BooksandTrees

Thanks. I have been thinking so much about myself lately. I was telling my friend I was able to quit video games because I saw how useless it was making my friends and peers. They're so dependent on others, passive, never take action and make changes, aren't responsible and actively avoid responsibility. It made me angry. It propelled me to quit games because I didn't want to associate with such embarrassing people. I was ashamed. I used that strength to quit gaming once and for all. This quarantine has made me look at myself as I looked at my peers. It has made me feel embarrassed, pathetic, and filled with shame. I am now using that energy to repel porn. What a fucking waste. There's 3-4 billion women on Earth and I'm settling for a fucking computer screen. Fuck that. I agree with the testosterone thing. I feel alive compared to when I'm watching porn. It's frustrating how I felt. I needed this quarantine. I gotta be honest. Once you're forced to examine yourself you can't run from it. You look at yourself all day now. I see the embarrassment. I'm done with it. I can't find a woman right now because of the virus. I'm not making another excuse, but we need to stop socializing for the next few months in order to curb the virus. These retards socializing are spreading it and should be publicly shamed and fined for their role in virus spreading. Creating is the tough thing. I think I want to play the drums because it's aggressive. I have these tendencies to want to lose my mind, smash things, and go on an adrenaline rush. Heavy metal music is a device that has helped me hone that energy into something relatable and tangible. It comforts me. The aggressive yelling and sounds makes me feel like I'm where I belong. It has drawn me to the drums. I recognize the beats every time and I want to smash along with it. I can't do creative hobbies until I lose this aggression. I also hate learning. College has made me hate learning. I'm tired of it. Issue is I hate not knowing things for these hobbies. I have to learn all of them. I also don't see the fucking point in some of these hobbies. I'll want to draw or create a cartoon, but why? I just want attention. I'm an attention seeker and I know it. I think I want to make videos on YouTube or do stand up comedy because I love the attention and glory of it. But that's only if I do well. I just feel like a tornado going anywhere. Full of energy and no clear path. Then the tornado goes away and I'm just nothing again.

I had a good day at work although I did not work my full 8 hours. I felt sick with my stomach due to a meal I ate last night. Canned tuna fish. There's a research study out there which examines cans of tuna and deciphers whether it's legitimate tuna or another breed of fish. It turns out that 84% of the cans in North America have a fish in it called escolar. The fish has oils in its meat that are natural diuretics and can cause nausea and diarrhea. I never feel good after eating tuna and now I see why. It makes sense as well. Blue Fin Tuna can cost between $40 and $200 per pound on average. Why can I buy 5 oz cans for 1 dollar at the grocery store? Major profit loss there. I'm done eating it. It's just random fish in the can much like deviled chicken and ham. I watched old hockey games tonight and got emotional. I miss hockey. I love hockey. I'm still having an emotional crisis. I get so amped up with my energy that I need to be at a concert or being the center of attention for comedy, or something. I love having that rush. I don't give myself that rush. This virus is making me think so much about what I'm lacking in life. I haven't even wanted to watch porn. Porn angers me now. These fucking people online just getting banged and I just sit there and do nothing. I want to have sex. I want a woman. I want love. I'm gonna fucking get it. And I'm not settling either. I'm going to bring home a fucking champion woman and have a good relationship with her. I want to live. I have not been living. Even with quitting games I stay home most of the time. This virus isolation is nothing new to me. The stir crazy everyone gets? That's me every day regardless of the virus. I see no friends, I don't see any women, I don't have hobbies. Now I don't have the option to live life and I understand what I have been missing - or at least I'm starting to understand. It's just difficult because I have so much emotional striking me. This virus should be a warning that life as you know it could be changed forever at an instant. 9/11 did it to most Americans 20 years ago. We're seeing it now with this. I need to get over these god damn fears of mine and realize that fear can be overcome and you should welcome the challenge. I need to stop living in fear. There's so much on my mind. I want sex, I want love, I want hobbies, I want attention, I want to tell jokes, I want to do funny things, I want to play sports, I want to fight for a purpose and live, I want to do engineering work and make money, I want a house, I want so much that I have prevented myself from having. All of these things I want are just me dying to express myself. I bottle myself up all day and night and I want to break free for a little bit. After that I can relax. I just understand now that I'm unfortunately one of those work hard, play hard, then relax kind of people. I need people around me who share that lifestyle and don't just sit at home all day. I'm surrounded by depression or fake people and it's insidious. I have all this energy to do something and I don't even know what the fuck I want to do. Who gives a fuck if I do art? Do I even enjoy it? I need an adrenaline rush. I can't do art unless I do something adrenaline invoking. I don't know anything anyways. Tomorrow I'll mention how I'm tired and don't want to do anything. Just the total opposite of this. Logically, if I break down my past 2 days I haven't slept much, so I'm probably agitated and want sleep and am fighting it like a baby. Once I sleep I won't be agitated and can do some articulate stuff or not. Who cares? I don't know. One day I'm me and the next day I'm me. You never know.

