead as appropriate "interactions" or relationships.