My life reserves time for games. As the people and places around me change, so does the game and its rules. It isn’t so much boredom that demands I temporarily escape reality, rather, unknown forces have granted to me the ability to make games on demand faster, and of greater entertainment, than Time Warner Cable’s movies on demand. On typical Sunday mornings in the car ride to church, my sisters and I don’t count the number of gold cars that speed past us on the highway. Instead, we think of the man driving the Shelby, what job he has and if his boss went to as fine a school as the University of ______. When my family unloads groceries, it becomes an unrepressed battle royal to see who can carry the most bags back in the shortest period of time – the winner gets to practice their instrument last. Not only is this good and practical exercise, my family comes together when they normally distance themselves apart. And I’ve learned that competition in moderate quantities can be beneficial in an environment as competitive as an American one.

Games have a connotation of being carefree for the establishment of fun. Games are distractions for children when parents need to converse within social circles without having a kid bawl because she has nothing else to do. Games are not taken seriously enough, which is distressing news for the zealot. People tell them “it’s just a game” when those lesser-beings secretly want to excel, just not in the same way. They want to succeed, but it’s about the presentation. Society has only ridicule for fools completely absorbed in their most primitive and child-like emotions. Among many of Seinfeld’s lessons, one is to never dance like Elaine Benes in public situations that are supposed to impress people. But children want to dance an incomprehensible and impossible-to-follow dance when they hear a beat or someone humming because something stirs. That innate drive to move, to propel, to take part of their own game, should be celebrated in its infinitely many forms, not restricted to what is deemed appropriate.

Peter Pan is like the bouncer and chauffer of his club: he sets the standards and personally checks to see if people meet Neverland’s qualifications and escorts them to the second star from the right. But his innocuous intentions follow something sound. Shouldn’t the quality of play be supervised? Is it not his responsibility, after all, to keep the endorphins rushing and the faces flushed? Games engage community and were never meant to be a means of personal gain. This is what defines a game. Football is a game for the public because people take interest in fourtysome guys diving at each other’s waists over leather. Tennis is a game because playing against brick wall is called practice – the symbiosis of 2 competitors delight all on and around the court. If the world chose to scoff at its attempts towards recreation, discarding these carefree activities to be an unproductive waste of time, money, and effort, what could values we still retain?

Society needs better games. Shooting paintballs at people or bullets at annoying Canadian geese is not game. Executing revenge on an ex-husband by torturing his newfound family is not good and practical exercise either. Before the world continues indulging in its acquired taste of poor judgment, it needs to begin meeting with friends. Games between strangers have different atmospheres than games pitted against familiar rivalry and yet, what better opponent for yourself than yourself? Exceeding one’s limits prove they do not exist; it is all mental. And when the performance and the art of the game are heightened, games help the society in which we are engaged to know how to enjoy the hard work that makes us contributable.

Games are fun and everyone needs to play. If grass stains from hide and go seek were praised and people turned a kinder eye towards the hardcore ultimate Frisbeer, our futures will be guaranteed life and community, something bullying and isolation cannot earn.