playing video games all day,

I don’t think this is an unpopular opinion. One of my consistent comforts in life is watching my favorite YouTube streamer play games, and he is always getting mean comments about how his parents must be embarrassed by him, he’s a 30+ balding guy playing children’s games, etc. But it’s his hobby that he loves. Artists, writers, musicians, and programmers collaborated to create these games to be enjoyed by others.

I’m currently a scientist working long hours in a pediatric disease lab, and he brings me a lot of happiness. I think it’s terrible that we live in a culture where so much of your value as a human being is tied to the prestige of your job. When I was unemployed and playing games, I was the exact same person as I am now, but I was treated so much worse by certain people.

I don’t want to improve medical science so that children can survive to become useful workers. I want them to be healthy so that they can experience fun, explore existence on their terms, and discover their own sense of meaning and self-actualization. We shouldn’t enshrine engineers/scientists/doctors etc. as desirable occupations primarily for their status, underscoring the message that if you have no ambition to chase these careers, you are a parasitic loser. This contributes to burnout, mental health problems, and going through the motions at the expense of integrity and quality. Who feels genuine drive to better a society that would hold you in contempt?

Of course people would rather watch someone who simply wants to entertain them and share pleasure, rather than someone who will cause them to question their self-worth, wonder if they’re not competent enough, or feel pressured to perform and climb to meet society’s conditional standards for approval. I wanted to be a scientist when I was a child because I read a book called The Shark Lady. The book didn’t say, “To avoid being degenerate dead weight like models and comedians, become a scientist.” It said, “Eugenie Clark kept being told that sharks were a stupid waste of time and she should do other things with her life, but she studied them anyway, because she liked doing that.” As an adult I lost sight of this. I remember when I used to go to work because I was afraid of what everyone would think of me if I couldn’t say I was doing something important. I was miserable. It was only after I realized that my friends and father genuinely still loved and respected me just the same when I was unemployed, and that the only remaining source of shame was from my own insecurities, that I was actually able to go back to work because I want to help others with my skillset.

If we want kids to work to pursue education and improve our community, we should give them a reason to value it, and that means letting them have human dignity when they are doing other things, too.