We Now Rejoin Real Life, Already in Progress

[Zeno]

Hey, everyone.

Some call me Bob.

My history with gaming is somewhat peculiar. I knew I had obsessive/addictive tendencies way back when I was a teenager in the 1980s, even with those 8- and 16-bit wonders on the personal computers of the time. (TRS-80 CoCo, anyone?)

Once in a while, as an adult, I would have access to a game and fall into it. Eventually, as I became more established with a family and a mortgage, I started dabbling in the newer generation of PC games . . . and got on the treadmill of upgrading my PC to keep up.

I wouldn't say gaming destroyed my marriage, exactly. That was probably set to self-destruct before I really started gaming in earnest, about 6 or 7 years ago, for reasons I don't really want to go into. I do know that, had I not been gaming, I would have filed for divorce several years earlier, and spared my kids a lot of unnecessary stress and upheaval.

Well, now I'm trying to make a new life for myself, and I'm trying to get my professional life back on track, even in the face of the pandemic. But still, I keep getting drawn back into gaming, just out of habit.

So, I took a week off, during which I spent more time playing fiddle, reading interesting non-fiction, and starting to organize my post-divorce household. When the week was up, it seemed I could find some kind of balance: play a few hours after dinner, then settle down to read.

Then the weekend came, and I played for hours and hours on end.

So, last night, I decided to take another break. At first I thought, how about two weeks, this time?

No, not enough.

A month?

No, not enough.

How about a year?

So that's what I'm trying: no electronic games of any kind between now and April 1, 2022.

(In the back of my mind I'm thinking that, by that point, I'll be so far out of the gaming frame of reference that I wouldn't mind going gameless for another year, and another, and another.)

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to finish that book . . .

Edited April 1, 2021 by Zeno of Elea
added my name!