This is my solution to the animation problem. Watch the video. He had the same problem I had. I'll be using blender to create Venom from spiderman every day if possible.

Great post. Glad to see you're so engaged in life during all of this. I'd like to get to this point sometime.

Thanks. I'm a very type a, entj-t, commander, extrovert personality. I really want to work on this.

I gotta be honest with you guys. I don't fucking like anything that I've been trying at all. It's so frustrating. I've gone 74 weeks without video games and I don't find anything fun. I don't like learning anything. I hate how long learning takes. It makes me lose sight of what I wanted to do. I wanted to animate and bought a tutorial for blender and I can't fucking take how long it's taking to learn stuff. It made me dislike the entire idea of animation because it's so much work. The loss of animation interest has subsequently made me dislike writing as well. I keep asking what the point is in all of it. AM I BEING AN ASSHOLE? The videos say just have fun with the software for 90% of the time and spend 10% on tutorials. I just feel like I've done 100% tutorials because I'm not giving myself the permission to have fun and try learning it. I'm drawn to this software for a reason. I just don't feel playful or curious enough. It's almost like a barrier I need to push. Why do I not give myself the permission to just have fun? I don't think this is a fear of failure. I just get overwhelmed by all the buttons and menus. I can't focus on the initial things I wanted to create.

I'm not sure if I'm developing allergies or sickness. I started getting a mild sore throat after post nasal drip occurred last night. I'm more fatigued. No fever though. I haven't left my home in 10 days so I could have acquired this from my office where 2 people tested positive for the regular flu, 1 person had bronchitis, and nobody had been tested for COVID19. I also have severe allergies each year and spring allergies make me sick with wheezing, coughing, hay fever, etc. I'll have to use logic and common sense to not sensationalize any symptoms I develop.

Thanks. I appreciate it. Life brings us around and we react differently in different mental environments. I'm hoping this is the key for me.

Even if you do an hour of programming language that should be good. It's impossible to enjoy a constructive hobby like we enjoy consumable hobbies like gaming, TV, media, etc.

I think you're in the right spot. I know you deleted your post, but I hope you keep posting.

