Lampshade

woop woop!

I'd love to read more about this when you have time. What are your plans, what can you do with it, etc. etc. Learning Linux has been on my list forever

Honestly I quoted this to talk about how I agree 100% and feel like masturbation has a bunch of positives. Then I looked into a bit more and the best-referenced paper I found (here) pointed to a bunch of evidence of harm. I guess I just feel like I think more clearly (especially around attractive people)if I ejaculate a couple times/week and the partner isn't always available. Any experience with that? That's pretty intense. Grats! You're right about the burnout risk though. I find a lot of us go pretty hard on other things when we first quit gaming though. Suddenly there's a lot more time and energy available.

Thanks all for the feedback and suggestions. It means a lot to me that people out there are reading and thinking about my problems. Day 48 Spouse and I had a talk. Neither one of us are happy with where our relationship is at in the last little bit. Personally I know I'm on a down-turn emotionally so a part of me wonders how much that has to do with it, but there are also for sure some things that aren't just me. Maybe I'm just better able to deal with them when I'm in a really good place, say 8 or higher. Below that, some of the stuff between us just gets to me. I feel like my actions affect her emotionally way more than they should. Like I feel judged for how I spend my time. I think I'm likely projecting this onto her, because I do have problems with feeling judged, but that's the way it is. She gets worried, I think, about my patterns of behaviours. Sometimes I just want to be left alone and I think she interprets that as something being wrong. On top of it all, she struggles communicating her feelings so I'm often left in this kind of weird purgatory where I don't know if something is bothering her or not, which feeds into the 'feeling judged' thing. Anyways she claimed she wanted more privacy. It's tough because I work from home, we have a small home, live in the country, and covid. So there's not really anywhere for me to go. I work all day in our office so I don't really want to spend more time in there in the evenings when she gets home. I've been doing that anyways as my own way to get some space but it affects my sleep if I'm on the computer too late. Regardless, I'm happy to give her space because I've been feeling the same. In fact I've been feeling obligated to be available to spend time with her. It'll be a nice relief to remove that. A part of me feels like she's going to interpret the space-giving as some kind of silent-treatment or ignoring-her thing, but I'm going to take it for it's simple face value request (because, again, I want the space to). Gonna headphone it up. Looking forward to it. If anybody has any other suggestions to give us each more space I'm open to it. There's one more thing I want to write about that's related to our relationship. We started dating at 18 in 2008 and have been exclusive since then. I feel like that definitely affected us by inhibiting our individual growth. I had a lot of relationships in my teens, but only her for the 20s. I'm such a different person now then I was when I was 18. We both are. We've grown together in some ways, but in others our interests have diverged.

