Some Yahoo

So the last couple of days I have reached this place where nothing matters. I have been trying to fill my time with Netflix, 3D modelling, sketching, digital art, writing, and reading. Suddenly a couple of days ago, I don't give a fig about any of it. Netflix? Not interested. Reading? I have a headache. 3D modelling? Nah, there'll be some roadblock I can't get through. Sketching? My last 5 drawings have that "fresh out of 2nd grade" vibe. So at the end of a full day of avoiding work, I now have literally nothing to do. Not looking for a list of activities here, I will just fail to be interested in them as well. ---=== On the bright side ===--- I did manage to take a walk today. Maybe if I wasn't toting around this food baby I'd feel better. We'll see. Also bright: I have not attempted to install any new games either. This is a break from my last attempt, where SWTOR and DCUO ate a month of my life. Strangely games lead the pack in terms of things I am uninterested in. Could this be the horse latitudes? That horrible doldrums where you think you're gonna die, but if you make it thru, you're in your New World? God, I hope so.

Note that it loops back to the start when it gets anywhere near success. The dot on the 'i' is June. And Tuesdays.

I'm 59 and I loved this post. A couple of things: 1. Don't focus on what you want to "be", focus on what you want to do. I have met a lot of people who want to be a writer (for instance), but they hate reading and sitting down to write. They are enamored with the notion of being a writer, but the actual hard work of it is not something they can ever actually do. Same for doctors: I have met people who want the clout and prestige of "being" a doctor (I even know a few who just want to write themselves drug prescriptions, but let's not go there), but they are not down with the whole mess and goo and slicing people up that comes with the job. Personally I get lightheaded when I see blood, so it would never be for me. Choosing what you want to be is one thing - it means planning out the whole course of your life. It's daunting. But choosing what you want to do only involves picking an activity for now. I know a guy who was a great electrical engineer, and in his 40's trashed it all and went to nursing school. He did really well at it too. Anyhow - hope any of this helps.

A couple things: First, game friends are not friends. If you doubt this, imagine you are on your death bed. How many of them would come to visit you? If your game friends were sick, how many of them would you go spend time with? Friends are people who have been to your house. People you share meals and actual activities with. Gamers are not your friends. Also, while games themselves are not evil, they are for us. Like an alcoholic, we have a glitch that makes us unable to game responsibly. You would never advise your recovering alcoholic friend to just drink a little whiskey every day, would you? Lastly, think of the things you could get done with your life when you reclaim your 6 - 8 hours a day. Most of us live about 80 years. That's about 29220 days. taking out weekends, that's about 20871 days. at 7 hours a day, that's 146,097 hours. That's 16.66 years of solid time. Now if you waste that all gaming, you have nothing to show for it. You could literally use that time for almost anything else and have a lot to show for it. At $15 an hour (most people only work minimum wage for a few years) - but let's say even at $15, that's $2,191,455 you could earn with that time. Or you could use the time to learn, read great books, spend time with actual friends, write, draw, take pictures... All these things make you a better person, while gaming just puts your personal and social development on hold. Lastly, if you think you can dial it back to 30 minutes a day, I urge you to read the relapse section of this blog. You'll see that for us gamers, relapsing is about the most heartbreaking thing that we can do. Hope this helps.

Think of gaming more like a girlfriend you broke up with because she wasted all your time, you spent thousands of dollars on her, and she was also seeing hundreds of thousands of other guys (and girls). Sure, you can reminisce about the fun times you had, and have a smile about them, but there's no way you can ever go back to her - it would just be far too toxic and heartbreaking for you.

Today I deleted my Podcast app, Unsubbed from all my YouTube channels, and killed all my social media (there was one). I was filling my day with these things and still avoiding getting to my work. It was super weird going to bed without Andrew Klavan in my earbuds. It was weird not reading Breitbart while I ate breakfast. I have no idea what Trump said yesterday on Twitter. I neither know what COVID stats are nor what cities are burning from looters. And you know what? I realized that unless my house is on fire, there's nothing I can do about it, and it doesn't really affect me. Sure I care about people getting hurt, but what good would it be to sit here and wring my hands over it all day? Also, I realize that "staying informed"... doesn't help anyone gets me in arguments is just an excuse to waste my day is useless because about 80% of the news - left and right - is concocted to make us hate each other. So. I may not know what Sleepy Joe babbled out today, but my life just got that little bit better for not reading it. Now I have to really stop squandering my morning writing here and get on with it!.

