Why even philosophers welcome the mental relief of Call of Duty
I sometimes feel calmer after gaming than sleeping, writes philosopher Damon Young. It’s a numbed, contented vacancy — a holiday from consciousness.
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The Turkish author Orhan Pamuk once said domesticity killed his literary “demon”. He had to get away from his apartment to somewhere new; somewhere his genie might thrive.
As an author in a small townhouse, I sympathise. Not far is the kitchen, where I’ll soon have to cook; not far are the rugs, which need vacuuming. When our children were small, my wife and I often took turns writing at nearby cafes. Even an hour with pen and paper was like being let out of a tiny magic bottle.
But what about when I want to kill the literary demon?
Most of my days are given over to thinking and telling stories. Philosophy and fiction. Analysis and synthesis, plotting and characterisation. Worrying about words, personalities — and just the right words to give them life.
My demon is a thoughtful, artful beast. It delights in honesty and beauty. It strives for good, then better, then best — always squinting at reality in case some better possibility can be spied. To be honest, it’s somewhat manic.
The great Greek author Nikos Kazantzakis once wrote of the soul as a bow, and offered this prayer as his credo: “Overdraw me, Lord, and who cares if I break!” My demon loves to feel my wood crack, my bone splinter.
As romantic as this might seem, it can be bad for literature. I end up seeing possibilities that aren’t part of reality. I devote myself to every tiny nuance, losing sight of the whole — or vice versa. I become too exhausted to make sense of it all. I quite literally lose the plot. This happens in other jobs, too: sometimes fervour dismantles what we’ve built. We hang on too tightly for the loose grip that achievement requires.
When this happens, good composition demands that I stop composing. I don’t need to be enlivened by exercise or enriched by fine art. In short, I don’t need to wake up the demon. I need to shut it up — shut it down.
One of the best ways to do this is video games.
This isn’t a defence of all modern digital play, though I’d happily provide one. I fully grant that some video games are atmospheric masterworks, like Batman: Arkham City or Bloodborne. I know they can have sublime visuals like Elden Ring or sharp satire like Fallout 4. From storytelling and editing to voice acting and effects, video games now easily rival cinema and television.
I’m not talking about these subtle or smart works, though. I’m talking about Call of Duty multiplayer. This game no doubt asked for tireless work from its cast and crew, but it offers little in the way of thought or feeling.
It’s what’s called a first-person shooter, where I play from the protagonist’s point-of-view. My protagonist is a soldier, chiefly trying to shoot or stab other soldiers, claim territory, or collect tokens. My enemies are other players, also fiddling with their controllers or keyboards and cursing at the screen.
While Call of Duty has a campaign story to play, my multiplayer mode has no narrative. There’s little emoting, and not much tragedy beyond the poor connection. It’s essentially an arcade game with human users and all they bring to it: randomness, sneakiness, horniness. (Tight pants on the characters are often preferred. Joke genital nicknames are common.)
And this is why Call of Duty helps to kill my demon as I pretend to kill mercenaries. It’s just cycle after cycle of stimulus and response; of twitch, twiddle, flick, push. I have aims, literally and figuratively — but they’re nothing beyond the next gunfight. I get the enjoyment of high scores and victories, but I encounter nothing whatsoever of subtlety or profundity.
Sure, I can think about Call of Duty. The owner of the franchise has a recent history of bad industrial relations — including a “frat boy” culture that resulted in lawsuits. The game has had a cozy relationship with the US military. The player base is often witlessly nasty, flinging slurs along with grenades. But while I’m thumbing my little plastic sticks, my mind is delightfully vacant. The demon is as dead as I am, sniped by some jumping fool dressed as Godzilla or Timothee Chalamet.
I’d say this is like sleep, but I sometimes feel calmer after playing than sleeping. There’s no waking with anxiety and listing the day’s needful chores. No post-nightmare thrum. Instead, I enjoy a kind of numbed, contented vacancy. In this state-of-mind, I’ve no sense of the clock — and no sense of myself. I just am, and pleasantly so.
This helps me to write, and it helps with the rest of life too. I’m less jumpy. My mind’s clearer and more still. I feel more grateful for others — less prickly, more smooth around the edges. I’m happy to get on with the rest of my vocational or domestic errands. Occasionally my wife’ll put her hand on my shoulder and suggest I do my daily challenges, which is a polite way of saying “you’ll be much better company after you game”. And she’s right.
Gaming cannot achieve miracles. Play is still only play, not good therapy or policy. I can’t simply run-and-gun my way out of illness or poverty. But I can at least be less fed up with it all; less oppressed by the weight of myself and my work.
Similar moods can be achieved with meditation, of course. But in all seriousness, that’s what playing Call of Duty multiplayer feels like to me. It’s a sitting, slightly-twitchy reverie that leaves me feeling a kind of blissed oneness and a relieved detachment from things. I’ve experienced this in martial arts and yoga, though not so easily and cheaply. And certainly not from the comfort of my bedroom. When I turn off the Xbox and monitor and go back downstairs I feel somehow more me — as if I were returning to myself from a short trip. A holiday from consciousness.
The demon wakes and is in a good mood.
Damon Young is a philosopher and author. His next book is Immortal Gestures: journeys in the unspoken (Scribe, 2025)
