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My journal - QuercusIlexBallota


QuercusIlexBallota

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DAY 1 (2016/03/19, Saturday): 

I've introduced myself in the StopGaming reddit page, I've uninstalled World of Warcraft, every game on Steam, and Steam itself, my desktop is videogame-free now. I've unfollowed every gaming-related youtuber and "disabled" my Twitch account (I haven't been able to figure out how to permanently kill it). To fill the empty space I've been looking for more interesting channels, with content that I meaningfully want to watch (Game Quitters, The Minimalists, and Archaeosoup Productions; they are few, but I think all of them are worth watching). Next, I've acquired a kindle copy of "The Selfish Gene", by Richard Dawkins. Some of my teachers at college have ardently recommended this book, but I never had the time to actually read it (or so I told myself). This will be the first of many, I have to make up for all that lost time.

I shut down my desktop and went to see my girlfriend. We have spent a wonderful day, visited new places (the National Archaeology Museum) and eaten some delicious Ecuadorian food in a nearby restaurant. Back at home, I'm writing this journal entry and as soon as I'm done I'll continue with this Selfish Gene book, it's quite interesting. I've barely started to scratch the surface of all the information on the StopGaming reddit, but right now I want to stay away from the computer. Something I want to do is to put my sleep cycle back into reality, it's 00:32 and under normal circumstances I would stay awake for at least three more hours. I think I will do just that, but reading instead of playing and setting an alarm at 07:30. Tomorrow I'll be totally destroyed, but that is a small price to pay in exchange of getting back a normal schedule.

 

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Good job on the first step of your detox! Uninstalling your games and staying away from your computer is a great first step.

I'm on Day 19 at the moment and the best advice I can give you is to always keep busy and perhaps write a list down of what needs to be done.

Best of Luck. :)

 

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Thank you all for your comments! It's very nice to read people supporting you! :D

DAY 2 (2016/03/20, Sunday): 

My idea of waking up at 7:30 has been a failure. As soon as the alarm rang I woke up, put it off and went back to bed. But at least it has been a failure in the right direction: I was up at 9:30, which is a lot sooner than my usual 11:30 - 12:00.

Yesterday I wanted to get rid of video games for good. But, are video games all that is preventing me of achieving my goals? No, I also spend a lot of time watching silly posts on Facebook and following silly "twitstars" on Twitter. Why not get rid of these distractions too? I don't want to quit these websites altogether, I follow some Facebook pages and Twitter accounts that genuinely add value to my life, particularly those related to my interest in biology. I'll unfollow all the extra trash and start from scratch.

I've relocated almost all of my items in the room, I wanted to make it look different (new life new room, I guess). I took all physical video games, put them in a disc container (which I later buried in the depths of a drawer) and thrown away the boxes: I don't want to have anything in sight that could trigger some urge to play. In addition, for now on I will wear pajamas for the sole purpose of sleeping. I refuse to wear them all day long, like if I was hospitalized or something.

I've been trying to study a particularly mind numbing chapter, but after 40 minutes or so I noticed that I wasn't paying attention to what I was reading. Well, at least I sat and tried for a while. Tomorrow I will surpass that number!

Around 15:00 I started to watch a lot of videos on YouTube. They were mainly from the Game Quitters channel, but I was glued to the screen for two hours. I will attribute this to the fact that all of this is new and I want to learn as much as possible, but I will keep an eye on this behaviour. I don't want to exchange 6 hours a day playing for 6 hours a day watching YouTube, whatever the contents of the videos: the idea is to liberate all that time and put it into good use.

The effects of the lesser amount of sleep blended with those of the brain frying chapter and those of having eaten a heavy meal. It was clear that if I didn't do something I would fall asleep, and my sleep cycle did not desire that. I took my kindle with the Selfish Gene on it and went out. I went for a walk and, fully awake again, went into a train to go see my girlfriend. It's an hour and a half trip, so I spent all that time reading. Once there we took a lovely walk, around a small lake with stunning views to the mountains. It has been a beautiful day.

