51–60 of 87 posts
I highly recommend reading the book “Flow” if you’re looking for that thing that makes every day enjoyable. In addition to exploring why people love games and other high skill activities, it discusses the idea that we can learn how to turn every day tasks into activities that evoke the same reward centers. It doesn’t just dive into “people like games”, or “people like achieving hard things”, but it delves into why, a…
Thank you for the article. ~7 years ago, I realized I have a similar disposition - my best mental state is when I’m in a state of learning and being challenged. The struggle I’ve run into is when I look back and consider what “good” that thing I’ve been learning about has produced. For instance, I too love video games and have found immense enjoyment in them for many, many years but if I add up all my play logs and r…
“The best thing for being sad," replied Merlin, beginning to puff and blow, "is to learn something. That's the only thing that never fails. ... There is only one thing for it then — to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a lot of things there are to learn.”
― T.H. White, The Once and Future King
It’s the same with a good book, album, tv show, and movie.
My other half on the other hand, has no such interests, and thinks that I'm wasting my life away, while sitting on the couch watching netflix.
From there i played the entire collection - the ps1 version, crisis core, advent children, and then remake again.
Those months were fantastic - either playing, listening to the soundtrack, thinking about materia combinations. And it’s likely to consume another 3 months of my life when Rebirth releases.
For anyone currently looking for something that does this for you, may I suggest Advent of Code: https://adventofcode.com/ This is the first year I've really made time and space to enjoy it, and enjoy it I have. Also - this article ends on such a weird note given the message that the rest of it delivers. The author has finally realized how valuable it is to have something that gets them going, regardless of whether o…
- (a) be available at precisely midnight EST every day for an entire month. That would be 6am for me, not really feasible on working days for a full month.
- (b) be extremely good at a weird flavor of programming competition -- more often than not you don't win at AoC by writing better solutions, you just have to crank out a solution that you don't too long to type.
I like competitions, I really do, done them my entire life, but AoC is just not that interesting to me.
I'm just doing the problems every day ignoring the leaderboard, 48/50 stars, this year I'm on track to get 50/50 on Christmas day :)
I’m struggling in the worst way to get into any game at all. I have free time. I don’t feel guilt being “unproductive” with that time. But nothing feels motivating to continue with. In my teens and 20s it felt amazing to finish homework and have a late night ahead of me to really sink my teeth into an RPG or something. But for the past decade that magic is just gone. I don’t want to declare “I’ve grown and changed an…
Games are not your thing, whether be sure of being grown up or so etching else. And there is no intrinsic value of gaming unless you like it a lot. Forcing yourself into it makes zero sense.
Maybe, just maybe, it makes sense to try different things and chances are one of them will be it.
Maybe I just need more self-control, but I prefer non-games as hobbies. Programming, listening to music and podcasts, etc.
I believe this can be more generic, having something you're into makes every day enjoyable. I had that realization a couple of years ago. Happiness for me is doing less things I don't enjoy and more of the things I do enjoy. Gaming is nice because there is little effort to start. Just sit in front of a PC and play. Something like surfing requires more effort, getting changed, getting to a beach with waves, etc. I hat…
I think any therapist will tell you that it's best to have something to look forward to; probably small, near-term things as well as large, long-term goals. When you don't have anything to do, the future looks pretty grim. I've long given up on anything like finding some sort of meaning to all this, but I do try and find little enjoyable stuff to do. I think exercise is pretty key and applying the philosophy above of…
Games (especially video games) can be extremely distracting from doing the things you need to do. I'm in school and so I have to work hard to avoid these things because I will not do the work I need to do if I start playing a video game. Maybe I just need more self-control, but I prefer non-games as hobbies. Programming, listening to music and podcasts, etc.