1 month into cubing, first impressions of a newb and comparison with other hobbies

[BoltKey]

TLDR: If you don't want to read it, read it or leave
First of all, I read on this forum quite a lot but I don't have enough experience so I cannot really say anything about it, but I just want to contribute somehow so I decided to put together this post so I write something too, because that is kind of the sense of a forum.
My first topic I am going to talk about are, as stated in the thread name, first impressions. I watched some cubing videos several years ago, then started playing videogames, then they started to bore me, so I looked back and thought about what I used to think about but couldn't do it because I was too young and stuff. So I remembered the cubing videos and bought a cube. I got extremely passionate about it since my first successful solve and I practice as much as I can since then. I think it's a great hobby to do, because unlike most of the videogames (apart from tetris) are not known by "normal" people, and most probably they tried to solve a cube too but couldn't, so they know how hard it is and respect you far more than for videogames. And on top of that, if you say you like solving cubes, it sounds far better that saying you spend your days playing videogames.
Also, I can be a part of a community, which is always very good fell anywhere, and speedcubing so far seems to have quite nice and intelligent community.
For the abilities it gives me, it is almost the same as videogames, both speedcubing and videogames improve mostly mobility of my fingers and eye to hand coordination. Videogames though give sometimes some moral lessons and learn you some other skills, but not in so big magnitude, so these can be neglected. Cubing on the other hand learns you very intensively memory skills with plenty of algorithms you have to learn, and I am not even considering blind solving. Additionally, cubing is somehow more rewarding, at least for me. Like, for example I feel much better when I reach a goal in speedcubing I was looking forward to for a week, than when I get an achievement I have been working for for one month.
To conclude, I think it was a good decision to start cubing and I can't wait to get better or maybe even very good in it.
So, that's it for now I guess. How would you compare cubing with other hobbies you do or did?
P.S.: I apologize if this topic was already discussed but I tried to search for it and even went through the SECOND page of results.

 

[pipkiksass]

Hi and welcome to the forum!

Funny thing, I used to cube at uni. Well, that's a lie, I had a cube and could solve it. 10 years later I have a job and, until about 6 months ago, my spare time was filled with pool and video games.

Then one day a friend asked me how fast I could solve the cube. I once had a 37 with the weird old-school beginners method I'd put together myself (cubing wasn't as accessible back then, there certainly weren't video tutorials online!). I decided to dig out my cube and see what I could do. Bought a guhong, learnt Fridrich, never looked back.

My xbox has been turned on once in 6 months - games are sitting there waiting to be played. I realised that, in 5 years time, I won't care if my k:d was 2.5 in modern warfare 3, but if I cash solve the cube in sub 15s then that's something I won't lose, and something that won't be devalued by activision or EA's latest release.

Now I have my own set of achievements. I'm not competing with anyone, and I feel less stressed and more satisfied. I've spent less on cubing in total than the price of a single video game, and derived far more satisfaction from it.

No contest, imho!

 

[YddEd]

I won't care if my k:d was 2.5

Ogod no, look at those 'stupid' kids that play it all day long D:



(Warning, lots of "then here than there")
Well.. I don't know why, but I bought a cube in China then scrambled it. (It looked like a SS 3x3 or something, the corners and edges had caps) Then it was forgotten. (I still brang it with me when I went back to New Zealand) Then I got bored and tried to do the white side, and failed. Then I saw someone that could also do a side. So slowly it built up... until I came to Australia. Then I played Minecraft all day ( :fp ) and forgot about the cube. Then I went to a chess club and I saw someone that could do it, he had a Zhanchi :O It popped alot though. So he taught me how to solve it using LBL. Then I started timing myself. I progressed pretty well, started off at 2 minutes and went down to 1 minute and so on. Then the guy said that I could borrow the cube to practise. Then I got to sub 40 and went to Melbourne Winter 2012, and after that forgot about cubing to play Minecraft again ( :fp ) So after a few months it was April ( This year ) and I got into cubing again, got lots of new puzzles and a megaminx
So I really haven't played games in a long time ( Apart from yesterday ) and cubing is way more fun than chess