NEW VIDEO: I Quit MMOs and THIS Happened
Some Yahoo
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Posts posted by Some Yahoo
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The Fallen Empire Omnibus
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For some reason, as I was growing up I came to associate the word work with "stuff you have to do even though it's not fun and you hate doing it".
- Do your homework
- Do the yard work
- Go work out
The thing is - and this is vitally important - what you do most of in life, and what you'll derive the most meaning from is most likely going to be attached to the word work. When I was in high school, they still taught photography - with the chemicals and everything. I loved it because none of it was sitting in the classroom reading a book and writing answers on paper.
After I graduated, I spent many weekends with friends finding places to shoot some photos. And I had a blast.
Then I got a job to shoot photos of a local business so they could set up a booth at the county fair. At first I attacked the project eagerly but over time I started to think of it as work rather than fun, and over the next two months, I squandered all my time and ended up rushing to get the project done in time for the fair.
The thing is - the owner was my best friends older brother, and had he asked me to do it as a favor, and not offered to pay me, I would have finished in 3 days! Just attaching the word work to it made it a drudgery to me - a thing I had to do, rather than a thing I wanted to do. I guess I have always hated being told what to do.
One thing I have learned as I got older is that our work defines us, and the work we do in this world is what we leave behind long after we're gone. In some ways our life's work is the most important thing we'll spend time on in our entire lives.
As part of re-imagining myself after gaming, I have been trying to teach myself to love the word work. To look upon it as a kind of monument to myself and justification for all the food I have consumed and air I have breathed (that more worthy people might have used). Most of us have trouble feeling like we deserve a monument to our lives - I certainly don't feel like I do - but why not? At least we can try to become our best self, strive toward our unreachable ideal.
But isn't is futile to strive - to expend limited energies and time toward the unreachable?
Yes, but listen. LISTEN.
YOU WILL NEVER REACH PERFECT, BUT YOU'LL END UP SOMEPLACE BETTER. You'll leave behind this place of mired in mediocrity, and push the overloaded barge that is your life in a direction of someplace better. Slightly better at first, perhaps infinitesimally, unnoticeably better, and you'll have setbacks, but you can't push in a positive direction without making some progress. Any progress.
Bottom line: don't fear work. No great restaurant owner has never washed dishes or bussed tables. No great author started out great at spelling and grammar, or didn't write cheesy fan fiction. No great comic never crashed and burned in front of an audience.
So get out there, suck at something until you master it. Suck at relationships until you don't. Suck at writing until you finish that novel. Be you. You is here for a reason. The universe spent aeons making a you. You have potential. Just use it.
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I know this goes against every instinct as a man, but I actually got myself a counselor. Someone not in my family, church, or work that basically listens. I can't say it's revolutionized my life, but sometimes just hearing myself say the idiocy I am engaged in helps me.
I advise against Psychotherapy, my opinion of them is that they're drug pushers. My mental state should not come from a bottle. That's just my opinion.
It sounds to me like you have depression going on, but ask a professional. I found a local counselor on the Psychology Today web site.
Barring that, you can spill here.
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It's great to have you here.
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39 minutes ago, fawn_xoxo said:
Is it possible for you to work from a public place? It's helped me a lot, used to work from home only.
Not really. I have all kinds of company private data I deal with.
And as far as books, I will look at these, thanks.
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I think I might need to do another detox.
I had a revelation yesterday. I work from home, and I get this psychological block all the time. I am sitting there and I have the software open to do my work, but I can't force my mind to get in there and get the work done. Most of the time I can't even get started. I fight with myself - often producing a lovely stress headache in the process. 90% of the time, I end up browsing the internet or watching YouTubes.
Yesterday it hit me. That headache is dopamine withdrawal. Watching videos gives my brain at least some hope of a little drip of dopamine, so I am drawn to it. I know I won't get that from working, so I get this headache telling me that if I do that, it's gonna hurt. It's like a Pavlovian response. If I pursue the work, I'll get pain, but if I play, I might get a little hit of dopamine.
Dopamine is not evil: it's a normal part of brain chemistry. It's meant to be like strawberries. You love them, and every spring, you get a couple of baskets of them and have a couple nice treats. But what we gamers have conditioned ourselves to is like eating 20 pounds of strawberries every day and little else. Our brain chemistry is starving for the other good chemicals needed to be healthy and well adjusted, but we keep loading up on strawberries.