Problem One: Gaming pushes everything else aside. Gaming consuming untold hours of your everyday life is problem one. It makes you into a failure because you fail to pursue the normal and reasonable things you ought to be pursuing at your age in life. Great soldiers, clergy, investors, architects, husbands, wives, businessmen: even game designers - had to take that first step into their fields and pick up the tools in untrained hands for decades before they mastered their trades. This experience is what gamers cheat themselves out of. In games, you start out as a superhero, a super soldier, an architect, or race driver. You're fit and knowledgeable, you have all the dexterity and intelligence you need to excel at whatever task you might encounter. You never see how the super soldier had to go to boot camp, work his ass off on 600 calories and 3 hours sleep a day, lug a 50 pound pack and be always ready to drop and defend his teammates. You never see how the architect had to get through 6 years of college, then work at a firm reviewing plumbing and electrical diagrams from more experienced architects for 3 more years before being given a simple room addition to oversee. Becoming good at something takes time, energy, it involves truly sucking at your craft for a long time before you start to get good. You may not have the dexterity, or eyesight, or bone structure. You may not be quick-witted enough. You may have to start over or settle into a position where your mediocrity is useful to those who are greater than you at it. It's hard and it DOESN'T tickle the dopamine response gamers are so desperately addicted to. Humans are not meant to live on constant dopamine. We are meant to have true excitement about our lives maybe once a month or less. Games shoot you full of it every 15 seconds. Problem Two: Nothing else is that exciting. OK, you dropped gaming. You sledgehammered the XBox. You erased Steam. Your next question is: that do I do with the 60-80 hours a week I had been gaming? You have to pick something. I should balance my bank account and pay my bills. Nah, that's boring. I should take up my drawing/sketching/writing/painting hobbies again. 3 hours in, and my stuff is still so amateurish. Eff this! It's too much work! Oh god, I haven't called my Dad in years. I should renew my family relationships. Talked to Dad, that was awkward, and he's so judgmental: ended up yelling at each other. I'm not doing THAT again. You see, NOTHING in REAL LIFE is as constantly rewarding as games have made us. And as much as I wish there was an easy solution, there just isn't. We're going to have to retrain our minds to work hard for a long time to see minimal rewards. Another thing games teach us is there are no consequences. When you die, I mean really die, that's it! In a game it means a 10 second time-out and respawn. When you fail to advance at your job, you're getting stuck as a barista/fry cook/janitor/minion. It's not like being a game-obsessed mind-elsewhere lackey is ever going to get you the corner office. THERE ARE REAL-LIFE CONSEQUENCES TO BEING A GAMER. Your head isn't in the game. How many times have you bailed on work or family to join a raid? Once? Weekly? Daily? There is no health bar for your real-life relationships and achievements. You don't see that you are training your coworkers/friends/family to LIVE WITHOUT YOU. You are erasing yourself from society. Where does this all lead? I am 59 years old. I am socially awkward. I am hanging on to a failed business. I have no health care. My family have trouble relating to me. Some days I cannot FORCE myself to work, because my mind is after the dopamine drip. Imagine if you will: I am looking at a list of about 40 help tickets I could work on. I opened the first one, and my mind instantly screamed at me... Don't do it! It's too hard! You are gonna just break something else if you change the software! This client will NEVER be happy with your work. It's too hard! You're not smart enough. This program is build on 10 year old technology! It's gonna break anyways! Just watch a couple of YouTubes, until you stop freaking out. (5 hours later...) Oooh, go read the day's news. (4 hours later...) That, or something like it happens every time I get work. And you want to know the stupid thing? I actually like my work. I'm pretty good at it. Customers generally like me. Truthfully, I do get a bit of a dopamine rush from figuring out a problem and fixing it for other people. I actually take pride in releasing code that makes people's lives better. BUT. The hard part is conjuring the self-discipline to work even when your whole brain is acting like a cat when you try to give it a bath. It's HARD. But it's the ONLY WAY OUT. Don't get trapped like me. Every day you fail brings you closer to... this. TRUST ME. You don't want this.

