Forest of the Mind
I’ve been writing articles, and I will write the whole thing thinking it was great. I do the proofreading and realize…this article is not great. I’ve done that a couple times now, and I guess I’m just not feeling it. All the articles I’ve written were not cutting it.
But I also want to post more, so I will probably be posting more personal, normal stuff like this. And don’t worry, they’re still mostly related to video games. And maybe some other media. The more I think about it, the more I realize how much design works with all media. The same choice and consequence in designing a film or video game works in other places as well. So I may be writing a little more on that as well.
So, Advanced Boredom is a state I’m in where I’m so bored that I can’t even choose to do the thing I want to do for fun. I will switch shows, games, or books that I’m consuming every ten minutes. It’s the worst. It may be related to guilt or it may be related to …guilt except from lack of productivity. Actually, it’s probably related to guilt. It is not ADD or ADHD, because that seems to have been ruled out by the psychiatrist. I do have attention problems, but, curiously enough, it is neither of those.
In the state of Advanced Boredom, I do not feel productive with my time, especially in the consumption of entertainment, and I seek this out by traveling through the different layers of games to try and fulfill that. Not fulfilling that means continuing the cycle. And I finally found one of the ways to break that. It is not always successful, and that usually means that the current boredom or stillness I’m in is not from guilt.
Oh, which brings to mind a point: Advanced Boredom is more like stillness. I do not mean peace. I mean stillness. Like…an empty indoor pool. Maybe you can hear muffled cars honking outside, and also the dripping of some water from somewhere. The dull lights humming just enough that you can notice it. This isn’t a fancy pool. There is cement everywhere and very little glass. No jacuzzi.
What do I do to get myself out of advanced boredom? I have to consume or study something that is new. I have to play a game I haven’t played or read a book I haven’t read. I can’t play that MMO that I have a thousand hours in. I can’t play the game I want to play for the 24th time. I need to play something new. I think part of it is bringing myself to focus on something that isn’t myself. Not that I am thinking about myself all the time, but because the guilt is associated with myself. It is getting into that flow of something I don’t know.
And that’s difficult. It is so easy to pop back into an old game. It is so easy to let the guilt consume me as I play Hearthstone even though I know I don’t want to be doing that. It is a dangerous spiral. I think this is a remnant from the productivity thing. I still feel guilt over things like that. I still don’t feel like I’ve succeeded in life to demand any sort of relief. I feel guilty for being allowed to do the things that I want.
Ultimately, I feel that perhaps this isn’t as healthy as I think. I am still satisfying that guilt. And while I really do feel great for doing something new, I need myself to come to terms with the fact that I should not be consuming any media out of guilt. I should not be doing things because of guilt. Guilt can be used as a way to motivate myself, but I feel like it’s doing harm in the realm of how “productive” my fun time can be. Maybe if I’m at work, but not here. I don’t think it’s healthy if it’s here in my entertainment space.
The mind is a forest that is extremely difficult to understand. We can map it out, but becoming a navigator is much more difficult. I never thought that playing games would be so complicated and mentally exhausting, but this is reality. I want to grow as a person, as a video gamer, and I will need to manage these things if I am to do so. Although I long for the simpler times of just playing games because I love games, I also enjoy this exploration of the self that helps me be a healthier me.
Thanks for listening to my ramblings, and I hope that you can find healthy ways to navigate the forest of the mind.
If all goes as planned, I will see you again later this week!
Elise
Game Praisers 