Today was kind of frustrating, but I pulled out of it. I went to practice the blender tutorials and got very bored and frustrated. I just wanted to create something fun and stupid that I could work with and I was learning how to paint a helicopter. I don't care about this and I don't want to do work. I then started thinking about animating pornographic things like I had mentioned a few months back. I tried to fight it, but the rush in my head was unbelievable. I needed to do it and then watch any porn I could. I stopped. I couldn't watch it. Instead, I laid down and took a nap. I woke up and immediately wanted to watch porn, but got depressed about it. How embarrassing is that? Wanting to watch porn and having it be so important to me? That's embarrassing and disgusting. Porn and masturbation are filling a void in my heart that can only be filled by love from a woman. The rest of the loneliness goes away with friends and family. At the end of the day, I'm starting to think this quarantine is really good for me. It's like a pressure cooker for realizing my problems. There are so many days where I'm given the option to meet with friends, do something fun, watch a movie, go eat out, rock climb, dance with women, go on dates, sing a song, perform stand up comedy, travel, join a club, and much more. I don't do it. I make up excuses about how it will be bad. I only do this for 2 reasons. 1 being that I am afraid to get hurt so I make excuses to stay at home by myself because it's a safe environment and I don't have to worry. 2 being that I don't want to be vulnerable and show people my heart and let them close to me. Instead, I just get angry and hate on them. I mentioned this anime in the past, but today's thoughts made me rewatch a good portion of it. The anime is called "Welcome To The NHK". It's about a guy in his 20s who just stays home all day. No job, no friends, no love, no contact with family, no hobbies, and no life. He doesn't bathe, he watches porn all day, he hates women and only views them as sex objects, and he believes the entire world is conspiring against him. This anxiety makes him want to stay home all day and avoid life out of fear. A woman enters his life and gets him to leave his house after he sees how far he's degraded in her eyes. He slowly develops the courage to leave his house, meet a new friend, and live life with her. There are so many important values from this anime. I last watched it back in 2012 when I had received my 2nd letter from college threatening to kick me out. I finally pulled it together in fall of 2012 and became the best student by 2015 with a job lined up and everything. The crippling regret and feelings of failure in my life resonated with the same failure in his life. Only he actually got kicked out of college. I watch the show again today in hopes of learning a little more. I was right. I go through the same fear that he does with women. I cancel most dates and relationships with women because I'm afraid they'll find out I'm not very experienced. I'm good looking, but I'm so ashamed that they'll think I'm a child and pathetic. It is so embarrassing for me that I haven't dated a woman in almost 10 years. I'm so afraid that they'll hurt me again. It's so crippling. Whenever they start getting closer to me I freak out and purposely aggravate them and then I break things off. I noticed I do this with friends as well. I make excuses to not hang out with them or do any new things. I avoid travel and avoid anything fun really. So why do I mention this now? I mention it because I had the option to do these things with friends and women and be social. Now that I'm in isolation by force I realize I have nothing to escape from anymore. I don't even want to watch porn. I haven't watched porn or even masturbated since the quarantine began 8 days ago. There is no need for it. Instead of having things in my life that I'm escaping from, I find that I'm just lonely now and full of regret. It doesn't matter if I find hobbies and create stuff in my spare time. What really matters is I am proud of myself for becoming this engineer that I always envisioned. I've been reminded of how much of a loser I thought I was 10 years ago. I sat in my bed wondering if I'd make it in life. I have. This brief pause, however long the quarantine is, from society has started to make me reflect on things I actually want. I want company. I want love. I want to hold a woman in my arms and love her. It's time to grow up. I can't let pain from years ago continue to pulsate through my heart. I lost sight of who I became and I'm starting to notice it now. I have a great career. I have lots of friends that I sometimes think conspire against me and don't like me, but that's just my thoughts talking similar to that anime I mentioned. My family wants to talk to me. Women think I'm attractive. People want me to do comedy and board games and stuff. Life's not as terrible as I make it to be and I don't want to create anything related to porn at all. I don't think I even want to create anything half the time. Now that I'm not running from life anymore I am trying to figure out what I can add to life. I'll figure it out along the way.

Thanks. I hope you get your sleeping mystery solved with help from your doctor. As long as you're doing the right thing to stay at a comfortable place then I think it's worth it. I don't think I need medication right now. I still have some options.

