I think two claims underlying your thoughts are: 1) Temporarily escaping from difficult situations is never the ideal course of action, and 2) There are always better uses of time than reading fiction, listening to music, and playing games.
If I can piece together your argument for the second point, it is something like:
S(haewaroz)1. Any external or internal change requires power.
S2. Moving from your current state to a better state requires a change.
S3. The purpose of your life is to move to ever better states of being (self-improvement).
Therefore, S4. We can fulfill our purpose only by accumulating power.
This is a very good assessment of the statements I've made so far. It can function as the basis of further conversation.
(the right books, music and games can actually help push someone through the 3rd-5th tiers of Maslow’s Heirarchy—especially when one is in their formative years).
Well, let's focus on just games right now. Does playing a game increase your sense of self-worth? Does is built self-confidence that will let you find better mates or succeed in your work better? Does it increase the respect others feel towards you? Does it help you create strong bonds with your family and loved ones? Does it strengthen your moral character in a way that members of your society would respect you more? These are the sort of things we're talking about in 3rd-5th levels of Maslow's Hierarchy. Even in terms of friendships, gaming only functions as a platform through which people can interact - much like any social media. So the actual important activity that can satisfy a need for friendship is actually interacting with others in any way, not the act of gaming. And if you're not interacting with others while gaming, you lose this benefit. Can we agree that for the most part, gaming is actually anti-social behavior? I don't have any data on this though, I might be wrong. Through certain kinds of games people can perhaps learn creativity, but developing actual programming, modding or editing skills will increase creativity much, much more. Notice how these skills are also much more effective power acquisition methods? I don't think it's a coincidence. There mere act of doing something that increases one's power makes one happy. Think of the profound feeling of joy after a hard days work or the satisfaction of succeeding at changing a flat car tyre on the side of the highway. Gaming, for the most part, is not a very creative endeavor.
As a side note, there has been a lot of studies about children's gaming habits and considerable amount of them conclude that gaming games often don't stimulate young brains in the right way to strengthen healthy mental development. They often also conclude that impatience and general lack of self-discipline and self-regulatory skills often result from excessive gaming. These are all very undesirable results with regards to power acquisition as well as a child's healthy development.
If you agree with my formulation of your argument (you might disagree with S3), then we can see that none of the premisses nor the conclusion are incompatible with: K1. Any power beyond that required for self-improvement is excess; and K2. So long as you possess the power to overcome any mutable impediments (i.e. choices between excess), “sub-optimal power prospects” (SOPP) are admissible. SOPP meaning, simply, a prospect which reduces your power, leaves neutral your power, or increases your power less than competing options.
I would change S3 to S3* The purpose of life is to achieve human excellence. But K1 and K2 still apply (swapping human excellence for self-improvement). The difference being that “human excellence” is a thicker concept than self-improvement and allows for a stronger version of K2: SOPP are required for excellence.
This trail of thought would be valid if we'd agree that self-improvement is a finite concept and that after certain amount power loses it's effect on improving our ability to affect our internal and external reality. I could be wrong, but I don't think either statement is true. Let me try to come up with an example that would illustrate the accumulative nature of power.
Let's take an American business man who wants to manufacture and import goods from China (something that's rather common today, I would presume). In order to be successful in his business endeavors, the business man needs at least the following power resources:
1) capital
2) business contacts in China
3) means of communication with Chinese business associates
4) knowledge about taxation, tariffs, import laws, sea cargo shipping, freight forwarding etc.
5) throughout knowledge about the products he wants to manufacture/import and about the manufacturing process
6) knowledge about domestic market and potential customers
7) a viable marketing strategy and means of executing it
8) access to a platform or locale where the imported goods can be sold
9) etc...
