It’s a lovely spring day outside. The sun is shining, the birds are singing show-tunes, the grass is wondering how green it is, it’s delightful.
It’s the sort of day made for taking a walk someplace where nature is busting out all over. Or sitting under a tree reading a book about feelings. Or breaking out that fun project you’ve been neglected because winter made you boring.
It’s definitely NOT the sort of day where you want to sit behind a keyboard and write.
But here we are.
Summer Vacation Mode strikes again. I am feeling lazy and self-indulgent and that makes me increasingly resistant to doing anything that I am supposed to be doing.
Gack. How very very dull.
I just want to indulge my desires and have myself some fun.
And it’s only April. I got six more months of this shit!
Normally, my reaction to being in this mode is to simply roll my eyes and drag, cajole, and prod myself forward anyhow.
And that’s still the plan. I mean, it’s not like I have a lot to get done in a day and I have no real desire to stop writing to you magnificent people every day.
But I also want to take a look at this mode in a more positive light because it’s a mode in which I am sufficiently energized to actually want and crave things.
And that is so much healthier than my usual state of flaccid ennui that I think it is worth examining what it’s all about.
Starting with : what would happen if I indulged these urges?
My scope for indulging these desires is rather limited, of course. I don’t have much money and I am not very mobile.
But I am trying to unlearn that kind of self-defeatist thinking. Sure, I have problems, but I also have a highly creative and resourceful mind that is more than up to the challenge of figuring out how to have a good time despite my limitations.
I just have to get the fuck out of my own way and learn to open my mind to the possibilities instead of letting that grumpy old Trog of mine convince me that I can only be “safe” if I make myself as small as possible and hide in the dark.
Fuck that. I’m here, world. Get used to it.
And fuck being safe. Safety, like all good things, becomes a bad thing when taken too far. When the real operating definition of “safety” is not “free from danger” but “free from things which provoke my anxiety” and that eliminates damn near everything, it as most definitely turned into a cancer.
And that’s not who I really am. That’s just something that happened to me. The real me is optimistic, upbeat, and sees the world as a wonderful place full of wonderful things.
And all I have to do to return to my real self and shake all this negative bullshit is to consistently correct some bad habits of thought and action and I will be set.
I don’t have to live this circumscribed life.
I can be happy and free.
And Summer Mode can help lead the way.
Bet you thought I’d forgotten! 🙂
More after the break.
My other life – Drezen edition
I’ve not played Kingdoms of Amalur in around 24 hours.
True, that is largely due to the fact that the action in the other game I have been playing, Pathfinder : Wrath of the Righteous, has been heating up. I am fighting my way through the demon occupied city of Drezen, liberating it as I go, and the game is doing an excellent job of ratcheting up the tension and excitement as I go.
Fighting through a burning, war-torn city as the good guys (crusaders, mostly) fight with demons et al all over the place was pretty exciting.
And once more I managed to explore absolutely everything on the map EXCEPT the place I needed to find to continue the plot before finding said thing.
It’s like I am compulsively thorough without even trying. Impressive.
After that it became a quest to find the Magic Nyah-Nyah of Power that will let the side of good win over the side of bad because it has holy power and yadda yadda etc.
And I almost have it! And I am so excited.
What a kickass game P:WOTR must be to keep a jaded GenX type like me actually engaged in it on an emotional level!
But the real truth about Amalur is that I am getting tired of it. I started a new playthrough as a big beefy warrior and it’s sort of different from when I was a mage but not different enough to sustain my interest all the way through a second playthrough.
I’m even doing entirely new quest-lines that take me to places I never even visited the first time through, and yet I still feel pretty meh about the whole thing.
Playing it has started to seem like a chore, and that’s usually when I bug out of a game.
The irony is that I still more or less enjoy myself when I am playing it. But the thrill is gone. It doesn’t feel new any more.
Time to move on. Which means I need a new game to replace it.
Luckily, I have around $70 sitting on my Steam account waiting to be spent on something that I do NOT end up returning.
I can do this. I can be strong. I can commit.
A couple of weeks back there was this amazing Steam Spring Sale where a whole lot of AAA quality games were on sale for like 50 percent off.
But I already had two games on the go and I did not have faith that if I bought one of those games and set it aside for when I was done with one of the ones I had going that I would even remember it was there, let alone feel like playing it.
It’s complicated to be me.
So I didn’t buy any of the games I have been looking for. No Cyberpunk 2077, no Elden Ring, no nothin’.
Oh well. Guess I will either pay full price for them or dither around about it long enough to buy them in the SUMMER sale.
Sometimes my chronic indecision actually pays off.
Mostly, though, it’s just really freaking irritating.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.