On the hour and a half trip back home I tried to read a bit, but soon I found myself peering through the window. I surrendered to the inevitable and spent the rest of the time looking through it. I'm tired, but it has been a great day. While I write this it's 22:10, I intend to stay awake until 23:00 and then go to sleep, so that tomorrow I can wake up at 7:30 without much suffering. I think I will watch some interview on YouTube or something like that. 

 

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Yeah, give yourself time for your body to adjust to a new sleeping routine.  Have you tried a tablet of melatonin?  Try it for about a week, and your body might adjust.  Perhaps before sleep, set aside all computer-related distractions, give yourself an hour to prepare for sleep.  Dim the lights, drink a herbal tea for sleep, listen to soft meditative music, drink a glass of warm milk, wear ear-plugs if noise distracts you, take a warm shower before bed, don't read an hour before you sleep.

Just a few suggestions. I haven't applied all of them, but just chose what works best for me.  Hope this helps.

Glad you went outside for a walk!  The beauty of nature is a great healer for the restless mind and in general for overall well-being.  :)

 

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DAY 3 (2016/03/21, Monday): 

Success! I woke up at 7:30! It's 8:45, I’ve done all the chores and now I wanted go to the gym, but it's not open yet. I think this never happened before. Let's see how does it feel to go to the gym this early.

It's 10:15, the house is clean and the gym has already been attended. Wow, there are still 12 hours and 45 minutes in the day!! The task of being productive and away from video games all this time seems daunting. I’ve been writing a bit on the reddit page, I’m glad that all this is in English, this way I can learn how to correct this unfortunate tendency while I practise my English writing (something that was in desperate need of improvement). 

I've been about an hour working on a college essay, it hasn't been very productive, but there is still a good part of the day left. I've been reading a bit more of The Selfish Gene. I'm liking the book, but because what Dawkins wrote in 1976 has become part of the "orthodox" paradigm in Evolutionary Biology (one of my favourite subjects) I'm already familiar with what I'm reading. I think I need another book, more variability (and a little spark of novelty). One of the things I liked the most of WoW was it's lore: I spent way too much time working on the "loremaster" achievement and I read all the books. Why not delve a little in the "lore" of the real world? Let's see what I can find.

I've been studying intermittently for almost two hours. This isn't the most thrilling subject in the world, but the attention span definitely needs improvement. 

I went to the library to see if I could find some new book (and to go out of the house). I found a volume with the eye-catching title "Buddhism without Beliefs". Wasn't Buddhism a religion? I admit that almost all I know about Buddhism is that they have doctrines about reincarnation, but imagine a book titled "Christianity without beliefs". It sounds like an oxymoron. I think this will be my new book for now.

I feel very tired now. But I refuse to go to sleep before 23:00. Body, if you could get used to stay sitting motionless for hours during a significant part of the last years you surely can get used to this new sleep cycle. There will be no mercy.

Today I heard a sentence in a song called Viene y va ("it comes and goes") that struck me: “De tanto hacerlo sin parar me acostumbré a respirar y a derrochar el aire fresco”, which roughly translates to “In doing so repeatedly I got used to breathe and to waste fresh air”. Isn't this precisely what I've been doing with my time?

 

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DAY 4 (2016/03/22, Tuesday): 

Today waking up at 7:30 felt like a horse-kick right in the face, but I did it nonetheless. Today the gym is almost empty, this must be because the Easter holidays (I hope that's the name). Well, it's nice and quiet here, I like it.

My dear neighbour has decided that today is a great day to hammer the walls of his house (which is right above mine). I will pick one of my textbooks and seek refuge in the library, or maybe I'll go read it in the park.

