Ikar

Day 375: I did Duolingo and worked through some old messages. I got new tires for my car and had them get changed. Then I visited my grandma, went for a walk, read, attended a philosophic webinar and played board games in the evening. Day 376: I wrote here, did some Forex, went for a walk, worked through some old messages and went outside to mess around with the basketball. Later on the girl decided to randomly join me. I also went to the dorm gym, as they opened it in a limited mode, so I did a few pull-ups and sit-ups after a long time. I'm vigilant.

I guess I have had a lot of practice with that about a year ago when I quit gaming and had 10+ hours to invest somewhere else. Moreover, delaying anything doesn't make much sense in my case, if every day goes as I planned it!

Great post @BooksandTrees , definitely hit a lot of the things I was thinking about in regard to this diary. I skimmed through your extensive background again to give me better perspective. @Erik2.0 I couldn't understand it very well at first, but I think that in my case gaming (and my ex likely too, but she left on her own prior to me quitting games) was "the" dependency to get rid of. I felt as if I wasn't limited by anything that would consistently hamper me for longer spans of time. I sense that in your case gaming only masked other stringent dependencies that perhaps I would personally face a few years down the road had I continued gaming. Meds for your condition objectively limit you, but they keep you in acceptable moods. How does living together with your mom limit you? Do you have a good alternative? Be honest answering the questions above, even if you decide not to share them. Maybe you'll find out that you don't like your parents/family at all; that you hate them, like @BooksandTrees found out. Maybe you'll find out that they have their ups and downs, but acknowledge that they already played their biggest parts in your life, so it's fine to come for a family lunch every week, like I found out. Good luck and be strong. And read @BooksandTrees 's reply again, as I think he put it wonderfully 🙂

It's just my experience, but being sore the next day doesn't necessarily require me going "super-destroyer 10/10 100%" mode. I wouldn't enjoy doing all the exercises to the maximum either, let alone I could do that only twice or thrice per session. It's difficult to determine, but there's a cool middle-ground one can find 🙂

I had the same workout routine for 6 weeks I did every day at the gym to get me started on the daily habit. Later on, I started doing more diverse exercises at the gym and I had to skip some after, otherwise I'd spend three hours every day working out! I take every good opportunity I can get to "skip" my workout and to ride my bike or play football for a change, though I am sure there are hundreds, if not thousands of exercises for all the various muscles, if you want to work out every day. The main scare I had was that I would get injured by working out daily, but it seems I can do it in reasonable limits. Also, being sore for three days is not being injured 😄

I wonder if I had an edge going into this whole pandemic situation over most other people. I did face (even if voluntarily) a job loss some 20 months ago, quit games 12 months ago and since then I worked on my individual projects/hobbies/jobs. I know you quit your job and went back into it, but I don't think you ever actually enjoyed the liberty of having an undefined number of "free" days ahead of you while taking care of yourself well. I don't think people normally get to get out of this "8-hours a day" rat-race mindset. It has been a great experience for me so far - it's been very liberating and redefined my outlook on what I "have to" do.

Day 374: I worked on my GIS project and requested some help on it from our teacher. I went for a walk outside and read as well, as the weather is great. I also did spinal exercise and Duolingo. I watched a WWII documentary about the liberation of my city and the area I live in. I started going through my old messages here on GQ, to help me out with concepts for future blog posts and to remind myself of how it all started. I think it's a good idea to start chewing onto some ancient stuff that I could remind myself of, including bookmarks and other notes, physical or digital. --- I think I caught up on my "normal stuff" entirely at this point by nearly completing the GIS project. That means I sometimes get bored, but I get creative afterwards and start doing something new/something I haven't done in a long time. It's refresting.

Don't give up and don't shoot the messenger, if he does a good job for you. If that woman has nothing better to do than to harass people online, it's her issue, not yours. I remember I got a match several months ago and since I was exhilarated by studying psychology, Peterson, Sapolsky and other people and things, I tended to apply it everywhere. She mentioned MBTI and later on I got called sexist for writing there are differences between men and women on average, as the Big 5 shows. It was quite surreal 😄

Day 372: I worked on my GIS project, read, visited my parents and did some pullups and situps. Day 373: I worked on my GIS project. It's almost done, however I am struggling finalizing it, because I do not know the software. I also started watching "Yes, Prime Minister" after I've finished "Yes, Minister". I went for a walk, dribbled around a bit with a basketball on the playground, chatted with friends and played desktops in the evening.

I mean that kind of "motivation" required for doing something intellectual. I get a "motivational" high once a month to write my blog, but I write several times a month regardless. I get "motivated" to eat several times a day, but I don't think that's worth mentioning. Discipline > inspiration.

I honestly believe one can rarely get a burst of motivation/inspiration for a short time, independently of whether they work on something long-term or not, though it must not be relied upon. The girl I go on walks with told me that she wrote down a part of what I wrote in my blog into her diary. I got a burst of inspiration afterwards and wrote about a part of the next article the next day. Sometimes it's nice when somebody strokes my ego 😄

Yeah, the book is difficult to read and think about. There is a lot of "novel" ideas, but here and there I see something I can understand outright. I think the issue with "leaderlessness" drags at least for several decades now, but I guess humanity always ping-pongs between order and chaos. The video I saw yesterday was also about whether governments are nowadays raising "citizens" or "consumers".

Day 370: I worked on my GIS project, went for a walk with the girl and played football. Day 371: I worked on my GIS project, started "Beyond Good and Evil" by Nietzsche, went for a walk and watched discussion between McChrystal and Peterson. --- I have a good feeling about those walks. I'm in no rush and I take it easy; I wouldn't mind having this sort of interaction for the several upcoming weeks. It's hard to gauge, but I think she took a similar experience from her past relationship that I did; to try and work on herself.

