Today we're going to be bathing in the depths of my angst so if you feel like skipping this entry and picking up again in a day or two when I write something less self-involved, I don't fault you in the least.
I read on a message board yesterday about some guy who had a flash of enlightenment in the pork rind section of 7-11. He was just standing there looking for something to eat and *poof* the normal filters in his brain that kept him from being overwhelmed by all the color, sound, and smell in the world dropped for a moment and he almost cried from the misleading brutality of the advertising on the packages.
He wondered how anyone could live in the midst of such a poor-quality environment and still be present with themselves all the time.
Someone else went off on their own tangent in the thread and posted a list of different defense mechanisms that people use to avoid being present. I don't know where he got the list or how valid it was, but regardless of that, he was right about escapism being one of the ways that people avoid being present.
Just a day before I had watched a fantastic documentary called Cinemania centered on hard-core film-buffs in New York who see three or four films a day -- and have for decades. They don't go to funerals, weddings, anything, because their schedule won't allow it. They're trapped by it. Most are on disability.
I'm familiar with this to an extent. I play World of Warcraft four hours a day, minimum. Weekends come and I'm racking up a good eight, nine, ten, twelve hours broken up just by brief breaks for food and errands. Literally, a quarter of my life these past two months has been spent entirely on this video game.
These marathon play sessions are not often as much fun as I would like them to be. Without meaning to, I've figured out the game mechanics and so there's very little creativity left. Most of the time, I'm just grinding, fighting the same "most rewarding" monsters over and over by myself hundreds of times in a row. It's less "play-time" and more "work-time." I find the few moments of real enjoyment come from socializing with my online friends more than the playing of the game itself, but I end up playing anyway.
Within the next two weeks though I'll hit a small crisis, because my character will hit level 60 and thereby stop advancing. Sure, there's stuff to do after that, like mass-battles and so on, but the game will take on more of a character of a light diversion, than an endless role-playing game. I'm not interested in the long dungeon crawls, so for the most part, I'll be done.
I look back over the past decade though and realize that when I look at my previous hobbies, I've always been obsessed to the point where the hobby wasn't an actual object of fun anymore: it was an escape from being alone .
Some of my obsessions have been better, quality-wise than others; like back when I was a voracious reader I once devoured five hundred novels in a single year, or when I skateboarded every afternoon with my friends and became a talented amateur skater, or when I ran a free-hosting business and had fifty-thousand people using my services, or when I wrote a novel in a month. I was being productive with these things so even though each had a core of escape, distraction, and entertainment -- it ended up being good, even though the massive hours spent on it weren't so good.
Other obsessions I've taken up at one time or another were much less healthy; like when I got stoned every night for a year, or when I was a moderator on marijuana.com for a few months, or when I grew psychedelic mushrooms, or when I took up raving and gobbled ecstasy every weekend until I exhausted my brain's supply of serotonin and temporarily became an extrovert... those were bad in much more obvious ways.
My behavior through each period was obviously escapist in intent, implying that I was escaping from something horrible inside like an urge to murder my parents or to burn down a barn or something. Sadly though, it was always just mild depression and dissatisfaction with my lot in life, usually related to work or money, almost the textbook definition of angst, rather than rage.
But even angst bottled up can become crazy, fierce when one has spent all weekend doing something that they didn't really enjoy. Once in a while, I'd hit a flash point and think, "What the fuck am I doing?" and for a few days, I'd be moderately depressed at how pathetic I was and act out irritably. But after venting some of it off, I'd feel better, and my behavior would be more varied and interesting.
Eventually though, I'd have a few bad days at work with very little time to myself and as soon as I got some free time, the cycle would begin anew.
It's occured to me today though that there may be a way out.
The key to the whole cycle I experience is the angst. It's not a particularly intense emotion, but the more time I spend actively ignoring it, the more problems I have to feel angst about because now I'm pissed off that I'm letting the trash bags pile up and I haven't picked up the mail in two days .
It seems obvious that either I have to diffuse the angst, or I need to regularly vent it off. It could even be a vehicle for creativity if properly focused. And I'd really like to be more moderate in my activities, so I have more to talk about to people. It's tough being a good conversationalist when all that comes to recent memory in the way of anecdotes is amusing video-game moments.
I'm not much of an artist, but I like making websites. It's a shame that everything I've ever done before with the web was focused around making money. I'd have had much more fun if I had spent all that time just doing it for the sake of being creative itself. So that's what I think I'm going to do. And hopefully, by using the angst rather than running away from it, I'll diffuse the situation while making interesting work and maybe become a more well-rounded person in the process.
It's not a particularly earth-shaking revelation, but it comes as a surprise to me.
I read on a message board yesterday about some guy who had a flash of enlightenment in the pork rind section of 7-11. He was just standing there looking for something to eat and *poof* the normal filters in his brain that kept him from being overwhelmed by all the color, sound, and smell in the world dropped for a moment and he almost cried from the misleading brutality of the advertising on the packages.
