Monthly Archives: November 2014

Happy Early Turkey Day

Not much of a post today, obviously.  To be honest, I got completely distracted by 5 Second Films when I should have been writing earlier this evening.  Did you know that YouTube has a “shuffle playlist” option?

Anyway, it’s obviously Thanksgiving tomorrow (or today, when most of you are probably reading this).  I’m not sure how much I’m going to be posting over the next few days (not that I’ve been posting much so far, but that’s beside the point.  So enjoy the annual Dinosaur Holocaust with whatever form of friends, family, animals, plants, minerals, etc. you deem fit.  I know I’ve got quite the full day ahead of me (no pun intended).

Burning Time

So today kind of got away from me. I spent most of the work day re-doing a drawing set I thought I had finished, and then I spent most of the evening burning things. The work was annoying, but I went back to Little Inferno because I watched a YouTube review/commentary of the game that really put it in a new light. Turns out it’s a lot deeper than it first seemed.

I’ve been having fun watching and listening to these long-form critiques about video games. It’s a chance to look at the why behind the hobby, the more introspective and artistic side. Plus, since I can’t exactly game while at work, it lets me somewhat vicariously engage in my hobby while doing other “productive” stuff.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve been getting to bed too late this week, and while it’s a short one, I do still have to work tomorrow.

Not Much To Say Today

Like the title says, not much to say today. It’s Monday, I’m kinda tired, and I spent the entire weekend playing video games. So I’m not in a bad state overall. There’s a holiday this week, of course, which means multiple trips across town to visit various friends and family. I expect that will be tiring, so I’m kinda trying to bank as many spoons as possible. Luckily I get Friday off as well, so I’ll have a nice long weekend. Plenty of time to be productive. And by productive, I mean read and play video games. Should be fun.

Wanting To Escape

I’ve been thinking a bit about why my night of checking out earlier this week was so effective in helping me relax and recharge. After all, I spent the evening playing video games; isn’t that a “bad” thing to do? Isn’t that a “waste” of my time? Does the fact that I was that desperate to play video games speak to some unhealthy habit on my part?

I’ve touched on this before, but I have an odd relationship with video games. I really enjoy them, but growing up they were framed to me as an inconsequential pastime, something to be experienced in small doses so they didn’t interfere with more worthy pursuits. And I think I internalized the whole “games don’t have many redeeming qualities” thing a little too well, so there’s a part of me that always feels a little guilty indulging in one of my big hobbies.

But the more I think about it, I think my break earlier this week was less about playing video games and more about escaping. Video games, in addition to letting us feel a sense of accomplishment, also provide us with an alternate world to experience and enjoy, in the same way that fiction books, television, and movies do. And I think that’s more what I needed: an escape, a break from the day-to-day world that had been demanding a level of engagement that was starting to break me down.

I also think that there was a slightly more petulant reason behind my night off: not having been able to sit down and play video games for a while. Remember back to when you were a young kid (or your last dealings with a child). What was the best way to get you to want to do something? That’s right, telling you you couldn’t. Suddenly, that thing you were only slightly interested in became a much bigger thing because it was verboten. Want a cookie? Well, not that you can’t have one, you really want it. Can’t play with that toy? Well, it might as well be the end of the world.

So I think my need for a video game binge resulted from a number of factors. One, I was running very low on spoons. Two, I needed to escape from the inconvenient reality of normal life for a while. And three, I wanted to play video games because I hadn’t been able to. Luckily I got some time in, and I’m feeling much better. And I also don’t have to do much this weekend, so that should help even more. Plus, next week is a short week because of the Turkey Day celebrations. So if everything goes well, I might have enough mental energy to successfully navigate the holiday festivities. And that’s a good thing.

Soft Reset

So I’m definitely feeling better after last night’s video game binge. I think I had just driven myself too long without enough down time. Because if I do the math, I’ve basically been going straight for almost three weeks. How? Well, the weekend of the 8th I headed down to Coronation. It was fun, but leaving after work on Friday, driving down for two days, and arriving back Sunday evening didn’t exactly make for a restful weekend. Then last weekend, I headed up to the mountains with friends for a getaway/RPG weekend. While not as draining as Coronation, it was still a good amount of people in a smallish space with not much alone time. And of course the cherry on top, work has been stressful for a variety of reasons this week (long story short: clients are dumb).

A part of me looks at this and thinks “Oh no, poor you, why don’t you just cowboy up and soldier through? It can’t be that bad, after all. It’s not like you’re working 24/7, right?” And this is true. But telling myself to “just feel better” isn’t exactly constructive feedback. Especially when I made the switch from feeling drained to feeling depressed.

So while I still feel a bit bad that I skipped out on fighter practice to play video games, I stand by my earlier statement that it was better for me in the long run to do so. After all, I’ve missed practice before, and I’ve generally had a good reason to do so. I just have to remind myself that “needing time off” is perfectly valid. Even if from the outside it looks like I’m slacking.