Today I'm 74 weeks free from gaming, 76 weeks free from social media, and 1 week free from porn. I didn't make a big deal out of counting the days for porn this week because I realize counting days is stupid. I was able to quit gaming because I counted weeks and not days. If you think about something even once per day you're still thinking about it. If you can train your body and mind to not make a big deal out of quitting something then you can quit it. It's that pink elephant metaphor. This is the first week of not watching porn in almost 2 months. I have ample energy. I've found that waking up early has helped as well. I've never watched porn at like 6 or 7 in the morning. I only watch it in the mornings if I wake up past 10 AM and feel lethargic. Of course, if I wake up early that means I'm going to bed earlier. I found that the most common times I was watching porn was between 10 and 11 AM from waking up late and between 11 PM and 2 AM if I stayed up late. I've effectively removed those time periods from my day by shifting my schedule. Last night I tried to write part of a book I had thought about and I didn't enjoy it. I think finding a hobby is about enjoying what you're doing and not necessarily getting a reward out of it. Just because I like music doesn't mean I need to create it. I can just listen and enjoy it. Just because I love books doesn't mean I need to write one. I just enjoy reading. I'm going to be focusing on things I enjoy doing based on the energy I have. After work I clearly don't have much mental energy. This means it's a good time to do physical things like yoga, exercise, walking, rock climbing, sports, etc. Working out leaves me feeling balanced and relaxed. So that means I can cook and watch a movie, tv show, and read for the last couple hours of my day before bed so I can unwind. Unwinding is important for gaming addicts because we never unwinded. We may thought we were unwinding from a difficult day, but really we were engaging our brains to a much higher level in a form of escapism. It's important to unwind and realize you can relax. It's a part of the day not many people get the chance to do or realize they can do it. Today is the weekend and obviously I have struggled to do well on weekends. They have made me relapse with porn at almost a 90% success (or failure) rate. I'm not going to try and do animation for 16 hours this weekend. But what I will do is just fill my day with things I enjoy. I'm going to do a little animation, watch some TV, cook, talk to some friends, post on this website, read, maybe practice using my camera and mic. Who knows. I'll do what feels right. I just know porn and naps won't help my day and neither will waking up/staying up late.

Lol thanks. I agree with the music. I actually enjoy sitting down with my spotify app and listening to new bands and seeing if they'd be good for exercise, working, cleaning, driving, or dancing. It's a fun process.

I think I've damaged my mind through video games, porn, and depression. I say this because tonight I tried again to work on a hobby project and see if I enjoyed doing it. I didn't. I got 10 minutes in and said "fuck this" and stopped. I called my friend up to get his input about hobbies and how to enjoy them. If any of you are depressed, you'll know that your mind will sometimes experience a "depression headache" where your head feels clouded, heavy, almost painful without any legitimate pain. It bogs you down and makes you sad and has a pressure sensation. It's like this anxiety and downward drag emotionally. Like you're in an airplane ascending and pressure builds up in your head a bit and you can't really relax or enjoy yourself. I usually have this after work and the only thing I can do to get rid of it is watch porn or play video games (74 weeks since I did this). I keep thinking that a new hobby will give me some sort of accomplishment or release to feel better. It never comes. Today I followed my goals once again. I woke up at 6:45 and stopped working at 4. I worked out, took a shower, cooked dinner, ate dinner, watched Iron Chef, and sat outside and enjoyed the warm weather. I fully enjoyed my entire day. I didn't have the "depression headache" symptoms I felt earlier. I wanted to take advantage of this feeling and work on my hobby and that's where we are at now. I didn't want to do anything creative. I'm just mentally satisfied and drained and don't need to do anything else. I read @Erik2.0 saying he's always tired. I read from multiple people that they're tired and not used to it. I gotta be honest I think that's just life. This is why I mentioned I think I've damaged my mind through gaming and porn. We're used to stimulants. These games are stimulating and unnatural. You shouldn't be getting boosts of non-stop energy for 8 hours after being at work for 8-12 hours a day. I think we've been stretching ourselves thin and now we expect so much out of ourselves. I remember when I quit video games my heartburn, digestive issues, heart pain from anxiety, and bloating went away after a month. I haven't had them since. I think my body was feeling the pain from the burden of gaming and porn for so long. I think it's natural for me to be tired at 7:30 PM when I'm going to bed at 10 PM. The other part of this whole thing is I only want to do stuff I enjoy. Hobbies should be enjoyable. I am trying to turn my hobbies into work and getting some crazy end result. I turn everything into a project. I wanted to write, but instead of writing something small I just try to create a book series or something. It's so insurmountable that I don't even want to try it once I go to it. Tonight I had more fun just listening to music on my couch and head banging. I just enjoyed it.There was no reward. No prize. I just enjoyed the process. This is why I liked rock climbing. I didn't care about needing to create something with climbing. I could just climb and enjoy the process. Everything I treat as a job I don't enjoy. I'm trying to find hobbies by treating them like jobs. This is where I'm failing. I gotta be smarter about this. Who says listening to music isn't a hobby? Who says reading interesting news articles or a book isn't a hobby? Cooking dinner? Watching a tv series in moderation? Exercise? Relaxing outside? Making up jokes?

