Sowelu

Yeah, he didn't reply. I am not bothered by it. 😉

Thanks 😉 --------------------------------- Yesterday I played the new game. I think I have satiated the curiosity as I have had no desire to play it today. As a matter of fact I didn't really feel like playing anything. I slept a few hours after coming from home and then I watched Stargate Atlantis. Although it's not gaming and I really like it, it's another high my brain is driving on. As i wrote earlier, the problem is much wider than gaming. A tangled web of habits to keep the brain in permanent high. Didn't do anything productive until almost midnight. But it's a victory of sorts and I'll take it! I did write the friend. He didn't reply. Quite often I am surprised by lack of courtesy of the people. If I were to receive an explanation I've sent him, I would have replied: "Yeah, sure, man. Keeping the fingers crossed for you! Good luck!" Not replying at all is kind of rude in my book. But then I notice quite a lot of people in this nation behave that way. Including not answering a completely normal question and just turning around and walking off. I should be gotten used to it by now.

I kind of stopped counting when and for how long I played. It turns out I play intensively after a few days of not gaming, or gaming very little these days. I think it was one day gaming in the last four days and the rest was no gaming or an hour a day. I am at home with my kids, we are sick. Not anything serious, but we can't go visit places so we are stuck here. I could play all day long if I wanted to. I don't feel so most of the time. Today i bought a game because I was very interested in it. Also I found out that not gaming had exactly zero benefit for getting the school things done, which is supposed to be the primary motivator for not gaming in the first place. I understand I need to differentiate between normal work week and Easter holidays, but it would still be nice to see some sort of reward for not gaming. "Oh, I didn't game so I had time to learn this topic." So far it seems I have mostly been hanging in limo while not gaming. (Okay, I admit I wasn't in the best of shapes, backache bad enough I couldn't stand and sometimes even lie, cough and sneezing was swapped for all kinds of stomach flu symptoms and two nights of fever and chills) All in all I feel I could have spent the last few days better. P.S.: Thinking about what actually kept me gaming, I came up with a surprising answer: I think a big contributor is a friend on Facebook who occasionally sends me messages with gaming news. And since we have very similar taste in games it's a perfectly targeted advertisement. Exactly what I love from a person whom I trust. I will need to write him and explain to him that we need to cut connection. At least regarding games. I have done this with all gaming communities after I started the university. I owned the most popular PvP server for Elite Dangerous and another one that gathered gamers in my state. I passed the owner status and said my goodbyes.

Yesterday I played until 4AM. Today nothing. I have worked on school project most of the day. Also neglected classes because of it. Got into argument with my teammates when I said I feel I've made a large enough contribution to the project (40 hours) and I would like the load to be shared as we are six in the team. I think the main revenge for me speaking up will come in the next days. We'll see how it goes. Not gonna back up. (I am still very reasonable and polite about the whole thing)

Really well done!

A lot of goals. 😉 Keep on goaling!

Yesterday no gaming. Today I bought some beers and I think I'll play something. I am still ill, I slept most of the day. School class that was supposed to take most of the afternoon was cancelled - the tutor didn't arrive. So a time-space vacuum ensued that calls for beers and gaming. I tried to concentrate on school projects and/or work, but quite honestly... ...that's not where my heart currently lies.

I used to like a lot of sports. Most notably soccer or basketball, or then I spent most of my free time on rollerblades or on a bike. Depending on where I was. And then I had dips into matrial arts which I really liked. Wing-Chun and a self-defense variation on MMA were my most beloved. I looked up for MMA gyms a few days ago, but my old one seems to cease to exist during corona and there are no MMA clubs around. I think they had the same fate. Corona basically wiped out the sport industry in this regard. I was thinking about buying some sort of kicking bag, or a dummy, but since I am not exactly small (around 120 kilos now) I need something sturdy (think expensive) and room for that. I don't have enough space for inside right now and it was too cold outside to work out. Had a bike ride with the first sunny day here. ...but it's snowing right now. :DDD Honestly, I don't know what kind of activity I should pick up. I would need something that I don't spend much time travelling to and from. I need something "usable", action oriented. So I love sports and martial arts, but I can't stand gym. Aikido was a letdown. Nice people, but utterly useless at actual defense. I tried Rowing Trainer but I saw zero benefit and it was boring. Last thing I am seriously considering is exercise bike and watching school classes while I "ride". 😄 A perfect mix. 😄

