Health

It feels like, I might have made one of those classic blunders of spring: underestimating how cold it still is. The last probably week or more, I have felt more or less a bit down as far as energy goes, and a bit of a stuffy or runny nose. Now I know what one might suspect, that it might be the great spectre of our times, COVID-19, but I think the likelyhood for that is extremely low, considering the measures I take to be safe. Even if it were the case, it would seem I am one of the lucky ones, considering how long I have been in this state and no worse symptoms appearing so far.

It does have the unfortunate side-effect of making it a bit more difficult for me to actually enjoy spring, since I’m less likely than before to go out and enjoy the rather good weather we have been having here for the most part, but to be fair that is something I’m generally not all that likely to do—even if I do still want to get into the habit of doing some more exploring.

There is another somewhat strange thing accompanying all of this, namely I have been noticing lately a certain difficulty in falling asleep lately, and wasn’t initially quite sure what to attribute it to: mental health state, stress, or what? But it is slowly dawning on me, that the most obvious change has been a increase in evening mental activity on my part, in this case in the form of reading more again, a couple of hours before going to sleep. Now it has been very nice to be reading this much again and I have certainly missed it just like I had missed playing a good RPG, but I think I need to come to terms with the fact that it is actually a highly stimulating activity for me when it is as interesting as it is at the moment, which means I need to take some time to recover afterwards before going to sleep. It’s funny in a sense, having reading which seems so passive be something I need to recover from, but I guess adventures in other worlds are anything but relaxing.

There is another rather fortuitous link between these two things, namely taking a day and just hanging out in bed reading seems like a rather splendid idea in order to try to recover from whatever ailment I might be suffering from at the moment, maybe even several days. I shall try this, then, and hopefully by this time next week I am feeling somewhat better, hopefully once more in more of a mood to do other things than just reading. It is the most excellent of distractions though, whisking me away from life as it is to the troubles of someone else, the worries of my own fading away for a moment, replaced by the adventures of others, comforting in their distance.

I’m recently noticing, that I seem to have something of a problem. Namely, I’m often not quite sure what I enjoy anymore. I don’t think I’m completely incapable of having fun, even if I do have difficulty putting my finger on exactly when it is happening—though I suppose that is often so, not something one thinks of in the moment—but it does feel like there are a lot of things I do either out of habit or because I like the idea of being a person who does that thing or liking something, instead of doing it because I actually enjoy it.

At the same time, it feels like my fear of failure might at times go deeper than I had even realized before, to a point of actually contributing to the problem. I noticed this most distinctly recently, when loaning a book. Firstly, finding a book that seemed intersting enough to try wasn’t actually all that difficult, loaning it however took some thinking because I just kind of kept wondering: “what if I can’t finish this book either?”, probably because I actually do have a number of unfinished books I could be reading but am not.

Even once I got past that first hurdle, actually reading the book was also difficult because even though I think I was enjoying it and making decent pace, I kept second-guessing both my enjoyment and my capability to actually finish the book, along with a certain level of guilt of not having finished the other books I have started and why am I reading something new instead of those.

I worry, that this mentality of unfinished things, even things I might not want to finish, are bothering me to a degree of actually then being unable to enjoy the things I usually enjoy, and the guilt making it hard to actually do those things I want to do.

I also worry, that I not only need but also want to actually make rather drastic changes to how I am living life, since as noted above it feels like I am letting habit and familiarity determine the things I do regardless of enjoyment instead of actually changing things and doing things I enjoy. Why is this worrying? Because big change isn’t easy, and that means it will take a good while to actually get done, which means the status quo which I seem to not be overly enjoying at the moment is likely to continue for some time going forward.

On the other hand, having identified the possibility of this being the case, does allow me to make smaller changes that I think are where I want to be, and thus test the waters as it were and see if those changes are ones I would actually enjoy making.

Thinking through what I have written, once more having been one of those journies we take together dear reader, it seems to me the problem is that unfinished tasks or desires have a cost associated with them, and unfortunately that cost also makes it more difficult to actually finish them. I suppose, along with testing out different things I actually do want to do, I should look into ways of enabling myself to actually do the things I want to do instead of just thinking about doing them. That’s the hard part though, I suppose, taking that risk of actually doing, potentially failing or just simply not enjoying it. That’s another thing, then, allowing myself to say: this wasn’t for me, I’ll do something else instead; without it becoming some sort of mark of shame.

This was already unusually rambly, so I think best end it there, though I think I discovered more new questions than answered old ones.

I had some shoulder pain again recently, and in order to let them recover a bit I decided to just lie in bed as ergonomically as I could, opting to just take the time and think a bit. It’s something I don’t really do all that often, letting my mind just wander without any distractions, except for perhaps the walks I take daily. There is something different about it though when there is no activity or pressure attached to it though, just relaxing I suppose one could say.

