Why I Can't Play Video Games (or the curse of empathy)

I decided that I was going to become really skilled at computer games this summer since I spend a lot of time on the computer (and am trying to become an ultimate nerd).  Most of that time is spent waiting for the program I am trying to write (that will perform lots of complicated math and physics things!) to run (and mock me by taking 9 years just to tell me there's an error).  It's awesomely frustrating...

But anyway so back to computer games.  I was trying to complete my quest towards becoming an ultimate nerd, but I just can't play computer games.  It's not just because I'm really unskilled (which I am) but it's because any game in which my character can plunge to its death stresses me out too much.

I'm terribly afraid of heights, and apparently that translates to computer games too.  Even when the entire game is two dimensional, thus has no depth perspective, and my character is a flat, pixelated cartoon.  When the character in the game falls (which happens a lot because like I said before I'm really awful) I get that stomach feeling like on a roller coaster.  My heart rate speeds up, I get light-headed, I feel so nervous that I want to vom, and I get really sweaty.  It's pretty disgusting.

I blame this all on the fact that I am a wonderfully empathetic person who is just too-kind hearted to ignore the pain of even a two-dimensional being.  (JUST KIDDING)

But really empathy is a curse.  Clearly the human race would be much stronger if we didn't tried to put ourselves in someone else's position and were entirely selfish...(wait, is this hitting too close to the state of the world...yikes wouldn't want to get political)  And then we'd all kill each other off...the end.

And here's where you're probably waiting for some moral cliche conclusion like
1. Why can't we all just get a long
2. Make love not war
3. Peace and harmony man

Instead I'm going to leave you with these wise words instead...

if you're ever sitting by me when I'm playing a computer game, watch out, I'll probably vom on you