There are few things I’d consider more clandestine or held close to my heart than the truth. I have a dodgy and complicated relationship with the truth, embracing and accepting it, as well as with reality itself. You see, I don’t enjoy life as much as I had expected to as a child. The work, the bills, the complicated relationships I have, the less complicated ones I no longer do, and the being sad for no real reason at the worst possible times which makes being happy feel like a potential rug pull.
I love to disappear. As a child it was my imagination that would take me wherever I needed to go to escape my frustrating circumstances. As a young adult it was heroin that brought me somewhere better, like an Uber driver that ran on dopamine living inside my central nervous system. Now, as a not young adult, my escape is relationships and video games, one of which involves fighting battles I’d lost time and time again until I win, and the other being entertainment software.
I want to leave everything here. I’ve written and spoken extensively about my frustration with having bipolar disorder and past struggles with addiction. I do not feel inclined to rehash any of that. Rather, this is about escaping, (for the first time in my history of writing, I will use a “curse” word”) or not fucking existing as yourself for a while.
Recently, I’ve trained myself to wake up extra early to play Red Dead Redemption 2. Not the story or side missions. No, instead I hop on my horse and ride into Rhodes (though I did recently do a story mission which makes Rhodes no longer a town I’m no longer welcome in) and I head to the local saloon. I order a drink, usually a whiskey because Arther (unlike myself) doesn’t gag like a baby eating a buffalo sauce drenched onion when he down the shot, then I get my bath. I turn down the offered service from the ladies working the floor because this is my “me” time. Finally, I take a seat at the blackjack table and play for at least 20 minutes, or until I have lost 12 in game dollars. Then I stand up, bid farewell to my new fake friends, and I leave. Shutting off the game and coming back to the our reality that is a brutally depressing cyberpunk future.
Why tell you any of this? Because it tends to be the best part of my day. Do not take pity on me, this is entirely my fault, I chose this life. You see, once I finish my game, I get ready to go to a mentally demanding job where I go non-stop for 8 hours before heading home too mentally and physically exhausted to do anything. It blows and sucks. Lately, every night I’ll hop onto Yakuza Gaiden or play more Red Dead Redemption 2 while forcing myself to stay up late enough to not feel like my entire life is controlled by my profession. I’ve seen this struggle posted online several times in the last couple of years, especially once the latest Diablo game came out. I would see folks my age saying they’re just too tired to play more than an hour or so of a game a day. That or they’re just too busy with life itself.
I don’t have a wife or kids, and with every passing year that ship gets closer to sailing, so my free time is my own, but I do get annoyingly sad out of nowhere and have all my ambitions sucked away, which keeps me in bed instead of enjoying anything. Possibly, one of my favorite album titles of all time is Earl Sweatshirts I Don’t Like Shit, I Don’t Go Outside. I think of that title at least once per week and I’ve listened to it in my office and at home, start to finish, at least twice. It’s a good one. That title encapsulates and describes the way I tend to feel every couple of weeks perfectly. I don’t like shit; I don’t go outside. I love manga, anime, video games, YouTube videos by folks like Kyle Bosman and Grimbeard, but when that depression hits, I can’t be bothered. Things just don’t mean anything. I had a rough weekend, spent my entire Saturday in bed trying to convince myself to get up and write anything. Luckily, today has been a bit better and I managed to put pen to paper or rather fingers to keys.
Every year I put together an Excel doc and fill the cells with things I want to do that year, colors green through red representing their importance. The cells will display things like “start a new career” or “fall in love” or “make YouTube videos”, (I accomplished 1.5 of those 3 this year) but generally I end up doing the same things that year that I did the year prior. Play video games, go to work, get depressed, give up, and repeat. It feels like I’ve spent years doing donuts in a cul-de-sac occasionally wondering how far I’d have driven if I wasn’t spinning in circles. This year, on this website, I’ll be posting that list publicly and I invite you to remind me of it or even do the same. The point of the website, after all, is to meet people with similar intentions to yourself.
Thank you for reading what at best has been a loosely structured blog post. I’m working on some end of the year stuff and looking for more people to get involved. If you’re interested feel free to sign up and join our Discord server. Writing this felt pretty good, I’ll do it again sometime soon.
Man, can relate. I get stuck in those ruts daily. Soul-crushing job and all.
Glad you enjoyed it Baldy!