I think it was also him who pointed out that as a male gets more "successful in life", the increase of women that are willing to date him is linear. Starting near zero (fat neckbeard gamer covered in cheeto dust and living in his mom's basement) and ending in "infinity" (successful athletes or entrepreneurs). With females it'd seem as there is more of a bell curve as to the males that are interested in them. Starting near zero (obese chicks), maxing near the middle (an average looking chick with an average job) and going down to zero towards the end (the number of highly successful males they are seeking for is small and the amount of males that would play the "woman" in the relationship is small as well). Text is unrelated, but I wanted to find a Bell curve with a linear function together 😄

Good research. I also thought there was something going on behind the scenes to keep users spend more time on the apps. I also remember being hyper-aroused for the first few days, because I do not watch porn or anything that resembles it. I got rid of them today. Out of those dozens of matches and IG messages over a few weeks I got writing more with just two of them. The first one wasn't able to ask me anything and the second one watches series for 10 hours a day these times. Nope! I agree with Books. Join clubs, go to small friend-organized parties, BBQs - whatever floats your boat and start building connections. After a few visits, you'll feel more relaxed, because you'll notice you know half the people there. The girl I am currently going on walks with I remember I saw before at some event, but I just didn't get to talk to her until a couple of weeks later at another event. Don't forget to talk to guys too!

Good luck finding a good new place! I love the Articuno 😄

Yes, I think as one gets less depressed, more confident and overall just has a greater and greater desire to do things, the sexuality goes up too. I wrote this before somewhere else. I think any motivation that gets you going towards a positive change is a good one. Work out "for" girls or recognition from friends at the beginning. Later on there should be some more "mature" reasons coming into the equation though. University is quite a long-term plan, but in the end I believe women would rather marry/date a psychologist rather than a cashier. I'd argue women overall are more swayed by the whole financial security/stability thing that they care to admit, but I think a guy who is successful in his job is more likely to be successful in all other areas in life as well.

I enjoyed it. I think I'm going to read something from him in the future as well.

I'm unsure whether I structured that sentence clearly, because you just took out a short quote, so I put in the brackets now just in case. Does the question still stand or is it different? 🙂

Day 368: I worked on my GIS project, helped my mom getting the hoover back to the shop, washed the dishes, did Duolingo, took a walk, read outside in a park, read back at the dorm, watched a webinar about C.G. Jung and played board games in the evening. Day 369: I finished the book I was reading, did Duolingo, sent my GIS project for some troubleshooting, wrote down some blog thoughts, worked out, took a walk, cleaned my room and sorted out the laundry.

My social life picked up after I quit gaming, but I think there's a certain lag between how successful am I at what I do and how well I can present that to others. I think I set up a lot of things well than the majority of people my age, but at the same time I get to discover more people who are doing even better than me who won't let me slack and become too arrogant. I've been wondering whether I masturbate without ejaculating too much. I eventually came to think that sex is a creative endeavor after all. Perhaps it is a "tax" for getting everything else done, because the drive that gets me to do all the blogging, reading, uni work and all the other things is at least partly sexual too. In a way, I am a bit scared that having sex again will make me more lazy, though it could make me even more driven too.

I also think it has something to do with the complexity of the thing you do. Just about everybody can appreciate or at least understand that a player in football scored a great goal or made a great pass. I can compliment you on that Voltorb, because I used to play a lot of Pokémon, played the TCG and watched the series, so it struck a chord with me. But if you design a structure in less than a half the normal time, I can't really appreciate the beauty of it, because I know nothing about it and my compliment would look untrustworthy. All I know is that you are efficient/good at what you do, but there's no emotional attachment to that. Humans are assholes and we like that emotional attachment 😄 Is there anyone at work you'd like to get the compliment from? Someone you'd like to start a compliment ping-pong here and there? It obviously can't happen if you hold no respect for the sender.

What I find odd is that people generally hardly ever get praised for doing well at their employment where they work, for example, 40 hours a week. It's mostly assumed that you do it for money, therefore it requires hardly any additional recognition. I think that hobbies are much more effective at getting recognition, because we don't need to do any specific one of them. Therefore they are 100% us. I got complimented on my blog a few times, even though I do not think I put in more than 50 hours into it yet. So far I spent about 4500 hours "making money" in official employments, but I can't imagine having someone come to me every week and genuinely say they appreciate what I do.

Day 366: I had an extremely productive day. I worked on my uni project (I think it is half-way there), read, went for an exploratory walk, published an article on my blog, worked out, did the groceries, played football and relaxed in the evening. Day 367: I read, visited my grandma, helped my mom transport a water-based hoover and did the laundry. --- I started this diary a year ago. No speeches, but at least here's a funny story: In the evening, I noticed a tick-like bug is attached to me on my butt. I got rid of it, however I wasn't 100% sure if I got it out right (to avoid infection) and I heeded my friend's advice to get it checked at the ambulance. I felt a bit like Forrest Gump during all that, but I am happy my curious case made a few people chuckle, including myself 😄

I think as long as you do everything well enough and you enjoy doing those things, I'd advertise for all of them or at least throw them in as hobbies. Myself, I'd throw all "acting, public speaking, improvisation, stand-up" all in the same box for a creative artist such as yourself and it wouldn't strike me as odd. You don't work a 9-5 job, so I think it overall makes sense your portfolio is more diverse. I think after gaming I lost the ability to cling to a single/a few activities too much. Yesterday, I worked on my university project, went for a walk somewhere I never went before, watched an old British comedy show, studied Russian, published an article on my blog, worked out, played football and read a book. All that is who I am, even though I can't do everything I want to every day. The great thing about all this is that I do not crumble and die if any of those things gets somehow "taken out".