This Summer…

By Eric Li

A couple of days ago, I attended an online seminar on how to be more productive during this pandemic. Obviously, with all my summer plans canceled due to COVID-19, I had a lot of extra time on my hands, and finding something to do was a top priority. During the seminar, the host explained how the time we spend social distancing should be spent starting new hobbies and activities. After hearing that, I realized that my only excuse not to start new hobbies before COVID-19 was all the schoolwork I had, but, with no more school, I had no more. With that in mind, I have decided to start more activities. 

The first new activity that I have started is nature walking. I go to a rural high school in the middle of Massachusetts, so exploring the wilderness has been on the top of my “bucket list” for a while. However, like every high schooler, I was too busy. Now, with an empty schedule, I have tried to go outside more. One thing that I have noticed as a result of spending more time outside is how quickly my community is changing. Before heading to school, my community was what I would describe as a passive one. No one bothered anyone else because they were too busy with their own lives. I realize that most communities are like that, but I feel as if my community is the epitome of that mindset. For example, when a construction crew came in yesterday to start building new homes, no one seemed to care about the noise that they were making at 6 AM! I mention this because my new hobby of nature walking has made me realize how quickly my community is changing. No longer is my house surrounded by trees; instead, it’s surrounded by homes. On one hand, this may be a good sign. After all, economic progress is good. On the other hand, we, as a community, have started to invade nature to the point of no return. Since the beginning of COVID-19, one major issue that has gained national attention is how humans have been encroaching on wildlife and their spaces. My community has started to build homes faster than the forests can react. Now, seeing a deer run across my lawn is no longer a rare occasion but is instead a common occurrence. This increase in encroachment and contact between wildlife and humans will almost guarantee the start of another pandemic. However, instead of them being a once in a lifetime occurrence, global pandemics will now be more common. Before exploring the natural world around me, I had no understanding of the human encroachment on wildlife. I used to believe that as long as the economy was prospering, everything would be fine. I couldn’t have been further from the truth. With that in mind, I tried to look for another hobby.

A second hobby that I have started during this pandemic involves playing more video games. Growing up, other than a small stint of time spent playing Runescape, I didn’t get the opportunity to play many video games. Instead, I’d always play basketball or watch the Discovery Channel with my older brother. However, with the coronavirus pandemic, I have started to gain a liking to video games and their innate abilities to immerse you in another world. When I started playing video games during this pandemic, Fortnite was still the game that everyone 18 and younger was playing. Knowing this, I decided to stray away from FPS (First Person Shooters) games. Instead, I wanted to play games that I have always wanted to play, especially games that dealt with strategy. I eventually landed on Sid Meier’s Civilization V. It is a single-player strategy based game where you start as a leader of a kingdom, and your main goal is to rule the world either through a science victory or global domination victory. I downloaded Civ V, as it is commonly known as, before the pandemic; however, I have picked it up again. Before, I had around 10 hours on the game. Now, I have logged about 120 hours. In any other situation, I would have tried to avoid spending that much time on a video game, however, I made an exception with Civ V. See. Whether you are attacking Barbarians, protecting a city-state, or trying to build the Spaceship, there are always goals for you in the game. Finally, I enjoy playing Civ V because it gives me a good idea as to how challenging it can be to run any organization. Another video game that I enjoy is Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare. Commonly known as Modern Warfare, this game gets me especially excited. Modern Warfare is a multiplayer FPS game based on the famous Call of Duty franchise. You and your team are deployed into a “battle-royale” type situation where you gather weapons and kill your opponents while a narrowing zone encroaches around you; the last man standing wins. Although Modern Warfare is a fun game, I think it exposes another flaw in the entertainment industry, which is how so many companies have jumped on the FPS bandwagon after the popularity explosion of Fortnite. So many game developers, and people in general, tend to develop a hive mindset. The dictionary definition of a hive mindset is a group becoming aware of its commonality and begins to think and act as a community. People follow whatever is trending. Of course, this makes sense because that’s how things trend in the first place. However, especially with businesses, this only causes market saturation. High-quality products are undermined by a market full of lesser competitors. Now, I am not saying that these “lesser competitors” are necessarily worse; I am saying that these “lesser competitors” do not have as much pressure to succeed. See, when a big company, such as Activision, creates a new game, they need it to be profitable, or else they risk a loss on an investment. Furthermore, with an increasing number of competitors, change is seen as too much of a risk for big corporations. As a result, this causes large entertainment corporations to stay within their niche; therefore, forcing companies are forced to do what is safe. Unfortunately, that doesn’t give them much of an opportunity to explore new and creative areas, which, as a result, doesn’t let me look forward to different types of games.

Finally, I’ve been reading a lot recently, and I have been enjoying it a lot. One book that I started is Collapse by Jared Diamond. All in all, I think Collapse is an okay book. It talks about many ideas that are not new, but, instead, he provides interesting examples to back them up. For instance, he continuously mentions this idea that the environment is often a factor that plays a role in the collapse of some dynasties, which is not a new idea. However, he mentions different, typically ignored, examples to prove that point. From the remote country of Papua New Guinea to the Norse that inhabited Greenland, the proof that Mr. Diamond uses to back his ideas is what makes Collapse an okay read. Overall, I would give the book a 6.5/10. Collapse is an underwhelming book, but the examples that he mentions are captivating.

All in all, I plan on being extra productive this Summer. Especially with the uncertainty that the future holds, I’m trying to do as much as I possibly can before returning to a busy lifestyle with little to no free time.