posted elsewhere, inspired by this posting (from another blog i read that) i partly quote here:

American kids abandoned the arcades because the games were too tough(read: fun). With the arcade environment being designed that ONLY THE SKILLED WOULD SURVIVE,they escaped into the fantasy of console gaming, where games cost $50 or more, which was more than they'd ever end up spending playing an arcade game to its completion even by credit-feeding(lol). And these console games are, especially today, incredibly easy. Just pure fantasy indulgence, no appreciation for the skill it takes to stay alive in a real game. $500 for a console, $50 for a game that's barely a game because the player feels cheated if he dies a few times after spending $550 on a game. Then it's off to the next quick fix (expensive console game). FEAR OF FAILURE MAGNIFIED TO ITS EXTENT--THEY ARE EVEN AFRAID TO FAIL AT THINGS THAT ARE SIMPLY FUN.

reminds me of the times when i was little kids would look up cheat codes so they could unlock every item / achievement and by keeping the cheats secret they could brag to their friends about the shiny armor their character had and bully others saying hey look at you you dont have what i have. Some would be utterly confused at my lack of interest in cheat codes.

There was a little trend for pokemon games at my age of about 15. A small group of my age kids were playing Pokemon on their gameboys (it was still black & white, all the rage) and one of my friends figured out how to get the rarest pokemon of them all and bragged about it to everyone and quite enjoyed it.

I did a little gameboy pokemon battle with another friend a couple years later. I had come up with a tactic i had grown pretty fond off. The other guy lost to me and our gameboys were about to record the battle. 1-0 for me 0-1 for him, etc etc etc.
Anyway the gameboys take forever to save the data and so you have 3 seconds to shut off the gameboy and this guy did and the loss was not recorded. Denial denial denial. Couldnt take a loss.

One friend i played a game with eventually found a "trainer" for diablo 1 (popular game back then) which basicly can give you all the stuff that the game has coded into it in 5 minutes. All the fancy stuff that i looked forward to obtaining through normal tedious and tough game play (by my 10yr old standards) suddenly devalued as it fell into my hands without any effort. This way this trainer that would have kept me happy for weeks suddenly became bland and meaningless and i started looking for another game. The few times that i did cheat i figured out it ruins every prospect of obtaining any sense of fullfillment and plain good old fun.

All the people that i know that go into fakery all love to use the cheats that a game must have if it wants to sell.
I dabled with cheats and that kind of stuff and i realized through my experiments of forcing myself to play without cheats games are whole lot more fun if you play them play them without cheating.

In that spirit. Life itself is only meaningfull if you live it yourself with all the challenges and oppertunities as nature provides them. Sure Jebus (or the govt, or democracy, or whatever) may come out of heaven and fix everything for you sure that might happen for a few but they will then never know what its like to make a difference, to achieve, have fun. Have all the barks none of the bite.

The hypocrit and liar first lie to themselves that the cheat they are comitting is that you get something, for nothing.
There is only something for something and nothing for nothing.

A warerfall of fish may last you a long time while eventually you will be too lazy to live without and will die when the fish god goes to sleep. Look to the fishermen with his little fishing pole, he is the richest of them all.

Watch the fishermen