I heard a story recently that reminded me that behavior is truly relative. Several friends were just hanging out, all playing games on a separate computers and TVs. Upon crashing into a tree in Burnout 3, one guy – who is generally the most relaxed fellow you’d ever meet – chucked his controller into the wall and elegantly screamed the loudest and most vociferous racial slur ever slurred. This shattered the peaceful atmosphere in the room like a truck of hammers crashing into a warehouse of fine china.

This is what unbreakable trees can do - the humanity.

If you’re like me, you’ll probably be reading this story and nodding in equal parts understanding and nostalgia. We collectively put ourselves through the mental and stressful wringer of difficult games quite willingly. The question of why we do this never really enters our minds. The challenge is there, so we attack. The process by which we gain skills through repeated failure, expletive shouting, and heart palpitations never needs much justification.

But, let’s be honest, this makes no sense to anyone else. Every time an absurdly difficult NES game induced my childhood dance of rage, my mother would poke her head in the room and ask me why it was that, if the games made me so angry, did I keep on playing. I never had a good answer for her, unless “Shut up, mom!” adequately satisfies. Emotionally, I knew why I was playing. Indeed, I knew what my goal was, but an agitated mind and a lacking lexicon didn’t do wonders for my eloquence.