I am getting the feeling that I at least need to redo the detox, but instead of just games, I need to detox from the whole dopamine dependency. That means YouTube, porn, right-wing news, social media, deviantart, all of it. I feel like all I did the first time was switch drug dealers.
Live and learn, I guess.
I post this embarrassing mess in the hopes that some of you who are relapsing over and over might see some truth and try again. I am not a brain scientist, and there is little reason to blindly trust my conclusions, but maybe it can help some of you. I'll let you know if this new approach helps me.
FYI one thing you can try along with your detox is exercise. Working out is supposed to stimulate good brain chemistry (endorphins) and aid with depression.
Good luck, all of you. I know your friends looked at you like a loon when you told them you were addicted to video games, and said things like "That's an addiction? Just quit and be done with it!". But we know that this is a beastly thing to conquer. Yeah it's a first-world problem, but that doesn't make it not a problem.
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I look at relapse like this: the first time I took 20 years to quit: but after my relapse it was only a few weeks. The wising-up period gets shorter and shorter, and you still win.
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On 9/16/2018 at 7:02 AM, PFMA said:
Would a card game community be too similar to video gaming?
No. A card game is a social thing with other people. Also, there is no group of people that are going to acree to play hearts 16 hours a day instead of bathing, eating, or going to work and school.
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Every parent has 0 hours experience on the day their first child comes home. Parenting is a job of teaching and gradually letting go. Parents are not supposed to be like a police state. Failing to notice bad behaviors is not bad parenting.
Think of parenting in terms of shipbuilding. 18 years of work all culminating in that day the ship slides out of dry dock and sails the sea on its own.
Over time, children learn that there are consequences to their choices, and there has not been a human yet that has not made some bad choices. Teach them when they are young. But let them make their own mistakes too.
As for our parents, they were as imperfect as we are. Unless they are actively hateful to you, they are probably good parents. Children are frustrating, and they know how to find what lights a parent up. Cut your ancestors some slack, appreciate all they have sacrificed for you.
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I would purposely get a non-gaming laptop. There's no such thing as a little addicted.
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If you are an addict, then no. Imagine if a crack addict asked you if it was OK to just have a little crack - you know, with friends.
Our personalities lead us to always increase gaming. It's better to apply our minds on better things.
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Blender is *not* an easy learn. It is designed by 3d wonks for 3d wonks. That said, if you were gaming about 16 hours a day like some of us, you can apply all that free time to conquering it.
There are tens of thousands of tutorial videos out there on Blender. Go through them - even the ones that are so basic you think Dr Seuss wrote them. Do them multiple times. You'll get it, people do. Your weapon is the time you have recently freed up by breaking up with the harsh mistress of gaming.
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Going a step farther, you can tell her how to catch you. Tell her to listen for certain keyboard patterns. Working or browsing news sounds different than gaming. Get rid of your headphones and joystick/controller. Turn the desk so she can see from the hall. Bring the laptop/tablet into the living room.
When she goes out, go with her. Help her shop or do whatever.
Marriage is us against the world.
Be as open as you can with her.
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What can be more scary to a shut-in, introverted loner like us than speaking in public? Seriously. Maybe lion taming.
I have on my screen the local ToastMasters website. They meet on Thursday. I want to go check it out, but realistically I fear it so much I will probably "forget" about it on the night.
I'm hoping to divert this fear into excitement, and actually go.
Someday I have to break out of this shell.
https://www.toastmasters.org/ - main page
http://mantecatoastmasters.org/ - local chapter to me, if you want to go see if I chicken out.
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When I had my first relapse, it took about 3 weeks for me to feel the hatred of video game. I was actually playing the game when I leaned back in the chair and realized I am bored as Hell. These games are all incredibly boring! Jump on the rock, shoot the enemies, use the right sequence of attacks to make things dead. Repeat, repeat, repeat. Make it to the top of the hill. Repeat. No challenge: my lizard brain has the sequence down pat.
This time I was not dumb enough to give them any money, but what I did was just as bad, perhaps worse.
I gave them my time. You see, one can always make more money. But one can never make more time.
It's all safely uninstalled now.
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The definition I had for it is everything is meaningless and by extension, anytime you think something has meaning, you are fooling yourself.
I agree with you about value. Why is gold more valuable than silver? Because everyone kind of agrees that it does. People give these minerals value: by themselves they are neutral. The same holds true for pretty much everything.