Wednesday was gameless. Yesterday I felt I need to take my mind off things in rl. I played for a few hours. Until 2AM. Today no games yet. I'll see how it goes. On one hand I should study, but on the other I am quite fed up with it as it was very frustrating to progress with the school project today. A trivial task made nightmare because of extremely poor documentation. Weekend ahead will be all school in theory, but I find most lessons useless as they either go over what I have already seen / know, or they go over new stuff but with such high speed it's useless and I need to come back to it later on and learn it from different sources anyway. Not sure how I'll manage to successfully end this semester. Miracles I suppose. Sometimes I think that once this pressure is over, I'll just come back to gaming, happily smiling and playing. I mean what will be left there to achieve?

No games on Monday or Tuesday. Three days in row. Too busy for gaming I suppose.

Friday was gameless, if I recall correctly. On Saturday, I gamed practically all day long and on Sunday nada. Today so far nothing despite being on homeoffice. Most of my time goes into either school or wasting. Musings / rant part: 😄 I realized my whole behavior is hooked on being high on something. On having the high. I think everybody tries to do that in some way, but the problem is that the high has become the norm. I am thinking about calming the mind. Resisting various highs to get the excitement level back to normal. This is of course a problem. Because even when I quit gaming, the underlying habit stays. I might have cut off a head of the hydra, but the body remains. How to tackle this - if at all? Maybe not overthink it and just focus on this smaller, clearly defined goal. These broad thought constructs tend to slow progress down to crawl and then to complete stop. Kind of mud of effort. What highs? The usual short term stuff we do for a quick high. Gaming, porn, social media, sugar(as in Coke, sweets etc), alcohol... Quick excitements with some reward. I think this is the reason why I loved PvP so much and never looked back to PvE. Much higher reward. I could play arenas all day long. Constant dopamine flow. Along with getting drunk along the way. Constant high with little rush dips. I wonder, when a man becomes satiated? Realizes he no longer wants to live like that? That the high is emptiness on itself and doesn't fill other holes? When does he say: "I have had enough, I want to move on". I am not even sure if quitting because of crumbling life counts in this case, because if things were to become good again, he might come back and drink of the same well again. It might be, that realizes that he wants good life more than this bliss. I remember really hating my smoking back in the day. I smoked, I hated it but I couldn't stop. When I finally had the opportunity I clenched to it and it was a liberation. With gaming currently it's something I want to do but shouldn't because it prevents me doing other things. How does one come into that state of mind where he hates gaming (or other highs) and not doing them is a liberation, not a rejection? I remember one story of a man who stopped smoking in a very uncommon way. And I think it's similar to what I describe here. He started smoking with a deep love. He cherished every second. And then he became satiated and realized he needed no more. Perhaps there is no black-white truth here. Everybody needs a different approach. What works for one, doesn't work for another.

Yesterday I didn't game. I have reinstalled Stellaris. One friend posted me with updates that look really good. And another offered me free beers. And I felt I did enough work for that day. I kind of wasted the late afternoon and the evening; didn't do anything productive.