Mental Health Break

No practice for me tonight. I’m clearly in the middle of a depressive funk so I’m just going to go home and play video games. Not much energy for a post either. I thought least realized I’m in a funk, so hopefully that’s a good thing. But yeah, aside from that I don’t really have much to say right now. I am dictating this to my phone on my way home from work, so that’s kind of cool.

I’m just tired. And I think I just overextended myself socially the past few weeks, which while fun, has left me more drained than I thought. And well I do kind of want to go to practice, I need the downtime too. And that night be more useful than hitting my friends with sticks right now, as sad as that sounds.

Anyway, I’m hungry, and I think I’ve said as much as I can on the matter at the moment. , and the text to speech thing is starting to defy me. So have a good night and all that, hopefully I’ll feel better tomorrow.

Too Tired

No post today.  I’m just too tired all around.  I’m probably in the middle of a Funk, not that knowing that helps things at this point (it may in the future, but not right now).  I want to do nothing more than sit around and play video games all day, but of course I can’t do that.  Too many other responsibilities.  So good night, I’m going to bed.

Not Quite Pulling Teeth

I’ve been finding it really hard to write lately. For whatever reason, blogging has felt more like an obligation and less like a hobby. It’s something I have to remind myself to do, something that often makes me feel guilty when I don’t. I’ll be looking forward to a nice quiet night of video games and very little human contact until I think “oh wait, I still have to blog today,” which tends to bring down my mood.

But at the same time, I really don’t want to stop blogging. It’s just that I don’t seem to have much to say about things, and I keep getting easily distracted. For instance: it’s almost 9pm as I write this. What I meant to do upon getting home after grocery shopping was put away groceries, write quickly, then start a new video game. What I have done is put away groceries, sort out junk mail, surf the Internet, watch a few videos, buy a few games on sale, waste time on Clicker Heroes (one of those idle games that will suck your concentration, accomplishes nothing, and I can’t stop playing), and finally, write yet another post about how writing is hard.

Maybe I’m just low on energy in general. The past few weeks have been busy, and I’ve missed posting the past few Fridays because I’ve gone out of town for one reason or another. And while those trips have been really enjoyable, it’s still taken a lot out of me. Luckily I’ve got a free weekend between now and Thanksgiving, otherwise I’m not sure what I’d do.

But because I’m so drained, things are piling up, both pleasure and obligations. I can’t help but think that something’s going to have to give. I just really don’t want it to be this blog. But I don’t know what I can do. I’ve thought about putting it on hiatus, queuing up some of the fiction I wrote in college to keep new content coming. But I don’t want to use that option until I have to. After all, what would I do if I needed more some time later?

I don’t know. I’m just tired. But at least I’m still writing.

Too Many Choices, Not Enough Time

So I finally have some down time tonight (sure, I had to sacrifice practice for it, but that’s beside the point) and what do I do? I pass the time with a stupid click/idle flash game because I can’t decide what I want to do.

There’s of course a bunch of stuff I should do, whether packing for the weekend or doing something about the backlog of volunteer webmastering I’m still on the hook for. There’s also a bunch of stuff I want to do, mostly in the form of video games I want to try. I’m itching to get to my backlog, maybe for the simple reason that I can’t right now.

I’m starting to see why people take personal days off of work. While the past week or so has been fun, I’ve done some math and figured that with my weekend activities past and future I’ll have gone 19 days without a day completely off to do nothing. Even my evenings are going to be few and far between with travel time and practices.

But that’s not what I started out wanting to write about. Mostly I’m annoyed by how breadth of choice can have a paralyzing effect on actually being able to make said choice. I mean, it’s 9h30 and I’m already getting to the point where I just want to curl into bed. If I had more energy, I might write something more profound about that. But not today.

Oh well.

When To Write?

I’m not sure my method of writing after work is working as well as I’d like.  Work apparently takes much more mental energy than I think, leaving me writing fairly hollow “I don’t know what to write” posts.  Writing during my lunch break also doesn’t seem to be working; I seem to need the down time more than I need to write.  Writing during the morning also hasn’t really happened; it’s about all I can do to wake up and get going on time with everything I need for the day.

When am I going to write?

It’s gotten to the point where I feel like I’ve got so little time for my hobbies (read: reading, writing, video games, etc.) that I’m seriously considering setting my alarm earlier, just so I have more down time in the morning.  I suppose I could stay up later, but that only works up to a point.  Sleep doesn’t seem to recharge Spoons at the same rate as quiet time does, but borrowing too much from the former to increase the latter can also take Spoons.  That is to say, sleeping isn’t always the same as resting, but too little sleep isn’t good either.

So I’ve got a bit of a conundrum.  I want to continue writing, but I’m not sure when I can fit it in.  But does that mean I don’t really want to?  If I really wanted to write, wouldn’t I find a way to do so?  And of course, the self-loathing engine then starts up.  Because I have a number of things I “want” to do, of varying levels of engagement, but trying to do them all just results in mediocrity all around.  Of course, the irony of the fact that I’m writing this at the last minute before heading off to fighter practice while wishing I could just stay home and play video games isn’t lost on me.  I just wish the whole situation wasn’t something that my negative internal voices tended to latch on to.

But hey: humanity has landed on a comet.  That’s pretty awesome.