Created at: 04 Oct 2026 Last updated: 04 Oct 2026
Playing +1 Speed Keyboard Escape on Roblox with my son, and it's crazy how quickly I've gotten this visceral involvement now in just watching his videos.
Without having played it myself, I had no context to understand the feelings that go along with the watching.
Now as I'm watching, before he makes a difficult jump, I can feel the chemicals that need to get pumped in a microdose to, unconsciously, start the process of coordinating the timing of the jump in my own mind.
Seeing the thing is the only trigger I need. There's no delineation between me playing and not playing as far as starting that chemical reaction—so, just like watching any sport, I'm in the game merely by watching it—analyzing what could be done, what needs to be done, when, and what resources that's going to take. Children are also voluntarily learning the process of doing that when they're playing games—making themselves gradually better at any new task they may undertake, just as we adults do.
My son understands the lower level aspect, I know—I see him talk about it with friends (not on the same level as I am, though, just at the level of feeling observations and communicating and building on those collaboratively with peers).
There's another game we play called "I Wanna Test The Game (Beta Test)"—the title alone is interesting because it's ironic. The game is chock full of high-level memes and is EXTREMELY difficult (for example, if you fail an attempt in one area you, frustratingly, HAVE to listen to this whole troll excerpt from Persona 5: https://www.tiktok.com/@dvsk.fx/video/7649454657340771606 [it's become something of an inside joke in our family, BTW]).
(In case you're interested, another ironically titled Roblox game worth visiting is "simply walk around it"—which also teaches how to exploit the limits of the Roblox physics engine—essentially helping kids learn the best ways to break games, a looser, more playful cousin of what's called fuzzing in software testing. Every other game they play then includes a secret sub-game called "playing to get outside the map", etc.)
These games offer, like, budo-level discipline, constantly testing your resolve with rage-inducing triggers. Calm, perfectly timed executions of knowledge are the only way to proceed, and there's no save mechanism—it's an inexplicit-knowledge Edge of Tomorrow. My son can pick up another person's device and get them to levels it would take them ages to reach. Personally, I often find the game rage-inducing and would rather write stuff like this. (lol) Another game like this is Geometry Dash.
On that, see also this video: https://youtu.be/UnBvClAtioM?t=264—it's hard to understand how difficult, like mind-bogglingly difficult, this is. Doing it in front of an audience is even crazier, like catching an endless stream of Hail Marys in a row at a high school football game with a full stadium. (Also note his demeanour/body language/aura at the beginning of the video when he's introduced. Confidence embodied.)
The things children are doing while they're having fun reach beyond what you can see—but touch many of the very things you're probably worried about them getting good experience in. These games also offer ways to sacrifice to help other players who are still learning, or troll new players—or get revenge, for that matter. You may need to try whatever they're doing yourself to get a taste.
I know kids are doing this stuff at recess, or between classes (I'm friends with them on Roblox, and I can see, hehe). If you ask me, recess is the most real part of school, and the least real part is when it ends. And if you use your imagination to see how "play" connects to the present as well as the unknown future—you may see how they're effortlessly, voluntarily learning many of the things authorities attempt to force into their minds through costly, carefully constructed, but ultimately inauthentic experiences. I wonder what an educational institution that was all recess would look like?
[This was edited with AI. Read the full conversation including my original drafts here: https://claude.ai/share/e97a6022-2e6b-4109-beb9-302228c0a322]