Compare those regrets with reaching 59 years old and never having written that book, or learned that second language, or created that awesome animation. Compare "I never played Halo 7" to "I neglected my wife, and kids", "I went to my Mom's funeral regretting that we were never very close", "I never got very far at work", "I have no real close friends" Video games are a cancer that eats your time as it dissolves your real life away from you.

OK, took the survey. There are some misconceptions I think the designers of the survey are working under. I'll put them in a spoiler window in case others want to take the survey first. I answered the survey as I would have before my detox, not now, a year and a half trying to quit.

Well I took a long time to reply, but I am struggling with depression, and one problem that plagues me is when I go to bed at night after working 0-3 hours all day, I don't feel like I deserve anything but "you're fired". I never feel like I have earned a break. I have this little routine I fall into... Damn, this work was so hard yesterday, I just can't figure it out! Let me open this file and stare at the same problem I failed at yesterday. Hey, I have an idea! Oh but that would take a phone call and a lot of dicking around to figure out. Eff it. Load up the game (or Netflix, or Youtube). I'll take a break and try to get motivated. As the game loads there is a tiny voice in my head that repeats Right now. This is you effing up your day. This is where you are ruining your life. This decision. 8 hours later - Oh eff it, I quit for the day. At bedtime, the little voice repeats, Might as well game all day, you're just worthless. This is the future if you give in to the game. You're passing up your life in exchange for something that doesn't matter one bit. All games end. Imagine turning 50 and telling your friends how awesome you were at the game you're playing. Now imagine a guy who's 50 now bragging about how good he was at Defender or Pac-Man. This is the future you we are trying to escape.

It's the dopamine in your brain - you have to detox from it. Dopamine is what video games (and porn and gambling) use to keep you feeling like something wonderful is just about to happen. Humans are designed to feel a dopamine rush once a month, like when your kid hits the ball in tee-ball or when your wife gives you that look. Games tickle that chemical 100 times an hour - on purpose - it's what makes you feel like you can't quit. It's why you'll tell your kids to eff off over some lame cartoon people with a dime-novel story. Detoxing from dopamine feels like boredom. This day is boring, my wife is boring, my job is boring, this meal is boring. It gets better, I promise. Just don't let yourself slip into the other dopamine demons like porn or gambling. You're detoxing from dopamine, not games per se.

Simple advice from one who's been there. delete the game. tell the wife. go to the counselor. Some reassuring things. It probably took years to quit the first time, this time it probably was what, weeks? a month? Here. https://skl.sh/2CCRsXp Take a class. I'm a computer nerd learning to draw comics and do tech support stuff. Also with this whole covid thing, be ready for isolation and for your counselor to stop seeing people. I hear some of them are doing web appointments now. Bottom line: you slipped. Get past it and continue laying the bricks of a new and better life. Don't doubt yourself. You are worth the effort.

I was a pov-ray user from waaaaaay back and loved it, but found it limiting when it came to boilogical forms. I tried sketchup a loooong time ago, but you had to pay them like $950 for the pro version to convert your architecture to a usable form (it didn't - at the time - output to obj or dae unless you paid) Wings: I have used this for years. There is nothing better for making quick little stuff you need for a render. Need a toaster? 20 minutes. Coffee maker? 30 minutes. Dresser? easy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFKmnCsWbPY <- wings tutorial: BONUS! you get to hear my boring, annoying voice.

So I relapsed for 2 weeks. Then I saw this on my steam home page. Lets say you earn money hourly like me; ...at $15/hr that's $1335. ...at $40/hr. it's $3560 That's in 2 weeks! Instead of being useless and complaining about being broke, I think I'm going to work hard and have nice things. Luckily for me I work from home, my last 2 weeks is sadly just lost income. At the end of the day I feel a lot better about myself when I have accomplished something.

The reason I'm not using filmic is because I render in DAZ Studio. Blender seems to be written with the singular goal of making it impossible to get from idea to finished product without 9600 hours invested, and most of that is research into why it refuses to do some thing which - in my mind - ought to be simple.

Here's a link to Cam's Video.

This.

Try audiobooks, or podcasts. If you're up to it, I know a lady who is into gardening, woodworking, and restoring furniture. Even reading a real-live paper book is better. I have at least 3 good-ish books on my Kindle in my phone. There's nothing like putting on my headphones and listening to a book while doing chores. I even have bluetooth headphones I can use when walking. Hope this helps.

