I play a lot of minecraft. Too much, maybe. But I think of it as a way to exercise my brain.

Some people call it Legos on the computer, and they aren’t wrong. You do build. It is also resource gathering, time management, and circuit building. Then there are the mods. With miss you can add magic, technology, monsters, animals and more. Sky’s the limit!

Last night I was trying to figure out a tricky problem. I have ars magica and I’m trying to build my magical abilities. Eventually I want to fly. But I didn’t take the easy route like others do and create a fire spell. No, I took the slightly more complicated path and decided to make a leap spell. It has more parts. And it wasn’t easy to find a tutorial about it so I had to figure it out on my own.

But these puzzles, piecing things together, reading manuals, and just perservearing even in the middle of daunting tasks, even in a video game, are useful skills.

Maybe people think Minecraft is a waste of time. It’s a game, and I could be writing instead. I tend to think it’s an excuse to use my mind, and stretch the boundaries of my imagination.