Today I've spent almost all day away from home, wandering the city with my girlfriend and dining outside. I've got a lot of time to read on the public transport, though. I've been with "Buddhism without Beliefs". Many of what I've read in this book I find very relatable with my current state, for example:

“It is said that until Siddhartha Gautama was in his late twenties, his father, King Suddhodana, kept him immured within palaces. Suddhodana did not wish his son to be distracted from his duty by the disquiet that reigned beyond the palace walls. The young man became restless in his incarceration and longed to go out. Suddhodana arranged tours of the town and countryside, making sure everything was perfectly arranged and nothing distressing passed before the boy’s eyes. Despite these precautions, Siddhartha chanced upon a person disfigured by disease, another crippled by age, a corpse, and a wandering monk. He became uneasy upon returning to the comforts of home. One night he stole away. For six years he drifted around the land, studying, meditating, subjecting himself to punishing ascetic rigors. The conventional options exhausted, he sat down at the foot of a tree. Seven days later he had an awakening in which he understood the nature of anguish, let go of its origins, realized its cessation, and brought into being a way of life. 

Prince Siddhartha’s dilemma still faces us today. We too immure ourselves in the “palaces” of what is familiar and secure. We too sense that there is more to life than indulging desires and warding off fears. We too feel anguish most acutely when we break out of our habitual routines and witness ourselves hovering between birth and death –our birth and death.”

It's 0:00... Well, we will see if tomorrow is possible to wake up without excessive suffering.

 

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DAY 5 (2016/03/23, Wednesday): 

Today I had a weird dream in which Cenarius, the Azerothian Lord of the Forest and patron god of all druids regardless of race (according to wowwiki), was reading my journal on Game Quitters. A fictional stag-like demigod which power over Nature surfing the web through a laptop in the middle of the forest. “I am accustomed to sleep and in my dreams to imagine the same things that lunatics imagine when awake.” -Rene Descartes.

Tomorrow I'm going hiking to the mountains with some buddies. I feel exhausted from all this sleep cycle readjusting, today will be a relax day. I don't want to be a zombie walking through the woods tomorrow. I've decided to not touch anything from college, nor to watch anything on the computer or TV. Today will be a reading day and, if attention fails, of staring to the ceiling. On the afternoon I've tickets to a stage play with my family. Until then, relaxation is the only priority. Surely a nap will be in order.

 

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DAY 5 (2016/03/23, Wednesday): 

Today I had a weird dream in which Cenarius, the Azerothian Lord of the Forest and patron god of all druids regardless of race (according to wowwiki), was reading my journal on Game Quitters. A fictional stag-like demigod which power over Nature surfing the web through a laptop in the middle of the forest. “I am accustomed to sleep and in my dreams to imagine the same things that lunatics imagine when awake.” -Rene Descartes.

Tomorrow I'm going hiking to the mountains with some buddies. I feel exhausted from all this sleep cycle readjusting, today will be a relax day. I don't want to be a zombie walking through the woods tomorrow. I've decided to not touch anything from college, nor to watch anything on the computer or TV. Today will be a reading day and, if attention fails, of staring to the ceiling. On the afternoon I've tickets to a stage play with my family. Until then, relaxation is the only priority. Surely a nap will be in order.

 

Cenarius is awesome ^^, have fun tomorrow on your hike! Enjoy the fresh air. :)

 

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DAY 6 (2016/03/24, Thursday): 

One of my friends got a huge cold and we cancelled the hike. Tomorrow I'll go with my parents to the mountains anyway, so it's not that great of a loss. I spent all the morning doing college stuff and it was fairly productive.

I've reached the equator of the book "Buddhism without beliefs" and it is fascinating. Stripped of all the mumbo-jumbo it feels more like philosophy. I googled the author, Stephen Batchelor, and I've been listening to some talks he gave. He has a very pragmatic approach. All the focus of being in the here and the now paying attention to what we are seeing, hearing, doing, saying or thinking (instead of ruminating irrelevant, often harmful, thoughts), all the emphasis on training mental skills such as concentration and attention and, essentially, putting effort to improve one's life sounds very synergic with this 90 day detox, which in many ways is more about assessing our reality and take action to improve it than just about stopping playing video games.

