Tried Endless Space 2. But not for long.

It’s supposed to be the kind of big space empire sim that I have been craving for a while, and it has some impressive production values, but the tutorial just suddenly… stopped and I said fuck it and gave up.

What is with these games that have such insufficient tutorials? This is becoming a “thing” with me. It just keeps happening.

Am I the problem? Do I give up too easily? Freak out too readily? Get stopped by bumps in the road that healthier people would take in stride?

No. It is the games who are wrong.

I’m definitely going to give Endless Space 2 another try, and this time, I am going to ignore the tutorial and try figuring stuff out by just fucking around.

That will be a bold new step for me. And a healthy one, too. A small step away from expecting to have everything explained to me and towards facing things on my own by handling life’s unexpected challenges instead of instantly collapsing and fleeing.

When I put it that way, it’s freaking terrifying.

But growing up often is. And the older you are when you do it, the harder it is going to be. But it still beats going to your early grave still a child.

Fetus in a casket.

I mean, to be honest, I don’t know how many years I have left. I’m not a healthy man. I have physical health issues that my mental health issues keep me from dealing with properly and they might just do me in before I see my 50th birthday.

And I am 47. 48 in May.

I also took a game called Valfaris out for a spin. It’s a side-scrolling shooter along the lines of Contra (ask your dad, kids) and I heart its art design very very much because it’s all heavy metal and science fiction and dark and I love all of those things.

And it seems like a pretty good game. But for some reason, the controls and I do not get along well. There’s something wrong about them and I am not sure what except that they seem to violate expectations I didn’t know I had.

So when I try it again, I am going to rearrange the controls and see if I can fix the problem. If not, I will try to get used to them in whatever configuration because the game seems quite badass otherwise and I am curious to see more.

Moodwise, I am feeling somewhat restless and discontent. I feel like something has been stirred up inside me and it makes me want to go pick a fight with someone just so I have an outlet for my need for aggression and conflict and struggle.

Somehow, I need to find the middle ground between things which are absurdly easy for me and things too hard for me to even think of trying.

Somewhere in this strutting farce we call life there must be the right level of challenge for me. The level where I feel stimulated to strive and overcome without getting overwhelmed and giving up.

Time to tap into this need for challenge and apply it to life.

More after the break.

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Saving throw failed

There’s an R. Graeme Cameron weekly fandom Zoom meetup happening right now.

Joe is there. Felicity is there. But I’m not there, even though I sort of passively implied that I would attend this week.

I just couldn’t do it. I failed my saving through versus my social anxiety. I tried to make myself go a bunch of times but my inner resistance was just too strong.

Might as well have been trying to shift the Rock of Gibraltar by tying it to a kitten.

So I am somewhat depressed right now. I wish I was there. I wish I was healthy enough to do things like that without even giving it a second thought.

I wish I could just rush out into the world in search of joy and fun and adventure instead of being bound and gagged and chained in my lonely little cell by fear.

And some day, I will escape. I work on it diligently every day via this blog and my own silent contemplations as I keep my conscious mind busy with games and YouTube.

Could probably step that up a bit. Recent revelations require some pretty deep processing. Mental note : play less mentally challenging games.

After all, there’s always Solitaire.

I suppose I probably could force myself to attend by sheer force of will. And maybe I should. Maybe that’s the exact sort of thing I need to do in order to get that positive social input that I need if I am to outgrow my issues.

Can’t heal a frostbitten soul without warmth, after all.

At least I am slowly opening up to the idea of going out into the world in search of what i want. Seems like a very basic function of being a live animal, but depression seeps deep into the soul and freezes things on even the most basic of levels.

And it can do this because it convinces you that numbness is better than pain. It says “Hey, I can take your pain away and locked it away forever in my deep freeze. “

And when you are hurting, that sounds like an amazingly good deal. The pain disappears and you can go on with your life.

But that goddamned demon Depression never mentions the price you will pay. The coldness. The chill. The killing frost that seeps deep into your soul and makes you too numb to feel any of the light and love of the world and leaves you feeling isolated and utterly, utterly alone.

Then it offers to take that pain away, too.

It’s a bad, bad deal that costs far more than it benefits you, and it all depends on your unwillingness to endure pain.

After all, you haven’t had to feel the pain in a long long time. Not with Depression to whisk it away from you in return for making your world even colder.

Escaping the cycle, therefore, requires putting up with pain. There are worse things than pain, sadness, anger, frustration, and all the rest.

The more you endure, the warmer things get. You’ve got a lot of ice to birth and waiting won’t make it any easier. So get in there and dig. Reclaim all the emotions Depression stole from you. Your motto should be, “I want to FEEL EVERYTHING. “

Do enough of that and you can finally kick that fucking demon out.

Because you won’t need it any more.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.