How many online gaming outrages are prisons of our own design?

I used to play League of Legends with an old friend who was both stunningly good at video games and incredibly relaxed whenever he played. Back in the early days of League, he reached the number one ranking on the EU West server, and one of his favorite picks was Janna. Janna, a wind-based support hero, is meant to stay in the backlines and shield her teammates. My buddy Luke looked at Janna's kit, which included move speed and attack speed buffs, and built her to become a terrifying and unstoppable monster. 

I remember laughing until my chest hurt as I played with him, watching the slender wind elf run circles over her enemies, slapping them hundreds of times with tiny wind projectiles. Each one would hit for negligible damage, but that would add up until their health bars melted away. If the enemy team tried to retaliate, he simply zoomed away on the wind. It was a stupid, broken build. It was beautiful. After a game, I asked Luke how he came up with such ridiculous strategies.

He explained it with a simple simile. When playing a big open world RPG like Skyrim, if he found a sword that shot lightning, his reaction was always something like: Oh, fuck yeah, this thunder sword kicks ass. If he were to sit down and compare that lightning sword DPS values with another weapon, that was an automatic loss. As soon as someone begins to break down the numerical values of their gear instead of enjoying them on a surface level, Luke explained, their brain becomes poisoned and they are no longer able to find off-kilter approaches to the game through the lens of whimsy.

Fifteen years ago, I thought Luke had a certain wisdom that we could all appreciate. Today, I think that we all need to sit down and follow these teachings, because when I look at so many of these community controversies over popular online games, all I see are self-inflicted wounds caused by players who have trapped themselves in their own hell.