I had to write this essay for school and present it, enjoy:)
Counterstrike: My Euphoric Downfall
The thing I’ve noticed with these my ideology essays is that they’ve been a gateway to our personal lives for our classmates to access. Private moments of our lives that have influenced us in such a dramatic way that our beliefs are constructed around them. I feel as though, I have the most to tell about myself and my ideologies. Being the new kid at school, people barely know me and the things I truly believe in. I’ll tell you this. I’m not into literature. I’m not into art. I barely listen to music. I guess you can say I’m not your average teenager. I don’t party, drink, and I barely have a social life. It’s not because I’m a mean stubborn person or because I shun all mankind. It’s because something else has taken over my life and time. As dorky and flaming as it might sound, I play competitive Counterstrike and its HAS taken over my life.

It all started three years ago when I stumbled upon the game. I wasn’t really into video or computer games. I was more the athletic type. Even though it might be hard to believe, I had a killer crossover, I had hands like glue, and I could put anybody in an unbreakable armbar. But this kid from my church told me to try this game out because all the cool kids were playing it. At first I hated it but something about the game made it so addicting. I went from playing Counterstrike once a week to logging in about eight hours a day. It went from doing homework accurately all night to writing down a bunch of BS on the bus ride to school. I put school and homework as my second priority. After school, I would take the school bus to the bus stop closest to the local LAN center and stay there till 5pm. Then I would come home and play till 11 and then go to sleep. My grades dropped incredibly. But I didn’t care. No matter how hard I tried to stop playing, I just couldn’t let go. It’s like a chain smoker hooked on cigarettes. No matter how many times they try to quit, they’re going to come crawling back. No matter how many times they’re on the patch they’re still going to resort back to cigarettes. I planned my schedule around Counterstrike. Life revolved around Counterstrike. Counterstrike became my sole passion in life. It turned me, an academic athletic kid into an out-of-shape online gaming loser. I’m not ashamed of what I’ve become. I grew to learn and accept the stereotypes that come with Counterstrike. The loser without a life. The nerd with thick glasses with a Mickey Mouse voice who hasn’t hit puberty. I might not fit these labels but I’ve learn to accept them as my love for Counterstrike grows daily. Why do I take this abuse and why do I leave myself to these types of predicaments? It’s easy to explain. When I play Counterstrike it’s as if my body leaves reality and floats into this realm of euphoria. It’s like William Dafoe’s character in the movie Boondock Saints. In the movie, Dafoe plays as a crime scene investigator who investigates multiple murders. There’s this one scene while he’s surveying around for evidence and drawing up conclusions, classical music blares through his headphones, and it seems like Dafoe is in some state of ecstasy. He makes crime scene investigating look like an art. But in general, that’s what Dafoe’s character in the movie does best, investigate crimes. In reality, getting good grades or reading literature is not what I do best, playing Counterstrike is.

Not only has Counterstrike become a lifestyle, but it also taught me a valuable lesson in life. The things in life that should matter the most aren’t your GPA, what college you’re going to attend, or how much money your job is going to make. It should be about what makes you truly happy and whatever THAT thing is, keep on doing it. Throughout the summer, (as a result of playing TOO much Counterstrike) my father isolated me in my bedroom for about four hours a day only memorizing vocabulary words. In his thick Finnish accent he told me, “You’re going to score a perfect 800 in verbal and you’re going to become a lawyer.” I was supposed to become the lawyer he never was. This lasted for about the whole summer. I would spend my summer days reviewing and learning new vocabulary with short breaks of Counterstrike in between. Periods of isolation with periods of joy, that’s what I called it. In my darkest hours I realized that slaving over crappy books like Princeton Review’s Cracking the SAT and learning gay “Hot List Words” just wasn’t for me. I had no delight wasting away over SAT books and trying to become a lawyer. My summer was excruciatingly painful but those rare glimpses of Counterstrike made me go on. As corny as this might sound, it how I view life now.Live life to fulfill your own happiness, not somebody else’s. Do what you want to do in life. If that means you want to become the greatest left-handed trumpet player in the world, go for it... Don’t let anybody stop you. How far am I going to take Counterstrike you might ask? Well, I’ll tell you this. When the day comes that I can’t afford to pay my cable modem bill, I’ll stop. When the day comes that I can’t pay the electrical bill to run my computer, then I’ll stop. Until then, I won’t stop doing the thing that makes me, me. Like how Shannon has her bass, and how Sarah has her track, and how Gabe has his hip-hop, for me… I have my Counterstrike.
Update: I do not play "competitive counter-strike anymore" but i still play for fun now its for warcraft 3 but the story i wrote is true. Thanks for the feedback
by Nick Pesu