Yeaaa this goes through my head all the time. Especially now that I'm away from it a month and a half. I keep thinking 'just a few hours in a low key strategy game'. I've noticed this with me as well. My life is primarily bouncing from one addiction from another. Sometimes it manifests itself in gaming, drugs, sex, alcohol, etc. and the problem is obvious. The other side is when it is channeled into something less obviously destructive, like exercise, work, writing, and reading. People always praise me for being an 'all-or nothing' kind of guy, saying how great it is that when I get involved in something I 'jump in with both feet'. I appreciate those comments for the intent behind them, but the reality is that I wish I were less so. I've been going on the theory that it's all related to avoiding my other mental problems. I feel like a mentally healthy person should be able to get through a day stone sober and be comfortable. That just doesn't work for me. Eventually I get worn down by the constant chatter in my brain and look for an escape. Meditation does help a lot, but it's a long slow grind. Dec. 2 The mornings are my weakpoint 100%. One of my dogs is nearing the end of his life so he doesn't sleep well, which means I don't sleep well. On top of that, we usually don't get to bed until 10 and my wife gets up at 5:15 and is moving around our small house for 2.5 hours before she leaves. So I either get up and go on like 6 hours and a bit of sleep, when my body asks for a consistent 9, or I stay in bed and get a very disturbed extra few hours. I don't want to wake up until she leaves because I hate the feeling of being just woken up when she's been up and awake for a while. So no mater what I end up groggy, grouchy, and apathetic in the mornings. Those negative morning vibes make me decide that I don't give a shit about the day or my habits. If I had any games installed I would definitely play them. It's not like I've done anything productive form 9-12 this week anyways. It keeps popping into my head that if I played a game at least I could have some fun. I'm still missing that easy access to (what feels like) innocent joy. On a related note, I've done a bit of thinking about why my habits always seem to slide after a month and a bit. I think part of it is just boredom for sure. My therapist suggested adding more challenge into it but it's hard to meditate in a more challenging way. I'm already at 20 mins. daily. Suppose I could increase it more but my morning routine already takes forever. Anyways, I think I start to care less about my daily habits because when I start them there's a feeling of hope that once they are down and I'm doing them for a while, that I'll be happy. Like if I do these 5-things in the morning I'll have won and everything will be good (I'm so grateful for this journal, because that sounded logical in my head but ridiculous when written). That doesn't happen, I lose out on the hope and they feel pointless. Yes it leads to me being in good shape, hygienic, and feeling like I look good but it doesn't take long before I get used to the new state-of-affairs and it no longer makes me feel good. This happens all across the board in life. For a month or so water was dripping down the chimney of my woodstove. Over the weekend I got up and fixed it and it POURED yesterday. We had been so used to water getting in the house when it rained that yesterday we felt so luxurious because our house wasn't leaking. Today I'm taking (another) easy day. Thankfully, I have a bunch of montonous work to do that doesn't take much effort. Basically just downloading audio files for hours and hours. Going to throw on some Battlestar Galactica and hide from the world. I guess that's a good thing about not gaming when feeling like poop. I can still indulge that feeling but at least pick at some stuff that needs to be done anyways.

Yep, and it would've felt like almost nothing got pregoressed in game. I remember that a lot with Civ. I'd spend like 4 hours just getting to the point where the game actually starts. Crazy is right! This has been it for me. It's just not possible. I've thought it through an embarassing amount and tried my hardest to make it possible but still work towards goals in a way that makes me feel satisfied. I've tried parental timers, waking up at 5am to play, all kinds of things. Never works out. It's hard accepting your weaknesses, but there it is. Dec. 1 Wow it's December wtf. I just want to put in something quick here to keep up the habit. I'm considering moving journalling to the end of the day. That was the plan for today but I'm so locked in to my routine that it was on my mind that I hadn't journaled yet. I think that's why I benefit from doing my habits in the morning; otherwise they're on my mind all day as a bunch of little things that I need to do later.

Shit man I hope that when you turn 30 you don't feel elderly lol Anyways, good luck. Try to take the stuff here as advice, not instructions on what to do. We're all just trying to figure life out.

This has been a big realization for me as well. A lot of the goals we set for ourself will be hard enough without the time lost to the things you listed. Fitting everything together in a 24-hour day just doesn't work.

Thanks both for the replies, it's nice to be able to vent see that someone listened. Don't need anything fixed, just nice to be heard. @Commissar Yeaaa, I may or may not also be on the Total War subs. Warhammer II was my jam for a while. Something I've realized though is that there's always something coming out (which makes gaming so exciting). When Baldur's Gate 3 early access came out I decided to go hard cause it was special. I could've totally done the same thing with WoW, and this Total War DLC, and Cyberpunk 2077, etc. etc. Just never ends. I'm guessing it'll get easier as we get more out of touch. @dasvira Thanks for the book recommendation, I've put it in my wishlist to check out next time I order a batch of book. Also thank you for that paragraph. Learning more about secular philosophy is a great idea. About the sleep, I'm typically in bed by 10pm. So a solid 7-ish hours. The tricky thing I've found is that I usually don't sleep very well until I've already been getting up early for a couple days. Almost like you have to accept 2 days of under-sleep before the body recognizes that it better get what it can, when it can. That said, when I let myself sleep as much as my body wants it's consistently 10 hours, so I think I might have to go down to a 9pm sleep time if I get serious about waking up early. Day 45 I'm going to take a more relaxed day today. Morning habits be slipping. Haven't been feeling the same drive to exercise and stretch either. These are the times that I would decide to just game the day away. At least without games, I've got a realistic shot at doing something productive later. I'm going to drink some coffee and read a couple chapters of a book this morning instead. It still satisfies my desire to fuck off, but I don't expect to be locked in all day. On more positive notes, yesterday was a gorgeous day and I got some of my outside chores done to get ready for the winter. It was pretty nice crossing those off the list and getting to do it in the sun rather than with frozen fingers like I was expecting.