As I mentioned, these are the minimal resources needed to be able to import goods from a foreign nation and sell them in a domestic market. I've done this type of business myself so I'm somewhat familiar with the concept. And of course I should also list all the power resources that we all take for granted, like a beating heart and functional lungs, the ability to form coherent thoughts etc. Now, there are literally countless ways how our business man can increase his chances of success during his business venture: perhaps he has a Chinese wife, who can translate for him and help him understand Chinese way of doing business better; perhaps he owns a cargo ship himself and don't need to pay for the shipping of goods; perhaps he requires less sleep than most people and can work longer hours than your average person. Hopefully you agree that there are literally countless power resources that can make this business man's venture more successful. So in practice, there's no limit how much power the business person can use to enhance his success in this business endeavor. Now, think about all activities you do every day of your life as being similar to this act of importing goods. Aren't all actions ultimately the same way affected by infinitely possible power resources that can either aid or hinder every action you take? Let's say you're brushing your teeth in the morning, for instance. If you have a new, high quality toothbrush, you will likely end up with cleaner, healthier teeth than with a worn out toothbrush. You might also have learned a particular good way of cleaning your back teeth with a tooth string - this will no doubt help prevent corrosion and tooth decay etc. Can you actually come up with an example of an action that cannot be positively affected by the right kind of power resources? I believe this demonstrates the fact that power acquisition is a never ending process and that we always benefit from acquiring more power. There are always ways how power will let us satisfy the needs Maslow listed in a more throughout manner.
There's also another practical thing we have to discuss here, something that goes far beyond philosophizing. In large part we are creatures of habit. Habits make up for at least 50 % of the activities we do on a daily basis (this is a conservative estimate). There's a lot of research about this and I can point you to further readings on the topic. So if we are to be successful in life and be able to accumulate power efficiently, we need to take control of our habits. We need develop habit that increase our well-being and accumulate power efficiently, otherwise we have to struggle very hard with our remaining 50 % of available time outside of our habit loop.
Gaming is not a productive habit. Actually games are often purposefully designed to immerse us into the gameplay and to reward us for spending more and time doing the most mundane things imaginable (clicking icons without any thought process for instance). This kind of habit is disastrous from the perspective of Maslow's Hierarchy. This kind of habit can be very enjoyable and even feel rewarding. However this kind of habit is poisoning one's well-being and consuming one's power reserves.
There are more important things than power, and power is only useful because it allows you to attain those things.
Corollary to that, and informally restating what I’ve written above, once you have enough power to secure value for yourself and your loved ones now and into the future, what you should then maximize is that value, not your power.
As I said above, you can always obtain those things BETTER. There aren't only a limited amount of unchangeable things we need to be happy. Instead it's a process of maintenance, something similar to how you take care of a garden: you cut a branch here, add fertilizer there, add a supporting string for a bending stem, drive away dangerous rodents and use the right pesticides to protect the plants from insects etc. The garden is alive and in a constant process of change, just like the requirements for our happiness are ever changing. Have you ever achieved a lasting state of happiness? No, there's always something that needs to change, some Maslowian need that requires more power to be satisfied. Some people might take this as a proof that it's pointless to try to chase happiness, since it will always flee and vanish just when you're about to grasp it. But this is a faulty way of looking at happiness. We have to accept the fact that happiness will always be in a state of change and we merely have to maximize the ways we can use our power resources to make changes to our internal and external reality that allow us obtain the maximum amount of happiness at any given time.
Power only has value due to it's utility, but it's cumulative nature and the possibilities to affect your internal and external reality are so incredibly numerous that it might as well be a value in itself. I would go so far as to equate life as it exists in any form in nature with power, much like Schopenhauer did.
You might increase your theoretical power to enact change through one course of action, but taking the opposed SOPP, e.g. a walk in the park with your fiancé, kid, brother, friend, or whoever maximizes the reason power is valuable in the first place.
These activities can be seen as activities that accumulate a lot of power. Social relationship, especially with people we deal with on a daily basis, can either provide us with or consume a lot of our power resources. Being stuck in a loveless marriage will consume all your energy and make focusing on important tasks impossible. A loving wife on the contrary is an invaluable source of power for a man.
More broadly, being passionate about whatever—like
aweigh is with Japanese Wizardry clones—enhances your life.
From my examples above, I think it's obvious I don't agree with this statement. You can be passionate about many things that can do severe harm to both your ability to function as a member of a society as well as your personal well-being and ability to enact changes to your internal and external reality that is ultimately what makes a person happy (i.e. enhances life).
Being passionate about composing music or playing an instrument or accumulating knowledge on an esoteric genre of fiction or trying to solve problems of philosophy or physics or chemistry enhances your life even if it never manifests in power acquisition.
Some of these actions can bring you enjoyment and accumulate power simultaneously. To me it's questionable whether pondering about a philosophical question in solitude for an extended period of time enhances one's life if it doesn't create positive changes to one's internal reality and if it's not communicated to benefit his external reality. If it simply succeeds at creating momentary enjoyment, I don't view it as something very valuable. The same goes with music, although listening to music can have some considerable physiological benefits.