Apparently tomorrow there will be snow, which is great. In all this winter I haven't seen a single snowflake. I'm thrilled!

 

Edited by QuercusIlexBallota
Wrong date
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I think i read this book next. It sounds fascinating.

It certainly is :D I never thought I would ever say such a thing of a book about one of the "ism" words. But it doesn't feel like a religion book at all! When he says something about gods, rebirth or any other metaphysical silliness is to dismiss it rather than to convince the reader of its existence. (The sad fact is that the copy I found is a Spanish translation, and the translator found it appropriate to use overly complex words even though there were other, more simple and pleasing, words available). 

DAY 7 (2016/03/25, Friday): 

The mountains are amazing! I don't even remember the last time I saw so much snow (if ever)! I just arrived and I'm terribly tired. I just want to lie on my bed and watch the last episode of Vikings, so this entry will be brief. I found this little one along the way:

1.thumb.png.d2c336a21cc3271ea1b7fe710adf

It seems that little pines can get buried by a huge, cold-feeling, overwhelming phenomenon. It also seems that, with persistence and a powerful desire to improve their current condition, they are perfectly able to overcome it and achieve huge growth:

2.thumb.png.bb122999b30a6a3e07a555fc6062

There may be something worth imitating in these beautiful trees :D

 

Edited by QuercusIlexBallota
Wrong word: "tradition" instead of "translation"
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DAY 8 (2016/03/26, Saturday): 

Today has been weird, I woke up full of apathy. "Why?" I asked myself. Perhaps I’m still tired from yesterday's hike (but I don't have the slightest soreness), perhaps having ended the book caused me a feeling of loss (but why? there are more books in the world than can ever be read), perhaps... I don't know.  

I spent the whole morning doing nothing. Correction: I spent the whole morning unsuccessfully looking for something appealing to read. Luckily I went off with my girlfriend after eating. Had I stayed at home I may had ended up again watching shit on YouTube (I don't think I would have relapsed, too much apathy to even consider reinstalling WoW).

On the bus back home I was thinking about what could I read now. Perhaps a book on fitness? I took a look on the web but none of the books I found seemed especially interesting. Then a curious idea appeared: "I've just read a book on secular Buddhism in which the word meditation appeared quite frequently and, on the light of what I've read, it doesn't have anything to do with reuniting my immortal soul with God or something so, what is this thing about?" I found something to start with on the StopGaming reddit, this post by SirIssacMath:

https://www.reddit.com/r/StopGaming/comments/2xxdzl/meditation_will_improve_your_life/ 

I wanted a book though! On the meditation subreddit they recommend a book titled "Mindfulness in Plain English" by Bhante Henepola Gunaratana, a buddhist monk since age 12. I've never read a book on this subject, and I didn't feel very happy about starting with a book wrote by a monk. Nothing against monks, but I preferred something more secular (if I find all this meditation thing interesting I will most probably read it next, it must be good if the people in that subreddit recommend it).

On the website of the Secular Buddhist Association (whose existence I just discovered) they recommend a book titled "Mindfulness for Beginners: Reclaiming the Present Moment-and Your Life" by Jon Kabat-Zinn Ph.D. It looks promising, I'll give it a try. The review is here:

http://secularbuddhism.org/2012/04/26/mindfulness-for-beginners-and-secularists/

I'm grateful for the existence of Game Quitters, this place is a great source of motivation! :D

 

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DAY 10 (2016/03/28, Monday): 
Today's been a productive day, I ended a project that's been lurking in the shadows for all the holidays and advanced a bit with my end of degree dissertation. Tomorrow the gym opens its gates once more, time to restart the early rising.

I've been reading "Mindfulness for beginners", it seems to be a quite short book. Each "chapter" takes about 2 minutes to read! I'm liking it, though. Each chapter gives you something to wonder about, which is great. 

I can't wait to hit the gym tomorrow again!  

 

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