This is what I wrote on Day 30: And this is what @codepants wrote in response, which helped: I would emphasize that reducing stress is productive in it's own way, and would add that reading makes you a more interesting and diverse person. Gives you something to use to connect with other people, for example.

That's kind, thank you 🙂 Day 44 Okay, time to talk about WoW. My thoughts on this are very disorganized, apologizes if anyone is reading this. I've just been avoiding thinking about it and it's piled up. I'm not even going to edit or spell check cause I want to do other things today, so expect a word vomit. The new xpac was released and I've foolishly kept r/wow and r/worldofpvp in my reddit subs. I'm fixing that, but it's had an impact. Getting the work in early at the start of the xpac to not fall behind is super important for pvp. This is the time that I should be playing. Writing that about a game just seems ridiculous. Put in the work to not fall behind? I think that probably sums up like 80% of my WoW experience: doing chores. I've got enough chores in real life that I'm behind on. Why the hell would I bring more into my life? The answer is the reward that comes from the chores. Right before I came on here I watched an arena video. The pretty colours, smooth gameplay, music, and flow put me right back into that mode. I want that so badly. If time were unlimited I feel like I could exist in that state for eternity. That's really what it comes down to, time. It's easy while in that state of flow to feel like time is unlimited, and that feeling can last forever. I've got so many memories of night-time sessions without any worries. Weed smoke in the air (or not, it wasn't necessary), good music on good headphones, family asleep, dark room with the LEDs from gaming mouse and keyboard. Fuuuck. Those nights where I had given up on any sense of trying to control myself or give a shit about consequences were some of the most freeing feelings I've ever had. THere's definitley something in us, or at least me, that embraces the self-destructive. Last night I was looking at my music from those late night gaming sesssions and it fits as well. Lots of songs about being a fuck-up. THe women singing them always seemed so badass though in their ability to not give a fuck. ALl that said, it just seems so fake. I'm carrying it to the logical extreme, cause I've always been an all or nothing kinda guy. One path is me doing a PhD the best I can and having a reasonable shot at faculty or government scientist based on my network. I can use those positions to pay off my loans, have a more comfortable living space, travel, and then give other people like me the same oppurtunities. The alternative: I do a half-ass job on the research and beg for a job rather than feel like I tried my hardest, or quit the PhD and get a job that's less difficult so that I can game. Get really good at the game... ??? ...Is there a a profit here somewhere? Everything I just wrote makes the answer so obvious. Don't play WoW. That's right, just don't do something guaranteed to feel good. I guess one of the things I struggle with comes from a lack of religion. If this is my life and I'm done at the end, what does it matter if I spend it as a human or as a lizard on a warm rock (how I imagine myself gaming)? Fwiw, relapse risk is low-med I think. I can't picture myself reinstalling WoW and losing all the progress I've made over the past seven months (since I last played WoW) and especially the last 44 days of no games. In mid summer next year, though, I expect that risk will increase. Elon Musks satellittes will be available so it'll be the first time in nearly a decade that I'll be able to game without 800ms of lag. It's going to be REALLY hard to not experience that for just a few months. God I wish I could be someone who was okay just playing for a few hours every now and then.

