10 minutes per diem >>
12/10/2025
the school of games
Really gotta stop playing online chess until the early morning on a school night.
Starting a friendly game of chess with a stranger halfway around the world always seems harmless, until 20 minutes flies by and you’re hungry for more.
Growing up as a gamer kid, I do think online chess is a bit more emotionally healthy than playing first-person-shooters on Xbox Live. All the words and feelings I learned on that platform, I think it played a major role in me becoming such a sore loser - when it comes to games, that is.
Chess, if anything, has taught me how to be more patient at the very least.
While online gaming often carries some negative baggage, I do think I picked up some serious soft skills in my many childhood years spent online.
First and foremost, I learned wayfinding - the practice of guiding someone (or one’s self) through an experience (physical or otherwise). I mean seriously, I know directions better than most locals and map makers I know. I think I owe a lot of my spatial understanding to online gaming, you learn how to memorize maps.
Secondly, I picked up information architecture. In many of these games, especially the newer ones, there is a lot of information to organize & convey / make available to the user - I am, in my normal life, a very disorganized guy, but when it comes to categorization & informational hierarchies I’m all good. This skill has actually paid off far more often than I’ve even realized until just now.
Seems like gaming, like many things in life, can provide unintentional learning opportunities.
That’s 10 minutes - be back tomorrow.