Yesterday I didn't game. Came home, rushed for online presentation and ended up in the evening. I was keen on diving further into statistics. It's infuriatingly frustrating. I found quite a lot of errors in the scripts provided by the school. I wrote them an angry letter speaking my mind about what I think about the level of attention and diligence they put into it. I wasn't nice at all. What keeps me going is the challenge I think. I have grown to like it. Not the subject itself - I still consider it mostly a useless waste of time. It's like a puzzle. A challenge to my intellect. A detective story. I think this was crucial to not gaming. Instead of playing a game I did something I enjoyed to some degree. I know I have to do it and the obligation drives me as well. I had some some short rushes yesterday, but nothing major. I was able to brush it off. Funny thing is that sometimes I know how to brush these feeling off. And I it's easy then. Usually it's a phrase, or an image, or a feeling. But next day, when the urge comes, I can't seem to remember the thing that worked so well yesterday. Strange. Even when I try to write it down, I always misplace it. As if something didn't want me to remember. 😄 Probably the devil on my shoulder / subconsciousness. 😉 Today I am getting images of Project Gorgon game. No big obligations beyond school tonight. Problem. I have noticed my gaming isn't so much compulsory on its own. Rather it's triggered when I have a felling I have free time / time to spare. When I work I am almost never daydreaming about playing. Sometimes I Google something or such, but nothing too serious. Another trigger is being bored or stressed. With stress I think the connection is that when I was basically mentally tortured in my youth by my aunts when I ran to PC they left me alone. So gaming kept me safe and away from the pain. It has provided me with the world to escape to. A world without pain. With free time, I suspect it's partly because on some level I believe that this might be the last time I have to play a game. Sort of last opportunity chance. I had this feeling for years and it kept me gaming. I'll just game today and quit tomorrow. Then tomorrow comes, I have nothing interesting to do so I game again. Just today, tomorrow, I'll quit. On and on. Maybe it was a fear. Fear that once I stop playing, once I exit the shell, I'll have to see and deal with the fucked-up life. I had a gamer's dream kind of life. Gaming without restraint all day and night. Enough income to get the basic life stuff without having to work really (a few hour per month) and enough booze and cigs. Yet, something was missing. I might have tried to fill that hole with gaming. Definitely some family issues as I felt as unwanted and unappreciated. Same things most people go through I imagine. The point is on one hand I have a sort of sustainable nice fantasy life on the other the reality that sucked. I chose the blue pill. Another factor is that I didn't really see a benefit of "growing up". I had considerable freedom in my life. From around 13 years I was basically free to run my life - of course within limits. Got my room, later my flat, I was required to go to school, attend some family stuff and be at home at certain hour, but the rest was mostly up to me. I started to earn money by that age as well. I had income comparable to average salary when I was 13-ish. So "growing up" didn't really bring any benefits to the table. Just obligations. So why try to "grow up"? I saw what it did to other people. Just more obligations with no benefits. I suppose growing up was more precious for other people as the options for them opened and they could have benefits they couldn't before. It's easier to accept more responsibilities when you connect them with more benefits. For me growing up was - and probably is - a definitive downgrade. To this day, I find most people to be pretenders. Kids in adult's bodies. Posing, playing a game. But when things get real they always have some excuse why they didn't stand up to their obligations. Didn't stand up to the responsibility. I have been through some rough times as well (between endless gaming) and I learned to appreciate genuinity in people. Not trying to be haughty here, I let people live their lives as they see fit, knowing I have my share of imperfections. The thing is the "grown up" world is mostly just more things to do in a mostly fake world. These are more musings, or open-ended-thoughts than any sort of real judgements. I acknowledge I might be wrong, but I don't care really. The purpose it to let out thought and look at them. Be they true or false. It help me clear my mind.

