Some people say video games rot your brain, but I think they

The words of Ezra Koenig—“Some people say video games rot your brain, but I think they work different muscles that maybe you don't normally use”—speak not only of play, but of perception. Where many see decay, he discerns hidden strength, and in what others dismiss as folly, he glimpses the shaping of unseen faculties. Such vision belongs to those who know that wisdom does not always dwell in the places the crowd esteems.

In the ancient way, all endeavors were judged by what they cultivated in the body and in the spirit. To toil in the field strengthened the arm; to recite poetry sharpened the tongue; to sit in meditation quieted the heart. So too, says Koenig, do video games—though born of modern craft—exercise muscles not of flesh alone but of mind, reflex, and imagination. What appears idle may in truth be a training ground.

The accusation that games “rot the brain” recalls the old suspicion of novelty. Every age has mocked its instruments of play: the dice, the theater, the lyre. Yet what endured was not their corruption but their hidden lessons—strategy, empathy, and skill. The wise recognize that even in games, the human spirit seeks growth, finding new pathways of thought and new ways of seeing.

Thus, the saying is not merely defense but revelation. Koenig proclaims that all creation, even what is dismissed as trivial, may serve to refine us, if approached with balance and understanding. The muscles of coordination, patience, problem-solving, and vision are stirred, awakening faculties that otherwise lie dormant. What some name weakness, the wise may discover as strength.

So let this teaching endure: scorn not the unfamiliar vessel through which learning flows. For just as the ancients found wisdom in myth and play, so too may we find it in video games. All that shapes the mind and heart—whether through story, challenge, or reflection—belongs to the great treasury of human growth, and should be weighed with care, not dismissed in haste.