I wrote about the benefits of grinding in a game earlier this year, and I stand by it. There’s something comforting about running around a field and seeing numbers tick up. You don’t have to research it. Cloud, Vaan, or whoever it is might be killing monsters, but all you’re doing is sitting on a chair. Imagine being forced to repeat an exhausting task over and over again for incremental gains. If you go to the gym you don’t have to think about it.
I’ve been a regular at the local gym for about a year and I only feel guilty if I eat a burger or two. Sometimes I enjoy my early morning work out, other times it’s a chore and I wonder why I’m doing it. I realized this morning that the gym is a really shitty game when motivation is at its lowest. You can play for an hour and feel like you haven’t made much progress. It’s going to get worse if you think this is a laboured analogy.
The gym is a world map and machines are enemies. The assault bike is a monster and I decided to test my might against it. I did 15 minutes of high intensity interval training, watching the numbers on the screen slowly increase. It’s hard work and boring to level up by getting healthier, but in a very loose sense this data means it. You get to see little guys running around casting spells when you’re grinding in anrpg. I’m in the gym and staring at the nearest wall.
I pay a personal trainer to destroy me for 45 minutes on a Friday. When I’m with her my form is better, I’m more disciplined, and I go a lot harder than I would normally. The sessions make the gym more fun because I’m using my time better and feeling more immediate results. I feel powerful when I walk out of there because I’m ready to take on the hardest tasks life can throw at me. It’s back to the endless mega-grind for the other days of the week because I have to cough up more for the pleasure.
Sometimes you can embark on a quest, like rowing 100m as quickly as you can. These make things more interesting until you realize they’re Bethesda-style. An exercise plan put together by my doctor is more of a hand-crafted quest than an exercise plan. I feel like I can kill God if I take a dose of pre-workout. This is the time of year when I enjoy the gym the most, when my system is not used to it. It’s like a limit break.
You get the idea that this analogy is out of hand. If I didn’t like going to the gym, I wouldn’t wake up at 7:30 in the morning. It’s like being the main character in a JRPG in the run-up to an especially difficult boss battle if you lose the passion for it. Despite turning up frequently for a year, I don’t feel like I’ve gained many levels, but that’s probably because Ben and Jerry keep ruining my party. One day, I’ll figure out a way to defeat those people.
Wave Race 64’s Water Is Still Undefeated 25 Years Later.