I can relate to the sentiment that the current world is on the hectic side, material wealth being strongly in the front. I am definitely at fault here as I have enjoyed my life for too long and now I am trying to compress the three fundamentals (education, career and kids) into the same time frame. I am really starting to appreciate the natural life order where you generally tackle these things one at a time and preferably with somebody by your side. It's just easier. 😄 There is a bright side to all this. I have lived my life to full in the past, so I don't have an itch that I need to accomplish something (such as traveling somewhere or going to India for spiritual journey) and my current situation is more-or less a bonus. 😄 This adds to the peace of mind when tackling all this stress. I will not deny the benefits of having a sorted life. Having a fulfilling hobby, healthy lifestyle, being able to live in a way that allows you to have a free conscience about how you live a whether that life causes suffering or freedom to the people around you and down the supply chain so to speak. I also think you are right in the point that "following the important goals on a regular daily basis, keeping that time for what really matters is what will bring me success." is really the way to happiness. Too often we fall under the sway of public opinion and feel pressured to do what is expected by society or people around us. Sometimes it's hard to be ourselves, because we may be seen as rebels and "now doing the right things for our close ones" or whatever pressure is put on us. And the funny thing is if we persevere, we'll find a measure of success, such as happiness and ordered life and then the same people who told us we are doing it wrong ask us: How did you do it? It's about staying true to your values and persevering. From my own experience I can say you can't find happiness in following somebody else's values. --------------------------- I have been game free today. It's past midnight here and I didn't turn on a game. There was a funny little moment when I came home, because when I dropped my things, walking by my computer desk, I realized I didn't turn the computer on, which was the thing I always did first when I came home. I realized, there is no need to turn it on (not right away anyway) since there is nothing for me to do with it. I have a short craving - a rather strong wave of nostalgia, fondly remembering the days of swtor PvP with bounty hunter. The satisfying sound of the rail shot. Might sound funny, but there is a whole cascade of emotions tied to that sound and an indistinct image. Luckily it washed over rather quickly, and then I didn't have time to think about it, as I had a really quick dinner (ordered two pizzas on my way home to pick it up on arrival - talk about healthy lifestyle 😄 ) before a team meeting regarding university project started. After that I was so exhausted that I just fell onto the bed and slept until almost midnight. Now I need to stay awake a little while longer to do some online exams for the uni and then I can close the day. This is going to be my second day one here.

Thinking yes. Able to do? Not likely. If find that most of my days I get up early and came home totally exhausted. I usually have three evenings during the week when I don't have kids. During that time I should learn enough to pass exams at the end of the semester on my uni. I don't really have a designated free time such as: "Oh, it's Tuesday, I don't have any obligations, I can go out to {wherever}." It's more like trying to catch breath while desperately running between things on fire and trying to douse the biggest one right now. 😄

Yesterday I have uninstalled all games from the main computer. Let's see if and how it helps. In past it didn't. Maybe this time is the charm. 😄

My problem is the "want" is not strong enough. It seems the "must" has worked in the past. As you write, I want to look more into the motivation part of the whole process as I lack the drive. Then I game a bit, then more and then I realize it's too much and it's destroying my life. It's a gradual process. I just don't feel the when I turn on a game some lazy evening that it's a life shattering event. But some time ago, along the way it became so.

Thank you, appreciated.