That it was as well, rather unsurprisingly, rather relaxing, and much nicer than when I am actually intending to go to sleep, since then there is always the pressure of actually trying to fall asleep and wanting to get a good night’s sleep at the back of my mind. It feels like it’s something I should try to take the time to do more often, since it essentially something I almost never do. At the same time, there is somewhat of a reason for that, it very easily becoming rather boring especially as I am someone who is not particularily good at just focusing on a single thing for extended periods of time unless it really grips me, so trying to stay focused on nothing is a challenge to say the least.

It does however, feel like part of a trend going on with me in general, trying to change small habits that I have developed along the way that may not always be so helpful. Another small thing I have been doing during my walks recently, is merely looking up and around me more. As noted above, they kind of used to be me being completely immersed in my own thoughts—to the point of being rather oblivious to my surroundings with the exception of the little detail I needed to actually find my way, mostly looking at the ground before my feet—and passing the time that way, but now I’m more trying to once again soak in my surroundings and actually to a degree simply let my mind rest instead of working it all the time. It’s strange, but in a way actually being alert and looking at my surroundings is less mentally taxing than thinking all the time, since there isn’t much I need to act upon in my observations.

The one drawback to this one might say, is that my surroundings while I am walking become that tad more important since I am actually looking at them instead of merely passing them by, but I guess that is an opportunity to go exploring and seeing new things as well.

Writing these posts is strange sometimes, since it takes me on a journey into myself, making me realize things about my own behaviour and feelings that I hadn’t thought about beforehand, and I end up just writing down those observations as I go along, on a shared journey of discovery of sorts. Starting out, I hadn’t even realized the similarity of these two experiences, and the thing connecting them: letting my mind freely wander, not thinking about anything specific or trying to entertain myself, just letting it roam. It seems that is something I’ve missed, not quite realizing it. To be fair, it can get boring rather easily, and it’s not something I could or would spend the whole day doing, but I think taking more opportunities to just be is something I will be keeping my eye open for.

I used to have this thing, when playing Cities Skilines or games like it, where I remembered it existed, get really excited because I do like city-builders, social games and the like, play it rather obsessively that day usually forgetting to go to sleep, and then not touching the game again for a year or more.

I am now, however slowly, weaning myself off of this, dipping into the game for an hour or two when I think of something to do or get inspired, doing what I can think of and then just closing the game again when I get bored. There is something strange about this to me, since I somehow get the feeling I don’t like the game if I can’t obsess about it which isn’t true, so being able to do this is in a way a learning experience.

It feels like, this tendency to want to have something to do that consumes every fiber of my being for the time I am doing it and anything less is not even worth considering to do makes actually enjoying smaller things more difficult to me, to the point of when I can’t dedicate a significant chunk of time to doing something I tend to kind of aimlessly sit at the computer, bored, but unable to start anything since I feel like I don’t have the time. Now, there are probably other contributing factors as well to this feeling, and wanting something one enjoys very much to do isn’t a bad thing in and of itself, but the point where it is with me where I have difficulties doing things I enjoy because it doesn’t feel worth it getting started on doing them, well that feels like a bad thing.

So far, I have been moderately succesful in this endeavor, in that I am still at times dipping into Cities Skylines specifically when I find the time and motivation and that of course varies but is still somewhat constant, and generally ends up being at least a couple of times a month. However, it hasn’t been necessarily an easy task doing so and I feel there is a rather big amount of additional work and time invested that goes into it on my part, especially since I rather often end up watching videos on other people doing builds which then inspire me to actually start playing again—it isn’t really something I all that often find the motivation to do on my own. Even then, that also isn’t always succesful in inspiring me and I do definitely watch the videos more often than I end up actually playing the game, which does mean I am in a sense keeping invested in the game even though I might not be playing it myself at the time, which perhaps through a cruel twist of fate actually makes me less likely to play it since I already get my fix as it were through other people’s experiences.

So it is a question of inspiration or am I actually sabotaging my own motivation? I honestly don’t know at this time, all I know is I want to do things more often but actually doing things is so much effort that it never ends up happening, so maybe living through others during those times is good so that I don’t just end up staring at the ceiling—or maybe the opposite is true, and I need that boredom without other stimulus in order to motivate me to change things? Not sure, and this has gone enough off the rails already as it is, so I’m going to end it here, but I guess there was even more to this topic than I thought and I might have to have a long think about some things.

Earlier this year, I stopped my habit of writing something in my diary daily. I’m not quite sure why, it just happened, one day I didn’t write anything and the next day just kind of followed from there. It might partially have been just that, missing out on one day leading to a demotivational spiral, where it didn’t feel like something I could do or perhaps needed to do. On reflection, I am also noticing a certain trend in the writing I did, where I had kind of hit a pattern of seemingly writing the same thing with different words and not really taking the time to actually reflect and write what was meaningful about that day.

Now, certainly, days that don’t necessarily have anything meanginful to them—at least on a personal level—do exist, but the lack of actually having the habit and taking the time to reflect on the day also definitely lead to me not writing about the days that did have something important in them and consequently not reflecting and perhaps remembering that.

