How Did We Get Here?

     Hello! The other day I had been thinking about how lately, my life has fallen into a sort of routine for the last few weeks. I wake up late, have lunch with my family, go upstairs to either watch some YouTube or play a game, eat with my family again, go on a run, then dinner and watch something with my family, ending my night with playing games with my friends till late into the night. I don't mind the pattern, I've always liked operating under some routine, but I started thinking about each segment of my day, and how I've gotten there.

    Obviously, spending time with my family has been ingrained in my life since I was born, and that commitment to family hasn't wavered for nearly two decades at this point (holy shit how am I almost 20). Then my running / exercise habits have been a more recent addition to my schedule, as a result of freed up time and a desire to work on myself, like I've mentioned in previous blogs. Since I've already talked about my family and my running, I thought I'd write something about one of the games I've been playing a lot with my friends: League of Legends.

    Before I start talking about League, you're probably in one of two groups when you hear the name League of Legends. Either you're like I used to be, and cringe at the very name of the game, or you're like my parents, that have no idea what the hell that game means. For the latter group, League of Legends has a very particular reputation online: many people see it as a highly addictive, sweaty, and toxic game with players that are every sort of "-ist" or "-phobic" in the book. To put it lightly, it is not a game that people are often happy to hear about, since it conjures up the mental image of some racist neckbeard living off of Red Bulls and not seeing the sun.

    And you know what? For a long while I viewed it the same (and don't get me wrong, I still sort of see it this way lol). A few years ago, when some of my friends would play it, I would tease them about it and similarly reject the invitations to join their games. However, at some point a year ago, we were taking our final exams for our last year at high school. I was so confident I would fail my economics exam, that I swore that if I did pass, I'd make a League account and play for a while. And by some cruel twist of fate, I actually ended up just barely passing my economics test, meaning I'd have to venture into the pits of degeneracy that was League of Legends, much to my friends' enthusiasm.

    When I first loaded up the game, I was stunned by the vast selection of characters I could play as, and I had no idea what to do or who to pick. My buddy Blake, however, instantly said that I should play as a character called Blitzcrank, The Great Steam Golem. I asked why, and he just said that it seems like my kind of playstyle (which I now understand was his way of calling me annoying and sadistic). Blitzcrank is a big goofy robot that has one primary ability/purpose: a big rocket hand that I can launch at enemy players, grab them, and pull them back towards me, essentially capturing and dragging them over to wherever I was, and wherever I was, so was the rest of my team, eager to massacre the unsuspecting enemy.

    Admittedly, after a few games I can say that Blake nailed the prediction, since I was having a lot of fun throwing out my hand to inconvenience the enemy and let the other guys on my team do the dirty work. I wasn't very good at much else (and some say I'm still not very good) but what mattered was that I had a lot of fun doing that one ability, and as my skill developed, so did my understanding of strategy and positioning around the game's arena. I think what I liked most about playing as Blitzcrank was that it was inherently a teamwork based character, since I could engage and disable the enemy, but I needed to rely on another friend to deal the damage. And I think that's what made me realize the appeal of League: teamwork.

    I'm not sure at exactly which point I switched from being a League hater to being a League player, but I know that over the year that I've been playing it, I've had a lot more fun that I would've expected, and the hours that I've spent with my friends laughing or yelling have been well spent. I don't really know where I wanted to go with this blog post, I think I just wanted to write down this story somewhere because I think it was an interesting change in my life. But let me end with this: what I said about League is true. It's very addictive and its filled with extremely toxic players. But it's also really fun with the right people.