Yesterday I played Stellaris. Chilled, got some beers, streamed a bit (Although I don't stream to get viewers, but rather for peeps that may want to see how a particular game looks / plays. No tryharding.). Should have dedicated the time to school project. I don't feel particularly bad about it. I'll keep writing in this journal and I like writing here. As I wrote at the end of the longass post just above, the problem seems to be motivation. I didn't feel I NEED to stop gaming yesterday. The words aI would use to describe the pressure are should have, could have, would be nice to. Once I read that formulating the need is crucial in making habit changes. For example you'll never go to a gym when you should go there. You'll go there when you MUST go there. (health problems, obligation to buddy...) Same with smoking. You'll never stop if you should stop. You do it when you MUST. And I didn't feel this MUST yesterday. I used to smoke for roughly 15 years. Heavily. 1-2 packs a day. Closer to 2. And more on party nights. Maybe 3-4. Okay, let's be honest, back then I had crapload of time, money to spare and I don't suffer from hangovers. So the parties were frequent. 😄 I was the embodiment of the quote: "It's easy to quit smoking. I myself quit at least thousand times." The furthest I got was maybe two days. Oh, no, I got out of it actually! I think I didn't smoke for weeks, perhaps a month. But then we broke up with my gf and I started again. Nonetheless, you can say that I've tried for years unsuccessfully. I hated smoking. Hell, I didn't even like the taste anymore. But I couldn't stop. And then I got a little bit sick. Nothing too serious I though. But something really strange happened. I inhaled the smoke and I felt like I am gonna die. It got me scared. Like REALLY scared. I was convinced if I had another puff I would die. And that was the day when I quit. That was my MUST moment. It's been over 11 years now. I don't get any sort of cravings. I can sit in a pub full of smokers and nothing. No craving. Just bad air. Another interesting thing is that there is this state where I just say "NO". No explanations, no reasoning. Just a plain, simple, very distinct "NO". And it works. I think the moment I start bargaining (Very nicely described in the Udemy neuroplascticity course btw) is the moment things start to go down the drain. Another point of positive change in my life was about five years ago. I was overweight about 30 kilos (60-ish pounds). I am rather tall so I didn't look like a ball. Just a guy with mid belly. I was able to do sports reasonably well. I got a present - a... ....how to properly call it... ...food recommendation program. It certainly wasn't a diet, because with diet you are not giving your body something it needs. They took my blood sample, figured out what my body metabolizes best and told me: Hey, this are the foods you metabolize well. So you'll get everything you need from them, there are no excess fats in it and eat them in these combinations. It was really easy for me. I loved the food, I lost 0,2 kilogram each day (more at the start, but that's usual). In about half a year I was 30 kilos lighter (and everybody was appropriately shocked 😄 ). My point here is there was no MUST moment in this change. And yet it was fundamental. You know how many people try to lose weight and never succeed. Hmm... ...thinking about it, there was the fixed daily program. I kind of feel obligation towards a thing I have scheduled. Maybe there was this small hidden must for me. That I must adhere to it. It also made it easier for my body and mind to adjust I think. It knew when to expect food and what kind of food. So the wait was rewarded. Predictably. Can I somehow use this? I can't imagine making a schedule of not gaming. 🤔 How can I introduce MUST into my not-gaming? A sword of Damocles. That something terrible would happen if I game. The little problem is that I am super chill with things that happen in my life. I am convinced I should have died several times in my life and only extremely lucky... ....okay, let's call it divine interventions as that's how I see it, prevented it. I have seen and done everything I wanted in my life. With an exception with recent addition - the university. But even that is a "nice to have" rather than must have in my life. I have been through some incredibly tough, strange and abnormal times. If I died today I would be like: Okay, my life was cool. I don't have a death wish, I am just describing my attitude. Oh and I don't respond well to negative motivation any more. Unfortunately including me. So it's really hard to come up with an artificial reason why I MUST never play a game. Hm, I like this slight twist. Not saying I quit gaming, but rather I MUST never play a game. Now... ...how do I do that? How do I find a reason credible enough for me to quit? Problem with gaming is it's rather hard to measure the detrimental effect. You basically don't see a cause, you just observe the effects. There is not a wound let's say you can look at remind yourself why you are doing this. You basically observe there is something wrong with your life and it's connected to gaming. But there is no hard line. Such as: If you game for 5 minutes you'll fall unconscious. Why am I saying it? Because it's hard to put the MUST against something. Against abstract: You MUST not game because it makes your life miserable. I don't think brain and habits work in this way. I think you need a specific thing to lie it against. I MUST not game or otherwise my father will will come in and beat my ass purple. That would work. I MUST not game or I'll die instantly. Horribly. In great agony. That would work. Since gaming is a gradual process I find it really hard to put it against some specific part in it's process. Okay, so that's the negative part of the equation. The whip. Now, what about the sugar? In this methodology it's replacing it with something I want (and can sustain). "If I don't game I'll gain this benefit." I wrote about it at length already today. Hard to replace it with something I need to do, but I don't enjoy it, and don't have time / will (?) / interest (?). I am wondering now. I remembered a story about a monk. They spoke about enlightenment and they asked him what was holding him in this world. And he said: "Food. I really love food. That is the last thing in the world that is holding me here. Once I have had enough I'll leave." What I find interesting in that story is that it concentrates on the experience and the fact that you have to go through it all and then you'll naturally be ready to give it up, since you have gone through the whole process, and experienced all its states and possibilities / consequences. So in this spirit, I am wondering if I have been through the whole gaming experience. Maybe I am trying to quit too soon. Maybe I need to finish the experience before I am ready to quit. But then I could say that if I wasn't ready I wouldn't have this itch. Maybe there is just something missing? There have been a lot on fluffy words and nice theories. I must say that the mind is very creative when it comes to finding reasons why it should continue doing the stuff it wants. And "wants" can be used also in the wants because of addiction sense. I suppose this is why it's good to write about these things. So that these thoughts are exposed and can be dealt with.