I think the more important part might be, rather than forcing myself to write something, anything, to take the time and think if there is anything I would like to write that day if I haven’t done so already, or perhaps catching up the following day if anything comes to mind while lying about to sleep. The self-empathy of not punishing myself for missing out on recording something when there isn’t anything to record is important, as is I think recording it when it was meaningful to me that day. What’s meaningful might change with space and time, but that doesn’t lessen its importance in the moment, so thinking about it and actually processing it instead of supressing it is a good start.

So the last week or so—could be longer, could be shorter, it’s hard to keep track of time for me—I have actually been writing pretty much on the daily again. There were some difficulties and perhaps more boring entries during the start, though even then I did have thing to record from the previous weeks that I had neglected before so I actually ended up surprising myself with the amount of writing I had to do. It’s a strange feeling sometimes, of only actually realizing what I have been thinking about and feeling when I need to put it into words and write it down, since before that time it has merely been an unacknowledged ambigious feeling, the process of writing it down makes it all more concrete. It doesn’t always yield all of the answers, but it is a helpful tool on the way there.

I am not quite where I would like to be with the process yet, since it is perhaps too frequent occurrence that I don’t yet take the time to do this reflection and end up doing it in bed before sleeping instead, making both falling asleep as well as actually recording it accurately more difficult than it needs to be—I tend to do it the following day so as to not make falling asleep even more difficult—but this is a learning experience for me, and making mistakes and not being perfect from the start are allowed.

It’s a curious thing really, since this blog has become sort of another diary for me, chronicling my thoughts and feelings, but due to the different audiences and levels of privacy, the content is quite different. At the same time, despite those differences, both mediums help me process my thoughts and feelings and are a valuable tools in doing so.

I think I’m slowly starting to come to terms with the fact, that I don’t especially like failure. Now, you might think that that’s true for everyone, and sure to a certain degree that is probably true, but I’m very much noticing that I’m avoiding situations and activities where failure is a possibility, or at least enjoying such things a whole lot less. It just tends to, frustrate me I guess? Instead of becoming a learning opportunity and something I take as a lesson, I just end up all too easily giving up and doing something else.

This has been coming up in several different contexts in recent times, and also partially because I do quite a bit more self-reflection at the moment in general. Most recently I noticed this with Rise to Ruins, a kind of roguelike city-builder I suppose, where while I was enjoying the gameplay just fine and learning how it all works, my villagers started dying of starvation even though there was some food available—not much to be fair, I hadn’t prepared for the season properly, but there was a little food available and they didn’t really need to starve it felt like, and more was being prepared the whole time—and I just kind of ended up stopping playing at that point.

Now, the game bills itself as being hard and having a learning curve and saying that you won’t succeed the first time around, so this experience is something I should’ve expected going into it, but it’s still something that left me feeling like not wanting to play the game anymore and that feeling remains even though several weeks have passed since. My thoughts do wander to the game occasionally to be fair, so maybe I end up trying it again at some point, but we’ll see.

Another example that comes to mind, last summer as I was playing through RPGs I mostly ended up playing them on something like easy, which is a bit out of the ordinary for me since I most often tend to play things on normal or the equivalent. This was partially motivated by me not being such a huge friend of the resource management in the spells system that tends to be present in the type of D&D-inspired RPGs I was playing, but even though that wasn’t really the case in Pillars of Eternity II I still played the game on easy, so I’m not quite sure that was the whole reason. Now, to be fair, for me the more interesting part is the story and the social interactions anyway and the combat I don’t find overly interesting, and it quite simply just felt more relaxing doing it this way around and I’m not advocating that everyone needs to always do things the hardest way possible or that something has to be difficult for it to be enjoyable but these are merely observations of a pattern in recent times.

I stated before, that I don’t really believe failure is something that provides a great deal of joy to most people, even if they do then end up learning from it, and that it is then later the application of that learning and seeing the improvement that provides the joy. But it feels, therein lies the rub for me at the moment, I feel uncomfortable putting myself in situations where I don’t feel safe being able to succeed instantly, and when that doesn’t happen I feel all the more bad about my failure since it was something where I was expecting to succeed and am not able to gleam as much learning as might be possible from it. My problem, as it were, is not with failing itself but the reaction and mindset surrounding it that I have at the moment, and that is something I feel I need to work on.

I worry I might be paralysing myself with fear to a degree, where I find it more difficult to start with things since I fear I might not succeed—or perhaps my difficulties with starting things are mostly unrelated and at some point worth a post of their own.

The last week or two, I’ve been feeling rather stressed and overwhelmed. I’m starting to think all the things I wanted to do with the release of the new expansion, along with holiday preparations going on at home, might’ve been biting of a bit more than I can chew. Now sure, it’s not that I wouldn’t have the time for all of it, but rather I’m just so very exhausted at the moment and would really need a break from everything that doesn’t seem to be forthcoming anytime soon—probably not this year at least.

It feels a bit strange, complaining about doing the things I actually want to do, but it’s still the way of things at the moment. The problem with all of that, of course, is that because I end up feeling overwhelmed by it all I kind of end up retreating into myself and not actually doing all the things. Some, sure, but not everything.

What probably isn’t helping is the somewhat precarious mental state I was in even before all of this got started, but I guess that all just means I’ve somthing to work through.