Hi.
I'd like to apologise for making such a huge post. If you ever get through it, I'll obviously be interested in your thoughts about it, even though you're not me.
Today I felt particularily negative. I've been lurking for a while on this subreddit. Throwaway account, I don't like giving information about me just like that.
I've quit gaming a while ago, for the sake of questioning my lifestyle. I think I feel a negative impact (just like any addict, right?). I'll let you be the judge, let's begin with numbers, since I decided to do some math today:
- Just turned 25. About to complete my Master's degree in materials science and engineering.
- When I was 8 years old: was offered a nintendo64 as a birthday/Christmas present. Later went onto PS2/PS3.
- Since I was 15: Played RuneScape, an mmorpg (it's been about 10 years).
- Since I was about 23: Played League of Legends (it's been about 2 years).
- According to my LoL match history, I haven't played since october 18th, which means I have been clean for 73 days (iinm).
About me:
I'm super lucky. I've always had everything on my side. I can eat whatever I want, and I always seem to stay quite in shape. Naturally good at running, too. Not amazing, but definitely above average. Everytime I fuck up something, it always turns out okay. Even alongside gaming, I never really had any trouble to do other things that would just equally raise my interest. I could mention occasional reading, gardening, cooking, guitar, and sports. In my opinion enough to keep a mind fed.
I'd like to mention studies. It took a good part of my life, so I believe it's quite relevant to the topic. I was always fairly good at school without providing much effort. Not because I was talented, or actually clever, but merely because my parents could always help me out whenever I needed help for homework and such (my dad's a physicist, you see). For quite a long time, I could both game at home and succeed at school. I had plenty of friends (and still do), but as you can guess, I was craving video games quite a lot. During highschool, it kind of pissed me off to be a virgin, but I stopped giving a fuck about that since I was about 18, and I'm still living just fine like that. I'm not the kind of person that lets such trivial things get to my mind, so I don't think it is of any relevance to my addiction. I don't even see it as a positive/negative thing. Having a girlfriend is just a cold fact. All in all, I'm quite mentally stable.
So what gets to my mind? Things that go wrong because of myself only. Mostly self-dissatisfaction/guilt:
- I haven't called someone on the phone like I was supposed to? I will feel guilty/ashamed of myself, and give no news to that person until a miracle happens.
- I should stop procrastinating? I will first guilt myself to death for doing so, then keep procrastinating.
However, this can also be positive, because it means I tend to take things on myself. I'm the kind of guy that will pick up the cigarette butt you just threw on the ground and put it in a nearby waste bin. Recently I've come to believe that I should be an example for people to follow, so that I can make the world better. All in all, I don't think being harsh towards yourself is positive or negative. It's just another cold fact.
Let's talk about my gaming habits with League of Legends. This game is the freshest in my mind, and it's probably very relevant to why I'm here. First, I used to game during my free time. After a few months, I took a resolution to complete 15 pushups everytime I would load a LoL game. One year went like this, and I could actually see improvements on my chest. For instance, I've had girls starring at it. I also get quite a few smiles from girls, pretty sure it's not because of toothpaste over my face. But still I can't care enough to make a move with one.
Due to our internet connection at home being super slow and my sister being a quite demanding user of our precious bandwidth, I started playing at night, because lagging would surprisingly make me rage. Not losing. Lagging. Winning a game would not make me happy if I had misplayed too much. I would be totally fine losing a game on the condition my gameplay was acceptable. I found out that lagging is pretty much the only thing in life that makes me really angry. For that reason, I tried coming to agreements with my family about bandwidth, to no avail. Being wise, I did what was necessary to resolve that problem. By myself. First, I fixed the Iinternet problem we had at home, and I decided that I would only play during a schedule, which would be between midnight and 5:00 am. I held it fairly okay-ish: I would sometimes push it until 6 am, but I would still not play during the rest of the day. I would wake up at 2 pm, and live like a normal human being. Like I said I have no problems having interest for other things, whether it be cooking, doing the house chores, sports, anything really. At night, however, I would just play games back to back (playing support for faster queue would help, of course). Until I quit, I always wanted to be good at this game, even though not aiming for anything like pro gaming. The mix of trying your best and doing those pushups felt extremely healthy and good. To this day, I still don't see what I did as good or bad. It's just how it was. A simple fact.
So yesterday I was finishing a Python program. It had been a long time since I last felt self-satisfied with my work. It was looking good and clean. I went to bed. When I woke up, that satisfaction was totally gone. I was craving for more. All of a sudden I wanted to learn Bash, become better at Python, do a quick review of the periodic table (which I now know by heart, each atomic number, until Dubnium). I also now know by heart every capital city of every state in the US (hey, it's something). Thanks to memrise, my german's getting fairly good. I've also started learning a few words of Russian.
The problem is that the feeling of self-satisfaction doesn't last. Everytime, I find myself expecting more of myself. Really, I'm unsure whether this is any saner than addictions, when it comes to my personality. At least when I game I feel like I'm giving my very best, every single time. Doesn't matter if I suck. Whenever I do something in real life I get 0 self-satisfaction. I know you're going to say that real life doesn't provide as much as video games etc, but ever since I started university I stopped being self-satisfied. I have convincing reasons to believe it is due to my studies.
Here I had 2 paragraphs on my thoughts on university and how it led to my self-dissatisfaction, but it's not worth any of your time.
I'm confronted to re-doing all of my studies, by myself, my way, which would be learning the subjects properly. Right now everything I do feels like I'm covering up my own incompetence in science. But the task of becoming a super competent materials scientist feels just as huge and improbable as becoming a pro gamer. I've tried many times to get good at Fourier series/transforms, which is one my of big weaknesses. I've tried about 4 different math books. I bit the dust 4 times. I have more trouble dealing with failure in real life than when I'm gaming. And yes, I was past the point where I would blame everything on my team. Oddly, I feel writing this paragraph helps me a bit on knowing what to do and understanding why I feel so bad. What it doesn't tell me is whether I will ever be happy of myself. Since this seems mostly related to me becoming competent in my profession, I suppose it's doable. However, to give you a hint, I would qualify most teachers in my university as not competent enough to teach (by my standards). Few teachers have enough rigour to my taste, I don't have enough, most paper publishers don't have enough. That's how I see things. Is it good or bad to never be satisfied with yourself? Neither, of course! Just the cold reality.
It's like generosity, when you think of it. It's a strength, but it's also a weakness that can be exploited. It could even lead you to do things you would regret. Is it good or bad? Cold fact, nothing more.
You care a lot about what people think of you? It's a strength, because it means you will adapt better to others, and won't psychorigid. But hey, it's also a weakness. It can stop you from doing what you think you should do. Cold fact.
What negative things could possibly come out of simply being clever? Well, you'll be more aware of things that go wrong, and they will bother you. Will you be happier if you are smarter? Can't even tell if it's of any relevance. Is it good or bad to be smart? Neither, it's just how it is.
Gaming addict? Good or bad? (didn't see that one coming, did you...) Do we even care at that point?
Chasing self-satisfaction never felt as futile to me as it felt today. I feel like a shipwreck. I don't think any of my goals have any importance in my life.
EDIT: formatting
Submitted December 30, 2016 at 10:26PM by i_feel_like_shitt http://ift.tt/2hycVGh
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