I think the thing that was the turning point on Friday was writing the journal. In two ways. First I got out my feelings, second, it took some time to write it so I think the craving waned enough. Then I found a replacement activity that was good enough to occupy me. The problem with stimuli is that a giant portion is just being at computer. I can uninstall the games, I have done that in the past in fact, but my internet is fast and I can reinstall them fast enough. And I don't feel strong enough to delete mu accounts yet. Whenever I sit to a computer there is the temptation. Also FB is one giant game ad and most of my friends are tied to gaming. Hell, even my random neighbor in my village is a gamer. 😄 I can't stop working on the computer and cut off everybody in my life. I believe I will have to deal with it with temptations being around. Yeah, the replacement.. ...that's a question. Now it's getting nicer outside, but there are practical issues with replacement activities. Sports: I used to do sports a lot. Three times double training in martial arts per week and a long history of making sports. So I like them. The problem now is: I am broke (more specifically no money left after my bills and life expenses are paid). So I can't afford any big memberships. I don't like gyms. I live in a remote sh*thole so it takes time to get somewhere. Spending one hour on journey to training, another one-or-two hours on the training and another one on the way back is waaaaaaaay too much. If I didn't have kids and school it would be a nice chill. But with the duties I have I simply don't have the time to regularly commit to a training. I know these things can be pushed in some way, but it's not like I can go to training three times per week. I did try exercising home - I have a bench, weights, indoor rower, video training programs... ...you get the idea. It just doesn't work. It's boring. I used to skate on inlines a lot (think 4-5 hours per day), but the terrain in this sleepy hollow is horrible. I basically live in in a valley in hilly terrain. The first thing I need to do is climb up a kilometer long hill, no matter which road I take. And after I get there there is another hill. No Netherlands as you can see. I bought a new bike last year. It would be a challenge to bike here when I was super-fit. Now that I am fat it's damn impossible. I thought about going to training in the big city I work in, but the problems were: Everything was closed because of covid, trainings starts like 2 hours after I finish my job. So I would have to wait that long. I am sure it can be done. But it's rather hard to make it work. It's another challenge. And I don't really feel like taking on another challenge in my life. Whenever I tried to change too many things at once (eg switching to healthy lifestyle), it didn't work. Now I believe it was because there were too many changes at once. This time I want to make a single change. I'll put it here here again, just to stress how hard it is to get any regular activity going. My whole life is currently a catch-up game. One third of my time is occupied by taking care of my two small sons. Can't do too much there, they need attention and there is loads of stuff to do around them. I won't have a free weekend for a few months. All are booked with either kids or school. I have a full time work in the rest of the days. That leaves me with with evenings when I come from work and I don't have kids. In those few hours I need to take care of my house, cook, laundry etc... I am sure you get the picture. Oh and I need to study. Because I am at university. Of course they don't care about my personal situation so I have to pass the same exams as everybody. Oh and I met this new woman. We a dinner together each week. That's another day off the list. And then there is always some random stuff breaking apart that needs attention. Car broke, water pump broke, need to take care of some bureaucracy. Something. Always. So basically whenever there is NOT an actual emergency, I find myself exhausted and longing for peace and a piece of happiness. Exhausted means my mental muscles are depleted as well. And I found out that the older I get the more I want and appreciate quite. Just some alone time. Man cave. Don't bother me. Well and in this man cave I have the computer with games. Whenever I game these days it's on the expense of something else that I need to do and it's probably already burning so to speak. A guilty pleasure you could say. I find it really hard to replace this time with something I can justify doing instead of the chores. There is this little funny thing. When I game, I know I am doing something *wrong* (in the sense I shouldn't be gaming but tending to something else). And I can live with that. I forgive myself for screwing up. But at least I have my piece of happiness. But I find it really hard to start painting or making sport when I should be let's say studying. University is hugely important in my life. Basically without it my future life is totally screwed without it. I'll have to give 50% of my gross income as child support in a few years. That's how it works in this country currently. And in order to survive that kind of ordeal, I need to basically make twice what most people do just to get by and stay on zero. (I need to one half of my salary to be enough for all my expenses including house, car, food, clothing... ...everything). So that's something I can't give up. If I would I would lose my kids - I wouldn't have enough money for living in a place where they can stay and for transportation etc. I don't want to give up my time with them. It's one of the most treasured things in my life. So it's a kind of Mexican standoff, you see. 😄 What I would need is to just stop gaming and use that time for something I need to do but not necessarily want to do. I think the key here is motivation. Motivation to stop playing games. And it's rather hard to find a good emotional reason why to give up the thing you love for something you don't. Therein lies the problem for me. The attitude. I am not going to end this post with a solution or a point. I am ending it rather open-ended. This is how the situation is. Not sure how to deal with it.