He wondered how anyone could live in the midst of such a poor-quality environment and still be present with themselves all the time.
Someone else went off on their own tangent in the thread and posted a list of different defense mechanisms that people use to avoid being present. I don't know where he got the list or how valid it was, but regardless of that, he was right about escapism being one of the ways that people avoid being present.
Just a day before I had watched a fantastic documentary called Cinemania centered on hard-core film-buffs in New York who see three or four films a day -- and have for decades. They don't go to funerals, weddings, anything, because their schedule won't allow it. They're trapped by it. Most are on disability.
I'm familiar with this to an extent. I play World of Warcraft four hours a day, minimum. Weekends come and I'm racking up a good eight, nine, ten, twelve hours broken up just by brief breaks for food and errands. Literally, a quarter of my life these past two months has been spent entirely on this video game.
These marathon play sessions are not often as much fun as I would like them to be. Without meaning to, I've figured out the game mechanics and so there's very little creativity left. Most of the time, I'm just grinding, fighting the same "most rewarding" monsters over and over by myself hundreds of times in a row. It's less "play-time" and more "work-time." I find the few moments of real enjoyment come from socializing with my online friends more than the playing of the game itself, but I end up playing anyway.
Within the next two weeks though I'll hit a small crisis, because my character will hit level 60 and thereby stop advancing. Sure, there's stuff to do after that, like mass-battles and so on, but the game will take on more of a character of a light diversion, than an endless role-playing game. I'm not interested in the long dungeon crawls, so for the most part, I'll be done.
I look back over the past decade though and realize that when I look at my previous hobbies, I've always been obsessed to the point where the hobby wasn't an actual object of fun anymore: it was an escape from being alone .
Some of my obsessions have been better, quality-wise than others; like back when I was a voracious reader I once devoured five hundred novels in a single year, or when I skateboarded every afternoon with my friends and became a talented amateur skater, or when I ran a free-hosting business and had fifty-thousand people using my services, or when I wrote a novel in a month. I was being productive with these things so even though each had a core of escape, distraction, and entertainment -- it ended up being good, even though the massive hours spent on it weren't so good.
Other obsessions I've taken up at one time or another were much less healthy; like when I got stoned every night for a year, or when I was a moderator on marijuana.com for a few months, or when I grew psychedelic mushrooms, or when I took up raving and gobbled ecstasy every weekend until I exhausted my brain's supply of serotonin and temporarily became an extrovert... those were bad in much more obvious ways.
My behavior through each period was obviously escapist in intent, implying that I was escaping from something horrible inside like an urge to murder my parents or to burn down a barn or something. Sadly though, it was always just mild depression and dissatisfaction with my lot in life, usually related to work or money, almost the textbook definition of angst, rather than rage.
But even angst bottled up can become crazy, fierce when one has spent all weekend doing something that they didn't really enjoy. Once in a while, I'd hit a flash point and think, "What the fuck am I doing?" and for a few days, I'd be moderately depressed at how pathetic I was and act out irritably. But after venting some of it off, I'd feel better, and my behavior would be more varied and interesting.
Eventually though, I'd have a few bad days at work with very little time to myself and as soon as I got some free time, the cycle would begin anew.
It's occured to me today though that there may be a way out.
The key to the whole cycle I experience is the angst. It's not a particularly intense emotion, but the more time I spend actively ignoring it, the more problems I have to feel angst about because now I'm pissed off that I'm letting the trash bags pile up and I haven't picked up the mail in two days .
It seems obvious that either I have to diffuse the angst, or I need to regularly vent it off. It could even be a vehicle for creativity if properly focused. And I'd really like to be more moderate in my activities, so I have more to talk about to people. It's tough being a good conversationalist when all that comes to recent memory in the way of anecdotes is amusing video-game moments.
I'm not much of an artist, but I like making websites. It's a shame that everything I've ever done before with the web was focused around making money. I'd have had much more fun if I had spent all that time just doing it for the sake of being creative itself. So that's what I think I'm going to do. And hopefully, by using the angst rather than running away from it, I'll diffuse the situation while making interesting work and maybe become a more well-rounded person in the process.
It's not a particularly earth-shaking revelation, but it comes as a surprise to me.
VIEW 3 of 3 COMMENTS
fractured:
I definitely relate to the obsessions and the built up angst with occasional flash points. Obsessing over one activity is easier for me to avoid through conscious effort, although I then have to worry about spreading myself too thin. The latter is something I think and hope will go away as I progress towards my goals.
rynray:
You are so thorough here. Here's a project: get your novel published. Escape in the adventure of finding a perfect publisher. Yeesh. Break the damn game. If you want to feel less angst my suggestion is this: pack music, snacks, water a book to read and a book to write and leave your home. Escapism is angst's remedy. But escape literally, not in a game. Believe you me, why? why not. 