So, one aspect of my addiction was that I always wanted to express some for of creativity in my life. But since I have a short attention span and react very negatively to frustration, I never developed the skills to do anything well. What this means is that I have a long list of hobbies that I absolutely suck at. Here it is: Writing Short Stories Photography Drawing 3D Art 3D Animation Painting Playing Bass Guitar Political Blogging (don't ask) Video Game Design and Programming But each of these endeavors take practice and patience. Meaning you're not going to create Alita: Battle Angel or even Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow in your first week of learning animation. So, as a gamer I would frequently say "Eff this, I'm playing Tera" (or SWTOR, or whatever). So you know what's harder than learning Blender? Opening Blender, rage-quitting after 45 minutes, and not looking at it again for 6 weeks. But here's the thing. I learned programming by having to get things done. I originally went to school for Electronics Engineering, not programming: I was forced into programming because the company I worked at needed some work done. Please note that this was in the 1980's BEFORE there were 10,000 IT graduates per year. So last month, I saw this video. ...and I decided to post one piece of art every day. Not massive projects, just quickies. And I expect that over time, maybe in a couple years I might stop sucking. So I made this site: http://snippets.209software.com/ I am only a few weeks in so far, and have not missed a day yet. I also found that pencil sketches are easier for me (I am NOT saying i'm any good) than 3D art, even using downloaded HDRI backdrops and prefab DAZ characters. The thing is YOU CAN DO THIS TOO. Maybe your thing isn't visual art. Maybe it's writing, or taking online classes. The thing is, DO something important! DON'T Substitute YouTube or porn or Netflix for gaming. Those things are mostly fine, but they are just another form of wasting time.

You are on a good path, Matt

It might be easier if you said how old your friend is. I quit gaming because it was impacting my ability to get my job done. No job, no income. I also started seeing a counselor to deal with depression because I got laid off after working at a company for 9 years. If your friend is 12, and has no responsibilities then it's fine to just try and coax him out of the house now and then. If he's 16 and flunking high school then you probably want to talk to him. If he's working, or married, and people are depending on him then there is more at stake. I know it's tough to bare your soul and have no one respond, but you were a bit vague about the details.

Well as a 58 year old gamer, I feel for ya. It's not that games aren't fun, it's just what the addiction turns you into. Here are some examples of the bonuses you get without gaming in your life. When everyone is standing around the coffee machine on Monday, and everyone is talking about how much fun they had, you will have an actual story from the real world instead of a story about being a busty, half-naked elf priestess and teabagging a douchebag you've been trying to beat for 6 months. That novel you always wanted to write is actually making progress. You have actually taken the time to read a book. You begin to iron out your social awkwardness by living, laughing, and making mistakes. Stuff that needed painting and repairing is being painted and repaired. You actually feel free to volunteer for a little overtime now and then. You don't look at your wife/girlfriend/parents and hope they have some event where they need to be out of the house until late at night so you can be alone. You actually began drinking water and taking walks. You look back at your day while you're brushing your teeth at night and feel happy that you got some stuff done rather than spending 16 hours on a game. You find yourself becoming hopeful about your future. You find the will to take classes or sit down and figure stuff out. You notice that you're actually wearing shoes everyday (because you're going places). Your dog loves you more, and gets excited to see you. Severely reduced nagging in your day. Well I know that's a long list, but it's all from my own life. I'm sure there are lots more benefits. Cheers.

That's great! Also it seems that the messed-up sleep and willpower thing is real. Lots of people do better when they aren't up gaming until 4 hours before they have to be at work or school.

Welcome. I'm sure you'll find lots of ideas here to help you out. I know I did.

I can imagine this swinging either way. I was MMOs. But the main thing is that while you're gaming, you're being constantly rewarded, and there are no consequences for the choices that you make that last past your next respawn. Gaming is primarily a way of checking out of real life for a while, like reading, partying, drug use, etc. MMOs promise "friendship" and "companionship", but in reality deliver neither. Single player - well I wasn't into that, but it's just a diversion. When played responsibly, it's not a problem. For us on this site, it dominates our lives and consumes all our time so that we end up in our 40's and we have no more real life.