I have been feeling better lately. More present, more alert, less depressed, more willing to engage with reality.
But this does not mean suddenly breaking my video game addiction. In fact, it’s led primarily to my playing my games even more, and playing them harder and for longer periods of time.
That’s because it would be foolish in the extreme t hinge my psychological recovery on whether or not I overcome a habit that’s had me in its clutches for more than a decade.
Not sure when, exactly, it metastasized into a crippling addiction. Not even sure if I was living here in Fanhattan or back in Nerdvana.
But I do know what triggered it : Skyrim.
Mother fucking Skyrim.
So I don’t plan to set myself in opposition to that addiction just yet. Eventually I Will make space in my life for other, newer things, gradually, a little at a time.
But for now I will just enjoy being able to enjoy things more.
:right now I am mostly working on trying to make life outside video games seem more enticing. That’s a rough job, though, considering that addiction is very good at convincing you that life without the addicted “substance” is cold and horrible and miserable and basically impossible.
That’s the power of our tendency to fixate on the strongest source of reward relative to the effort needed to get it. Especially once the addiction has truly set in and the reward becomes even easier to get because we have built a royal road of neural pathways leading directly from the “substance” to the reward.
Like I always say when this subject comes up, for me, the big barrier is having to figure out what to do with myself and my time.
This used to be a huge issue for me. A big part of my depression in those pre-Skyrim days involved agonizing over what I “should” do with myself as I once again tried to navigate the infinite corridor of infinite doors.
Too many possibilities. Can’t be done. It’s like the Three Body Problem. It does not take long for the math involved to become so complex as to be unsolvable.
“But you can do whatever you want to do!” says a glittery-eyed children’s TV show host from the fucking Seventies.
Well fuck you, Doug Henning. It is not that easy. I have no idea what I want. Or rather, I can think of millions of things I want. So how do I sort through them all and pick one?
That’s how malnourished and underdeveloped my pathetic id is. I have no idea what I want because I have so little experience wanting things.
Like I have said before, at some point I made the life-wrecking decision that I had to little power in the world that wanting things could only lead to pain and so I learned to just make do with whatever I happened to have and not think of anything else.
This murdered my soul.
I don’t know if pining away for all the things I want but can’t possibly get would be any better but at this point I would be willing to entertain the possibility, at least.
At least then I would be alive, and have some clue as to who and/or what I am. At least then I would have tried to follow my desires inasmuch as I could and they would have led me out into the world to get some god damned life experience. At least I would have had some way to organize my time and possibly find meaning in my days.
Instead, all I have is the nihilistic negativity of this purposeless shambles of a life.
Sometimes I wonder why I even bother.
More after the break.
Long awaited dawn
John looked at the clock as he picked up the phone. 3:40 AM. Who the hell would be calling at this hour?
His wife Sandra stirred in her sleep, thinking the same thing. She assumed whoever it was, her husband would brush them off so they could get back to sleep.
And that’s why it was so shocking to see her normally sedate and orderly husband suddenly sat bolt upright, eyes wide and hyper-alert, when he heard what the person on the phone said.
“Yes, I heard you. ” he replied in a voice quavering with suppressed tension. “Are you sure? Sorry… of course you’re sure. You wouldn’t be calling otherwise. Yes. Yes of course, I understand. I can be there in ten minutes. OK, I’m on my way. See you soon.”
“What’s wrong, John? ” she asked. She had never seen him like this and it scared her.
“Nothing. ” John replied distantly as he got dressed. ” Work. I’ve got to go in. ”
“To work?” Sandra asked. “But it’s almost 4 in the morning. ”
“Uh huh. ” said John as he threw a bunch of papers into his briefcase. “Don’t wait up for me. I don’t know when I’ll be back. ”
Now Sandra was really rattled. Where had her sleepy, gentle academic of a husband gone, and who was this rigid stranger with eyes like he’s a soldier about to go to war standing in his place?
“Well… goodbye. ” she barely managed to say to him as he headed out the door. With shocking suddenness, she heard his car start up and drive away, tires squealing at the sudden unexpected acceleration.
Sandra turned the light out and tried to get back to sleep. But a cold dark feeling of loneliness and dread now occupied her heart, and she could not shake the irrational feeling that she would never see her husband again.
She must have slept, because suddenly it was dawn, but she didn’t remember going to sleep. She got up and went through her morning routine woodenly, feeling like she was watching a robot version of herself from afar.
It wasn’t until she found herself staring at her two beloved Malamutes, Kitten and Rainbow, like she didn’t even know who or what they were that she finally had the good sense to break down and cry.
And she was still crying and stroking the immaculately groomed fur on Kitten’s head when the sun set again.
This is worse than if someone had died, she thought. At least then she would know what had happened. At least then her world would still make sense.
Eventually, she got up, fed the dogs again, then went back to bed.
But for reasons she did not care to examine, she slept in the guest bedroom that night.
AUTHOR’S NOTE : Um, sorry about the lack of closure. In retrospect, I should not have started the story this late in the day. But stay with me, folks, I promise this is all going somewhere and you WILL find out what was said to John and where he went very soon.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.