So that's been my plan. If I get up around 5:30 that should be enough time for me to get through everything if I stay focused. That said, my success rate for getting up is like once a week at best. I've done 4:30 wakeups for 3-months at one point so I know it's possible. It's just really hard. Whenever I am listening to something that talks about how a person should not give up on their goals, early morning wakeups is the thing that always comes to mind for me that I shouldn't give up on. I've also been paying a lot of attention to daily routines of people. Like all of the people whose accomplishments I admire get up early. Can only hear it so many times before it becomes willed ignorance.

Sucks that you're going through a rough patch right now @codepants

I bit the bullet and texted my family that I'm not doing Christmas this year. Wife and I are introverts and we both feel like we're going to need an actual vacation around then. It's not like it's just the one day either, there's the stress leading up to it and after it. Sometimes I feel like people who enjoy the holidays are too un-empathetic towards those who it causes stress.

That's super cool!

One of the biggest challenges. Few things are as easily rewarding as video games. There's a hobby finder tool here. Personally, though, I really struggled with starting fresh at something. I'd suggest thinking back to what you enjoyed as a kid. Maybe even ask some people who knew you back then. For me that ended up being reading and exercise/competition. I have a few skills that I pick at developing (coding thorough datacamp, another language through duolingo, and some work-related skills), but reading and exercise take up the bulk of my free time.

Day 43 Bastard journal almost got away from me. Writing in this everyday has been my longest habit streak. I'm sure someday it will fall, but not today! ...tonight I guess that's probably the thing I should write about: habits. In Atomic Habits he talks about one of the most common things to break good habits is boredom. I'm definitely there. I had a great morning routine of Wakeup -> Feed dogs -> Take dogs out -> breakfast -> meditate -> Yoga -> shower -> shave -> change -> write and begin work. I don't have that routine down anymore and three things are to blame. The first is that it was a damn long routine, taking about 2.5 hours, and I haven't yet been able to get up early consistently yet. Second is coffee. If I have coffee with my breakfast I can't meditate and will usually get distracted with something. Third, was the boredom. The routine came so easy that I didn't have to think about it anymore, which let my brain free to just churn with anxiety. I hate that feeling, so naturally try to change things up to avoid letting it happen. (That's something worth thinking about though, meditation has taught me that I shouldn't resist anxiety. Interesting) All that's not to say that I'm in a worse place. I've been tracking my habits with Loop and have identified something like 12 (I could be way off on that number so don't judge it) productive things that contribute to who I want to be. I pick from that list and progress should be being made towards my goals. Most days I get a good number of things checked off. I'm just noticing that as I get deeper into habit streaks, I get bored, and as I get bored I am more likely to miss a day. I think that's fine though. I don't need to be perfect. The only risk in missing days is forgetting about it completely as things get busier, I think that as long as I have my Loopy-list the risk of that is low.

Congratulations @TheNewMe2.0!!!

Day 42 More of the same planned for today. I've got some papers to read, something to write, meditate, workout, etc. etc. etc. I think part of my self-destructive streak comes from looking to add excitement to my life. Even if that excitement comes from messing up. Yesterday was the closest I've come in a long time to relapsing. I was reading Oathbringer, and started craving a strategy game so that I could make my own little world. Something like Civ 6, or even Endless Space. Couple of months ago I would've knocked off work at 11 am and done that. Instead I got some stuff done and feel less guilt.

Day 41 Had a 1.5 hour massage yesterday. I think I could get massaged for a full day. Should be an alright day today. Same old tasks: Write for an hour and work on data collection. I'm doing my first therapy session today so I'm excited to see how that goes. Among my people I always seem to be playing the supportive role. It'll be nice to be on the other side. Otherwise I'm pretty bored with the days. It might be because the point that I'm at for work isn't particularly challenging, aside from the 'just keep moving' kind of way. I'm working with some machine learning software and I'm at the stage where I'm just feeding it a bunch of examples, so it's been days of just finding good examples, putting them into a folder, setting up test datasets, seeing how well it ID's the test stuff, etc. Last time I had to do this I managed to bang it out in 40 hours but I had to go through a pack of cigarettes and the end results wasn't as good as it could've been. Things are dragging on more slowly this time but I think I'll end up with a better final product and I'm not smoking.

