I’m still playing Skyrim. But I am beginning to wonder why.

Not that that game has changed at all. It’s as awesome as ever. But I have been playing it in nearly all of my copious downtime for months now, and it’s wearing thing .

When I play, part of me is having fun and getting into getting various things done and so on. That is still, as of this moment the larger part of me.

But the other part of me has been growing increasingly frustrated and disgusted and anxious as I play, and really wants to play ANYTHING else.

So why do I keep playing?

Because I have a lot of trouble letting go, basically.

Right now, I think I am mostly still playing out of a desire to not have to return to the world where I have to figure out what to do with myself all day again.

Between that and nostalgia for how much I used to enjoy playing it plus my life long compulsion to do things I have planned to do puts me in this weird bind.

Hence the title of this entry. It’s like I finished the lollipop ages ago but I am still sucking on the stick because it was a really good lollipop and I don’t want to let go of that.

But the taste in my mouth gets sourer and sourer and sooner or later, that will force me to let go whether I want to or not.

And afterwards, I will admonish myself for holding on so long to something that so clearly has stopped providing enjoyment when I would have been far better off looking for something new and fresh.

It’s a very un-pragmatist thing to do. But even I have to admit – and I can say this, you can’t – sometimes pragmatism isn’t very practical.

My inner logic demon demands that I clarify : logically speaking, it is impossible for the pragmatic to be impractical because there is no way for anything that does not “work” can be considered a pragmatic solution.

So all I am really saying is that false notions of the pragmatic thing to do can be very impractical. One of the biggest strengths of the pragmatic mindset is its laser focus on results. If it doesn’t lead to a working solution, it’s un-pragmatic, period.

I’m starting to repeat myself. Let’s move on.

So yes, I will admonish myself and firmly resolve to never do it again.

But it will happen again. Over and over. Until the root cause, fear of facing the unending fractal maze of possibility that is the real world has ceased to be.

It’s very much a Taurus thing, this inability to let go of things. I am pretty sure that the sun sign Taurus must be disproportionately represented amongst hoarders. Our primal mission is to accumulate value, and that can lead not just to hoarding and a tendency to hold on to things for far too long, but also a drastic over-sensitivity to loss.

Just the thought of losing what we have accumulated is enough to make us break out in a cold and very paranoid threat. I am sure that we are a big part of the “prepper” community as well for just that reason. It’s a case of backwards justifying a compulsion to stockpile and preserve.

Because if the world is not coming to an end, why do I have so many cans of peas?

That’s why I have always worried about what would happen if someone tried to mug me. I know that I absolutely could not hand over the money. That’s emotionally impossible for me. That means I would have to fight back, and that could get me killed, because as wily and unpredictable and tricky as I can be, I am still old and fat and slow and no match for a sufficiently determined young person.

I’m not saying I would definitely lose.

I’m just saying that I would be compelled to take a highly uncharacteristic risk.

There’s also a strong possibility that if I did win, I would beat the ever loving shit out of the young person, in a wildly disproportionate way because now my latent rage has an outlet, and I would end up being the bad guy because of it.

And hey, it’s my word against their that they even tried to mug me. And they are going to come out as far more guy-level sympathetic than I will.

Anyhow, back to the topic.

One astrologer I read said that learning to let go was every Taurus’ primary spiritual challenge in life. And that makes sense to me. Hitting the snooze button on life and ignoring the evidence of your own sense and emotions because you don’t want to return to the uncertainties of life certainly fits the bill there.

Obviously, a healthy life requires both accumulation and letting go. Sometimes you have to separate the wheat from the chaff and throw the chaff away. Sometimes trying to keep it all leads to losing it all. Sometimes getting rid of bad stuff is the best way to improve the overall quality.

Sometimes you have to cut off the leg to save the patient.

But real life is rarely so clear cut. True, it’s easy to say that this sort of clinging behaviour is unhealthy and needs to be curtailed, but that’s just the saying of it.

In and of itself, it does nothing to solve the problem, nor does it even hint at a possible solution to it.

And as long as I am so needy and insecure because I don’t feel safe on a deep psychological level, I will likely continue to cling. To avoid the harsh reality of change for as long as possible via an aggressive and muscular kind of denial, and secretly hope that the choice will be taken out of my hands by things falling apart on their own. To try to find a happy place and then just stay there, even though I know that is impossible.

Clearly, something has to change.

But that’s the whole problem, isn’t it?

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.