Books Grow Minds, Games Build Worlds, Gardens Heal – Let People Enjoy Their Joy

We live in a world obsessed with hierarchy. Even our joy has to fight for validation.

Reading is noble.
Gardening is wholesome.
Video games are… childish?

How strange, how sad, that we’ve learned to measure joy in terms of social approval instead of how deeply it roots into our hearts.

Let me ask you this: What makes reading “better” than gaming? Because it’s quiet? Because it looks productive? Because someone can watch you read and think, “Ah, how cultured”?

But let’s peek under the cover of that assumption.

Reading takes you to new worlds, true—but so do games.

Books can immerse you in empathy, challenge your thinking, and break your heart in slow, silent sentences. Games can do that too—in a different syntax: through storylines you shape, choices that haunt, and the intimacy of being not just a witness, but a participant.

Gardening—that earthy, tender magic of coaxing life from soil—is seen as deeply nourishing. And yes, it is. The rhythm of watering, the quiet hope in seeds, the joy of something growing under your care. But not everyone has a garden. Not everyone has a body that bends easily or days that start with sunlight.

Some people cultivate beauty in other ways—through building cities in SimCity, crafting stories in The Witcher, or creating order in digital chaos.

Painting miniatures. Baking bread. Solving Rubik’s cubes. Writing fanfiction. Watching anime. Flying drones.

Why must we pit one joy against another?

The truth is this: No hobby is morally superior.

They all serve the same sacred function—they remind us that we’re alive.

They give us rest, wonder, focus, expression, or escape. And no one should need to justify the shape of their joy.

So, the next time someone lifts an eyebrow and says, “You’re still playing those games?” Smile. And maybe ask them what book they’re reading, what plant they’re tending, or what makes them feel most alive. Then tell them—gently, lovingly—that your joy just happens to glow.