Are you in university? Got another semester coming up to test the new non-gaming work skills on?

That's an awesome rug. We've been keeping an eye on estate auctions for a quality one as well. Jealous!

Congratulations on your new personal best non-gaming streak! One thing that I've noticed with myself is that quitting gaming has made the other negative parts of my life more difficult to ignore. It sounds like you're at that point with drinking. I stopped drinking/smoking weed a while ago, and was sober from them for large parts of my life, but most of my friends drink/smoke probably more than they should. One thing I'd say is that they never mind having a sober person around so I think that you also may not feel as ostracized as you think once everybody gets used to it. It's helpful having a DD and just somebody to make sure things don't get too crazy. They're still fun to be around too when I'm sober, and I find they don't reach the point of being hard to be around until later in the evening when it's probably time to go home anyways. I also think that seeing your people continue to accept you when you are acting true to your nature (i.e. sober) does great things for your confidence and strengthens your friendships. Accepting the role of quiet (non-judgemental) scientist and finding that people accept you as that instead of despite that does wonders for the quality of the hangout sess imo. It might be different for chemists though, I can't trust anyone who got through organic without ptsd 😛 Edit Just flipped through your journal and noticed we've got a lot of similarities. Basketball was my version of wrestling, family problems coincided with WoW addiction (We made it through the xpac release!), and ecology is my version of chemistry. I'll be interested in your progress. Best of luck!

This has been my experience as well. I don't feel like I get anything from meditation when I'm caffeinated so I just push the meditation to later in the day. This is what usually ends up killing it as a habit for me. I've been meditating for about 2 years now off-and-on and have also felt the contrast. THe techniques I use from meditation to help me stay focused just objectively don't work as well when I'm drinking coffee. It feels like a camera lens trying to zoom in on something but getting stuck halfway. Day 40 This is going to be a complainy post, so anyone reading shouldn't feel pressure to continue. It's just what's on my mind right now. Last night I woke up around 2am with a seemingly completely unjustified ball of anxiety in my head. I got up, grabbed a drink, let the dogs out, went to the bathroom to clear my head but when I laid down it just kept churning. Not even about anything in particular, just throwing random thoughts at me very quickly. As far as I know there isn't anything major that I'm stressing about in my life. I'm busy, but in a a good way. I'm enjoying my work and making steady progress on the aspects that I don't enjoy. I'm exercising. My relationship is the best it's been in a long time. Dogs are healthy. The only thing I can think of is that I started drinking coffee again, but it seems ridiculous to blame such a high level of anxiety on a small cup of coffee that I drank 16 hours earlier. Regardless of the reason, I skipped the morning workout with the wife by saying that I had a bad sleep and was going to sleep in. I ended up sleeping for nearly 12 hours. There just wasn't a reason for it. It's so frustrating. I have stuff that I wanted to do today that now I'm just not going to have time to do. In a weird way I'm almost grateful it happened. I have my first counseling session tomorrow and I listed anxiety and depression as the things that I wanted to work on. When I set it up, though, I wasn't feeling either anxious or depressed. It's hard for me to explain those feelings when I'm not directly in the moment. At least now I have an example of what I'm feeling and how it affects me. Other than that I don't have much on my schedule today aside from working on my own things. I want ot get a solid couple hours of writing in and a few hours of experimental work (with Battlestar Galactica going in the background 🙂 . It would also be nice to clean up some of the notes that are all over my desk and whiteboard. I've got to figure out a good way of organizing the papers I have read/have to read. I hate reading them digitally so print them off and annotate them, but that leaves me with stacks. I'm thinking binders with tabs. It's a shame because digital organization is just so much easier. I just hate reading long-term off a screen and find that I'm lazier with my annotations.

wtf Next major extinction event, ants will be the species that recovers and takes over for sure. Were you gaming this semester? If so, imagine how awesome your next one is going to be.