Video games are simply artistic creations meant to entertain, as are other forms of entertainment media. Were you formerly under the impression that video games were a portal to another reality?
Why would you expect this character, the one who quotes Jung at length without ever having read anything he wrote, to remember and record if and what anyone said to him about Jung?
It depends on what you want from a mathematics education and what you want from your education at St. John's. It is not a vocational school, and the mathematics we do won't strictly be aligned with any particular career path. And the other advantage/disadvantage is that almost all of the math you have learned before you start is not helpful, at least for the first two years. Neither of those things mean that the math we do is any less serious or important than the math education most undergraduates will receive. [1]
Most people that are frustrated by one of the two things I mentioned above, either experience a shift in perspective, or do not complete their studies at St. John's.
Afaik they have been trying to fudge these numbers over the past few years because admin thinks it makes the school look bad, but fewer than 50% of freshman that enroll in the college will graduate. And at least a third of those that leave don't make it past the first semester.
[1] Just to paint a few broad strokes of the highlights of our math program: Freshman study Euclid's Elements and Optics, Archimedes, and Claudius Ptolemy's Almagest, Sophomores study Ptolemy, Copernicus, Kepler's Astronomia Nova, and Apollonius' Conics. Junior's study Newton, Maxwell, Oresme, Leibniz, Pascal, Descartes, and Dedekind. And Senior's work through Einstein, Lorentz, and Minkowski's relativity papers, before rounding the whole thing off with Lobochevsky, Bertrand Russell, and Gödel.
You're totally right about mass-market entertainment, but none of that is true for art, and unfortunately, people like you going to the movie theaters to watch Fast and Furious 46 is what subsidizes an industry of people who actually care, trying to make beautiful art for people that aren't trying to OD on visual Xanax in the comfort of their blankey.
What prevents one from using this argument with everything? In a sense, I don't disagree, but what sets apart active recognition and embrace of the limitations of an endeavor, and passive resignation to the shortcomings of circumstance, which smells more of indifference from a fatal desire for sleep and forgetfulness?
I believe the answer to that question is simpler than most would think. To untangle competing desires and figure out what you really want, you have to cultivate more awareness. Listen to your feelings and your soul.
You might determine that you've been working too much, fighting battles unfruitfully, while neglecting the things in life you actually care about, like family. Or you could decide that software really is your way to contribute to the world, and find a way to optimize for that.
Either answer is fine. Either way, if you figure out what you ACTUALLY want instead of what society tells you, you'll be happier and find more purpose.
There are no answers in life. Just strategies. Find out what you actually want, and find the most effective strategy.
In my case, I love designing and writing software. It's my hobby. In particular, architecting software, in a fashion that is "organic." My architectures morph throughout a project.
If you look at my GH repo[0], you'll see that it's solid green. I don't really take weekends off. In fact, I often get more done, over the weekend, than I do during the week.
What I can't stand, is the "baggage" attached by folks that don't love developing software as much as I do. Team dynamics add overhead, but that is not necessarily a problem. Insecure managers or team leaders, on the other hand...