I spoke of nihilism in the same terms as Dr. Peterson (who knows a thing or two) as the belief that everything is meaningless. If I oversimplified, well that's just because I'm oversimple.
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This all applies to me. I'm not judging anyone else.
Nihilism (the belief that life is meaningless) is almost like a religious faith. It's not a faith in yourself, or a loving God, or a family of Man that is worth striving for: Nihilism is nothing like that.
I had always thought that goths and emos chose nihilism as a belief system to be dark and edgy, but that's not how it works. What happens is that your faith in everything you hold dear is systematically shattered until all you have left is this raw animal need to eat and sleep. Work hard? Why, will it matter that I turned in a 60 hour week? Get good grades? What, so I can go to some college and extend the meaningless of school for four more years? Be kind, caring, trustworthy, loyal? Why, so others can get the drop on me and eff me over before I see it coming?
That's nihilism. And gaming is perfect for us. One major thing that gaming provides (even though it's FAKE) is a sense of meaning. You can be sitting in your room, your soul aching at your stupid trapped life, but a game will make you feel needed, wanted, valued. Just like the programmers designed it to.
The thing I learned is that Nihilism is that dark, empty place that your soul flails against. Because it's wrong. Because you have meaning and purpose, it was designed in to your soul. Because it's only lies and poison that have led you here.
But do you want to hear the GOOD news? It's also a lie that you are trapped. The human spirit cannot be trapped like that. Even slaves have a free spirit. You can walk away from the darkness at any time. And even if you trip and fall when you try it, you cannot be stopped.
Put the controller down.
Embrace responsibility.
Be who you are.
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More on California:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mn1fxChSbYk
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California
I may have oversold the California thing, because I had old data. We're still 47th when it comes to high costs, but there are other factors in our favor, like workforce skills, and access to resources. Yey, businesses and the middle class are leaving in droves.
Medications
Always work with your doctor, don't listen to idiot bloggers on the internet. My personal goal is to not live like a zombie on mind-altering drugs, but that's just my goal. Still working with my doctor on that though. Depression is nothing like a flu or a physical injury, so I don't follow your analogy there. However I can tell you that in my case the antidepressants don't take away depression. It's more like they help it be some small percentage more possible to fight the depression.
There's way more than willpower at work here - it's like a computer program that has a bad line of code. There can be 900,000 likes of good code, but one error can cause the whole thing to malfunction. My goal is to unravel the false assumptions that have messed up my worldview and get set on a more productive track.
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As I mentioned in other posts, I relapsed when my best friend died, I spent a couple weeks gaming. But at one point I was sitting there, playing the same old levels, skipping the same memorized dialog, performing the same attack and levelling strategies, and I realized I was making myself exhausted for - well, nothing.
In other words, instead of taking 20 years to realize this was a giant waste of time, it only took a couple of weeks. That red line - the one where I realize This is stupid, what am I doing with my time? passed and I uninstalled it again.
But this time instead of feeling loss, I felt freedom. Instead of wondering if I will make it, I find myself full of regret that I downloaded them at all.
Slowly I find that I regain control of my own will. I am not trapped. Not anymore.
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Not sure if this is what you're going through, but it sure helped me.
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Just looking through the sack of wisdom and finding some tiny, disgusting chunks of thought for your minds to consider.
#1. If you want to know what a man thinks of his neighbors, look at his front yard. If you want to know what he thinks of himself, look at his garage and backyard.
For millennials, exchange with:
If you want to know what a man thinks of his you, look at his social media. If you want to know what he thinks of himself, look at his room.
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When my best friend died last Memorial Day I fell into a foggy depression. I must admit that I reinstalled SWTOR and ran a couple of characters for a few weeks.
I was online and watching general chat (I do not recommend this as you lose 1 IQ point for each minute you watch it). But I had to giggle when I saw an exchange that went something like this:
- So I was thinking of quitting gaming.
- Why?
- Well I might be getting a little too old to be doing this.
- How old are you? Like 26?
Guys, I am 57 years old. That made me laugh. Since the service for my friend I am doing a lot better, but that exchange gave me a chuckle I will not soon forget.
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Challenge Yourself
in General Discussion
Posted
I love this video. Insead of gaming, commit yourself to do SOMETHING useful every day.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ul9jrCXhR4