My Free Zoo and Other Animals
- susanmansbridge101
- Aug 29, 2023
- 3 min read
I saw something today that made me sit up in horror. Don’t worry. This isn’t a graphic blog of the baser nature of the human soul. Rather, it is a terrible indictment of the use of my time.
Back in June, I downloaded Steam to my laptop and started looking at the free games. I like puzzle games and found some great escape room ones. I also discovered My Free Zoo. The premise is pretty simple. Gradually build up your zoo with a variety of animals to attract visitors.
Today, I noticed something before I clicked on the link. It said, “You’ve played for 210 hours.” I almost fell off my chair. How on earth had I spent so much time on one blasted game – and what should I have done with the time instead?
I feel I need to explain a little more here. That is not 210 hrs staring at the animals, waiting for a chance to feed them, or water a plant. I have, occasionally, had the game running in the background as I write, switching over to it now and then to fulfil my duties to my ever-growing menagerie. However, when I do close it, I will often log back in several times a day to collect my hourly gifts and increase my coffers.
210 hours.
That’s almost nine days.
I suspect all of you reading this could confess to time-wasting activities. Candy Crush. Solitaire. Scrolling through social media, or Pinterest. (Insert guilty pleasure here!) I think too, you would be horrified if those minutes were totalled up. So why do we do it?
For me, it is partly an avoidance technique. I know I need to achieve something important, whether it is finishing my draft or making that dreaded phone call to officialdom. Instead of biting the bullet, I distract myself by trying to breed camels and have 50 visitors in my zoo.
It is also a way of switching off. If my mind is too busy, I can’t concentrate properly on a task. I need something mindless that doesn’t need much input from my little grey cells. Since stepping up to a regular schedule of child-minding, I find I’m often exhausted, and can’t even contemplate trying to work out what to do about the massive plot hole staring at me from my screen.
We call these things amusements, which stem from the Frankish word meaning “to be idle” or “unoccupied”. Our modern world will tell you it is a bad thing. That we must maximise our time and use it productively. That we should account for every spare minute in our days. To spend it in idleness, to not achieve something, is unthinkable. As a child with a voracious appetite for books, I was constantly being harangued by my parents for not doing anything useful, and “wasting time” by reading when I should be outside in the fresh air.
Interestingly, even though we may not realise it, our idle pursuits are a way of problem solving. When we are engaged in making chains of colours or feeding the virtual animals, it leaves our brains free to work through knotty problems and come up with answers or solutions.
How many times have you tried to remember a particular fact, only for it to suddenly pop into your brain (usually around 2am)? While you were eating your meal, watching TV, and cleaning your teeth, your unconscious thoughts were fired up and churning away. They work through whatever problems you need to overcome without your active participation and hand you the answers out of the blue.
Creative people, especially, need down-time to come up with new ideas, work out where their novel is going next, and dream of adventure and high stakes. There is probably a good reason many writers would say they are introverts. You can’t daydream if you are surrounded by people. You need to be quiet and withdraw from the business of life. We do much of our best thinking when we take a break.
210 hrs sounds like a lot. But if I break it down, that equates to around a 2hrs a day. Considering that much of the time was ticking over in the background as I wrote, it isn’t actually that bad. I can, thankfully, login back in without guilt.
Next time you open up that app on your phone, or switch tabs on your laptop, don’t feel bad. We are not machines that can operate 24/7. We are humans who need to refresh our souls and rest our weary heads. Leisure is good. Amusements are healthy and necessary. I've designated my free zoo as a writing tool.
Now if you’ll excuse me. I need to empty my rubbish bins and try and breed the sheep.
NB: For those who notice these things, the picture accompanying this blog is from a wonderful game I used to play called Here Be Monsters. Unfortunately, it no longer exists.
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