I'm going to write about this in my journal.

Oh. Never mind then. I lied and haven't seen your website lol.

No, but eggs take 2 minutes to cook and toast takes 5 minutes. I eat in 5-10 minutes and I'm ready to go. I'm working from home right now so I don't have to commute. If it was at work just add commute time + 5 minutes to get dressed. I shower at night. I meal prep for lunch and dinner is all.

The one in your bio.

I'm kind of pissed off. I set aside 4 hours tonight for hobbies and don't want to do anything at all. I started to write my book, but no ideas come to mind. I can only write when I'm emotionally bothered. When i exercise, eat well, and feel mentally clear I can't write at all and have nothing interesting to say. The only thing is when I'm mentally upset and need to vent, I don't have the energy to write. I don't think writing is for me. It's not fun. I like designing stuff and being a leader on a team. I don't know anymore. This is really pissing me off. I'll be 74 weeks away from video games tomorrow and I still have no hobbies. It's depressing.

No problem. Sorry to hear about your accident/injury. I recently recovered from some injured ribs from a rock climbing fall after 2 months. You'll heal soon and be back with them or back in the program in no time. That pain of not being there will make you enjoy it even more once you return.

Just wanted to update everyone and give an example of how I'm spending my days: Monday-Friday Wake up at 6:45, Breakfast/weigh myself 7-11 work, 11 Lunch, 12-4 Work 4-430 exercise/stretch, 4:30 shower 5 cook and eat dinner, watch a tv show 6:30 practice a hobby or two 8:30 relax for an hour then read and in bed by 10:45 Saturday and Sunday Wake up at 6:45, breakfast/weigh myself Go for a walk or do some yoga Study for 2 hours, watch a tv show for an hour or maybe watch a movie Do hobbies for at least 4 hours the rest of the weekend total, not each day. I don't want to stress out learning new stuff Talk to family and friends on the phone for 1-3 hours Read/draw/cook some meals for meal prepping

You're doing the right thing holding back and thinking about gaming in a negative way and how it wouldn't be the same. I'd be realistic and say you're going to be in isolation anywhere from 4-8 weeks. So you're going to inevitably have to face some cravings and urges. Remember what I wrote in the COVID19 post. Make a list of reasons why you should stay away from gaming and keep that. Also, find ways to keep yourself busy and look forward to being busy. This is your time.

Website looks more easy to read than last time. What are your plans for its design in the future?

I keep having dreams where I will fail a test or something and lose my college degrees. The struggle i went through in my past to become an engineer after almost failing college twice never escapes me. I don't have my licensure exam on my mind since it's not for 7 months now. I just always see a test that's unsolvable and I have to make up excuses for why I couldn't solve any problems and it's because I didn't study. Like I'll be cast out of society and be forced to work minimum wage jobs forever. I never want to fail like that and lose my life. This has nothing to do with the recession as I've had these dreams for years. I just think it explains why I'm so hard on myself at work and with new hobbies. I don't want to be a failure at anything I do ever again. It's inevitable though. Can't be an expert at everything. This really means nothing. I just wanted to write about it.