I talked pretty tough about my new all-consuming hobby when I talked about it last Saturday, but for whatever reason, I was in a really good mood that day. SO my judgment might not have been too clear when I proudly wrote that this new hobby of mine was great but that I felt no compulsion to indulge it and while it is sometimes hard for me to tear myself away from it, I was the one in control.

Turns out that isn’t even remotely true. Sigh.

I feel like it’s totally rejiggering my motivational structure because I find it so enjoyable that everything else pales in comparison. Even writing in this blog, something I usually enjoy greatly, now feels like a chore to be “gotten through” before l go back to my real life, which is so much more rewarding.

And that is one of the classic signs of addiction. You lose interest in everything else. It’s the first step in the process of being hollowed out by it.

In that, I am no different than any World of Warcraft addict. I have never had the slightest trouble understanding how someone could be so obsessed with the game that they played it (or another like it) to the point of death. When I am really into something, whether it’s my new hobby or writing an episode. I don’t feel things like hunger, thirst, or the need for sleep. The activity itself is stimulating me into a state where I could end up in serious physical jeopardy and have no idea until I get up from the computer.

That happened with my latest low blood sugar incident. I felt fine until I got up from the computer, then it all hit me.

I take that as a warning sign that I need to up my self-discipline game and take care of myself as a matter of course rather than waiting till one of my bodily needs is telling me it needs me to do stuff.

You know, stuff. Like eating and drinking water and using the bathroom and actually having contact with other living beings,with all that unpredictability.

The good news is that I am not even remotely craving doing it right now. except in a very vague and distant sense of curiosity. Dunno how well I’d take it if suddenly it was no longer an option, but I do not feel like doing it right now.

The only thing I crave right now is a nap. I have not been getting enough sleep lately for some unknown reason.

In fact, I mostly feel relief.  Like I had gone crazy for a while and was possessed by an unwholesome fever of the imagination but now I have come to rest and it feels so good to let my brain cool off after all that concentrated stimulation.

The thing is, this fresh hobby of mine is a triple threat, because not only does it satisfy my need for mental stimulation and  my need for sexual novelty, it also stimulates my urge to acquire and amass because there are so many neato ways to expand the game out there that it makes me go berserk like a squirrel who just found a 100 pound back of peanuts and is desperately trying to store them all for the winter.

So when I am not playing the game, I am looking for more mods and more resources for mods and looking up new ways to use the mods I have and it’s all very exhausting.

But of course, I don’t feel that tiredness when the madness takes me. When my circuits are red-hot and what I am doing keeps scratching some of my favorite itches sop damned well, it’s like electromagnetically locked into the circuit until some outside force breaks the connection.

Or until I summon the wherewithal to do it myself, which make take a really long time if I am doing this unaware.

But that won’t happen again. I am getting mad about the whole thing and that should keep me focused enough to set limits for myself.

It’s not easy. But I am doing it anyway.

So from now on, hopefully, I will go into this new hobby of my mind knowing the effect it can have on me., and thinking about when I am going to  disengage, and and then when the time comes, disengage.

No exceptions. No rules to manipulate. No way to weasel out of it.

Hmmm. I wonder if there’s a mod that adds weasels….

And the game doesn’t change no matter how many times I lose it. That’s one of the trickier aspects of self-discipline. You have to completely deny yourself the option of “failing out”. It’s the exact same obligation each and every day no matter what.

That’s a big part of what backs the concept of “taking things one day at a time”.

You have to block all the escape tunnels in you in order to force yourself to have to deal with things instead of evading them. That’s what it takes in order to force a creative and flexible person like myself to stop trying to escape and instead focus on winning.

To me. at least, that is what self-discipline is all about. Anyone can do the things they feel like doing when they feel like doing it. The real measure of a man is whether or not he can do things he does not want to or feel like doing but knows it needs to be done.

I aspire to that kind of self-control. And it makes me mad when other people don’t have it. I try not to let that get to me because I know everyone has their own strengths and weaknesses and I should not be so quick to judge someone who might well be very strong and controlled in a different situation.

But I can never quite suppress all of the contempt I feel towards people like that when I see them in TV and movies. People who fall apart in a crisis. I want to tell them “Have your total emotional breakdown later, dammit!”

After all, that’s what I’d do.

I will hopefully talk to you nice people again tomorrow.