Surprisingly, I didn't play yesterday. If there are miracles, that's how they look. That was my fifth day.

I am basically sitting at the computer right now, ready to launch Stellaris and play it until midnight. I got some beers and I want to have a nice evening. Yesterday I read C++ book and installed Z-Brush and did some 3D sculpting. It helped me to pass the time. I feel like I need to play right now, or otherwise there won't be another opportunity. I think this irrational attitude comes from the past. Possibly when my parents tried to cut me off from gaming by prohibiting computer. (Funny thing. They took power cord from the PC, but didn't realize there is the same one in printer 😄 ). I feel that giving up my gaming would leave me stranded in a world without anything joyful. Just endless duties and things I hate to do. Thinking about it now... ...the idea I won't play now... ...it makes me feel I need to play because it might be my last opportunity. That I might miss it and never get it again. EDIT: I think part of the problem is that I still see quitting gaming as should have and could have. Not must have. Especially when things are not so tense. There are so many bad habits that need breaking and they support each other. It's like a Gordian knot. For example when I get some free time I immediately feel I need to "relax" - meaning getting a beer and enjoying myself. Usually gaming too. Possibly watching TV. I suppose I could say, to get out of this world and into a one I like more.

The motivation is the problem here. I don't see urgent need to quit and a very strong urge to play. To have some nice time. I still have plenty of games. Even installed. And yes, I have a temporary flatmate in my living room - a buddy gamer who had some tough time so I offered him to stay on the couch until things clear up. And as I wrote to Marius a friend of mine sent me yesterday a message about Stellaris getting an update. Which made me think about me needing to finish the things I haven't finished yet - becoming a crisis and playing as democracy. Part of the problem is that in a short span, several games and updates came out and they are something I have been looking forward for some time. Not sure if naming them here is a good idea, it could make somebody want to play.

I felt a great urge to play. I felt I could spare some time. And a friend of mine sent me a post about upcoming game update. It was really hard to resist. I knew I would be in trouble next day when I am on homeoffice. Plenty of time when I am not super-occupied. I feel I am alone, it doesn't matter that much if I play or not, especially when my most pressing duties are done. Same today. I managed to hold off, but I have hard time seeing why resist. I just want to play the race I never really played. To "complete" my experience before I give it up. It would be just for a while. Just for a few hours...

Yesterday I survived by a mere miracle. I kind of doubt, I will make it today.