Why I Play: A Brief Informative Essay About How Deep and Insightful I am

When I was a kid, we used to have this great pile of dirt by our school's playground. I mean, this thing was awesome. It was wide enough for two or three of us to duck behind, and tall enough to climb around on. And the best part was that it was up against a fence in this grove of trees.
So here's how it usually went down:
Half of us would be on one team behind the dirt (Either as cowboys, robbers, mobsters, whatever) and the rest of us would be behind the trees, assalting them. It was fantastic. Armed with nothing more than our finger pistols (or invisible shotguns, when we could find them) we would merrily blow eachother away, dying dramatically, sprawling across the dirt mound and up agains trees. Keep in mind, these were in the days of DOOM, where any self respecting young lad could just sit down in front of a computer and blast demons with plasma cannons (always a favorite). But we were content with our little mound of dirt and, more importantly, our imaginations.
Granted, the teachers hated it when we played on that dirt mound, and yelled at us many times. But that's not the point. The point is imagination.
I stated becoming interested in tabletop RPGs later, during high school. I had never been one for RPG video games (Final Fantasy is and has never been my game of choice) but something about sitting there with pen and paper with a group of friends really appealed to me. What drew me to it was that unlike in the video games, I was actually in control of my character and his place in the world. In video games you are usually set along a certain path, forced to give stock responses to a rigidly defined world filled with rigidly defined characters. But with the GM sitting five feet away it was easy to get realistic responses out of NPC's, and have a more organic experience overall.
Later, in college, my Role-Playing took one step forward: I became my group's "Designated GM". I have always loved the creative process. Settings, characters, plotlines, everything! I've written dumb little stories since high school, and even when I hadnt written it all down, I still had very complex backstories, relationships and histories all thought out. So what better way to express this than to create a new setting for all my friends to run around in? Together we've battled super villians, crawled into the darkest corners of the Lovecraftian Mythos, and burned down a few mansions (Steve... I'm looking at you!), and all along the way I have done my best to create original characters and experiences almost exclusively on the fly.
In the end it's this that keeps me coming back: When I game, it's like I'm back on the playground, playing make believe with my friends. And I really am! Only this time the rules are written down, though it's probably a failing of old age that those become so important. Most people dont use their imaginations near enough, which is a true shame, becasue boredom is a leading cause of harshed mellows and killed buzzes.
And it is for this reason that I plan to keep playing until the day I die (or go senile). I never want my imagination to atrophe, and I dont want anyone else's to either. This, I feel, is why I believe so strongly in the Table Top Society. We may not have inside information on what the gaming companies are doing, we may not play every game (mostly due to lack of money than lack of interest) and we may not even know all the rules. But what we can do is offer another place where people can come to talk about a hobby we all enjoy, to have fun, and to play.
At long last, I am able to bring the dirt mound to the world.