I was watching the Patrick Teahan video linked above when it occurred to me that maybe I am not as indecisive as I think I am.
Yes, I have now decided that I might not be indecisive. Or whatever.
What sparked this revelation was Patrick talking about someone having decision issues when it came to picking what to order in a restaurant.
I have never had that problem except in a very minor way when I have showed up at the restaurant super hungry and it makes everything look so good.
But most of the time, it’s no big deal. I look over the menu, pick something, order it an eat it, and all with almost never second guessing my choice.
I don’t really care if there was something I would have objectively enjoyed more. I ordered something I liked, ate it and enjoyed it, and that met the brief.
Mission accomplished. On to the next thing.
The question therefore becomes why I can’t be that decisive in other areas of my life. This “decide and move on” thing is clearly the best life strategy. Agonizing over even relatively minor decisions is a terrible way to live. So why can’t I change?
Let’s review what we know :
- Indecision is bullshit. If you can’t decide, odds are that there is a bigger issue that is using the kind of mental fog that produces indecision as a cover. You have to ask yourself what will happen after you have decided. If you can answer that, you will probably find that it’s the real thing you’re avoiding dealing with.
- Indecision stems from lack of id. Like with the Two Kirks. Without his id, Kirk was vacillating and indecisive. That’s because when the outcomes cannot be computed or predicted, the only way a decision can be reached is emotionally, by gut instinct or the mood of the moment. Awesome leaders like James T. Kirk synthesize intellect and instinct into something greater than their sum.
- Indecision is rooted in fear. At the heart of torturous indecision is a very exaggerated and oversized fear of negative consequences. And this fear only gets worse over time because the nature of it prevents its conclusions from ever being tested. After all, if you never decide, there is never any chance for your fears to be disproven by the perfectly ordinary non-catastrophic consequences of your choice. This is how the con job in point 1 works. The worst phobias are always the ones that prevent you from finding out if what they tell you is true.
- Indecision is all about me. The things I can’t decide on, to the point of utter paralysis, are always things directly involving myself. When I am not part of the equation, I can be extremely decisive and direct. I guess that’s because it bypasses that outsized fear of negative outcomes and turns the decision into a mere problem to be solved. And that, I can do.
I am sure there’s more points but I won’t think of them until later.
I can certainly say that my inability to get my life going towards emotional adulthood is not primarily an issue of indecision.
Sure, I could keep bullshitting myself by pretending it’s about not being able to choose from the billions of possibilities inherent in every moment, but I’d know it was a lie.
The truth is that said indecisiveness would just be a mask for my being too scared of life to leave my hermetically sealed video game based life.
Just the thought of going away from my PC gaming security blanket makes me feel like I’m about to break out in hives.
I have so much anxiety and fear in me and it just gets in the way of everything.
Maybe the real problem is that I need to get laid.
More after the break.
Back to reality
Got rudely dumped back into the stupid real world by my computer crashing not just once but twice in the last hour.
And while playing a game as ancient as Morrowind, too. Though admittedly, I have all the graphical settings maxed.
Still. I need that new power supply. This shit is getting on my nerves.
I still haven’t finished Pathfinder : Kingmaker. I am quite close to the end but I hit yet another extremely difficult fight and after failing at it for like the sixth or seventh time I just ran out of gas.
I mean, I have already played the damned thing for only a pussy hair less than 250 hours. What more does it want from me, blood?
But I am not beaten yet. I am pretty sure the fight I am stuck on is optional, so if I restore a saved game from before I started it, I can avoid it.
Or I can turn down the difficulty level for that one fight. That would do serious damage to my pride but if it gets me to the end of the damned game it might be worth it.
Or I could outright cheat by downloading a save-game editor or the like. In a way, that would hurt my pride less than turning the difficulty down.
I guess because it would make me feel vaguely clever? Ha ha, you stupid game, you thought you had me but I hacked you instead?
Sort of sad but not as bad.
I have pretty much abandoned Fallout 2. It just can’t compete with modern games for me. And it’s not just in terms of graphics and sound.
It felt like the action routinely ground to a halt and I lost all plot momentum on a regular basis. I would get quests and have no idea how to pursue them.
Shames me to admit it but I guess I am used to more hand-holding and guidance from the game as to how I do whatever is next. I’m not equipped to figure it out on my own.
Not that I ever had much patience for that in the first place.
I want to DO STUFF, not sit here and think!
I do that enough on my own!
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.