Mind Your Own God Damn Business

I hope that everybody had a good New Year. I celebrated mine in such a way that I ended up coming home at 2 in the afternoon the next day, feeling like I had just been pinched out of a clown’s butthole. I was tired, a little hung over, and on the verge of getting sick (while I was visiting family in Golden earlier this week, my little cousin did his level best to give me a cold by refusing to cover his mouth when he coughed and ignoring personal space boundaries. Since then, I’ve felt the virus trying to take foot, but so far I have managed to fight it off). I got back into my bed at 4 PM, woke up for a few minutes for dinner and then slept until midnight, which is now. I feel much more rested and far less like I’m going to get sick now. Nonetheless, I anticipate writing this and then getting back into my bed and sleeping for six or seven more hours. So far, 2009 has been very relaxing for me, I guess.

I hope that everyone else has had a good New Year too. I’m feeling pretty good so far. Looking back at me from January 1st, 2008, I think I’m in a better place, which is good.

I was chatting with a friend the other day, and I realized that I spent most of my 20′s learning not to hate myself, and now that I’ve pulled that off, my life has been a lot easier. I feel like a different person now, even though almost all of the change is just my perception of myself. It’s sad to look back at all of the opportunities I missed out on and inappropriate things I let happen to me between 19 and now just because I was so down on myself all the time, but I’m glad that I hate myself a little bit less now.

So, I made a horrible mistake for 2009: I made a resolution. I got the idea from an article someone shared with me in my RSS feeds.

I’m going to try to avoid video games for all of 2009. I don’t know if it’s that good an idea, or if I’ll even be able to pull it off, but I’m going to find out. Most of the people that I’ve told this about want to know why, exactly, I’m planning on doing it and what I hope to accomplish.

The answer is that I’m not entirely sure, exactly. I’m not trying to make some sort of statement. I’m not hoping that this is the first step in completely cutting video games out of my life permanently. I like video games, and plan on continuing to play them in the future. I don’t have some far more productive activity planned instead, either. Maybe I’ll get more writing done or take up piano or something, but maybe it’ll just free up a few more hours a day for me to masturbate or develop a coke habit. I just know that I spend a pretty large amount of time during the year playing games of some sort, and I’m not sure that there are any real tangible benefits to it. I think video games are pretty benign. I don’t think they’re harmful, but I’m not really sure that I’m making that much growth by playing them either. When I waste two hours dicking around on the Internet, at least I learn some useless information of some sort. In fact, I just took an hour long break from this post to read about people who live in vans that they have converted into relatively comfortable homes, and I’m now in one of those retarded moments where I’m fired up about something that I don’t actually care about, so I’m half convinced that I should purchase a van and convert it so I can live in it. On an unrelated note, I’m beginning to think that I might have a little bit of ADD. What were we talking about?

Oh yeah. Things that I do besides video games that I think have benefits, no matter how minuscule. When I read a book, even if it’s relatively airy, I feel like I’ve learned something. When I write a blog post, I’ve upped the chance, no matter how slightly, that somebody can find it someday and eventually use it against me.

Actually, after a little bit more thought, I think that it boils down to this: although I really enjoy them, I also tend to use them as time wasters. I play games that I really like, but I also sometimes play games that I’m not that excited about as a way to kill time. If I’m a little bit bored, or I want to put something off, or I just want to slack, I automatically default to video games, and I don’t really do that with other things. If I read a book, it’s because I wanted to read it. If I write something, it’s because I wanted to write it. If I play a video game, sometimes it’s because I wanted to play it, but sometimes it’s because it’s easier than doing something else. I want to stop doing that.

So, we’ll see what happens. Maybe it will help me turn video games into something I only do for recreation instead of something that I do for recreation and to fill time while I’m waiting to die. Maybe I’ll become more productive. Maybe I’ll quit after a week. Maybe I’ll end up finding some other way to waste my time (I think that’s probably the most likely answer). I don’t know. But I’m interested to find out.

Kind of. It’s only been 12 hours, and I am seriously pissed off so far. I tried to use the bathroom today and reached for my DS before remembering that I couldn’t play it for another 364 days. I sat there, irritated and befuddled for a minute, trying to figure out how in God’s name I was supposed to use a toilet for the next year if I couldn’t play puzzle quest. I settled for a book. The fact that I am no longer capable of pooping without a gameboy in my hands is probably an indication that I need a little break from games.

Well, it is now two in the morning and my computer is beeping at me because the CPU is too hot. I should probably turn it off, go back to bed and blow all of the dust bunnies out of the heat sink when I wake up. I’ll keep you updated about how my attempt to stop playing games for a year goes. I can tell you right now that when I get into bed, it’s going to drive me up the wall to not be able to play games for a while before falling asleep.

This trend that I’m starting to notice where I can’t perform basic human functions without a controller of some sort in my hands is making me wonder if this isn’t so much a casual New Year’s resolution as much as a wake up call, letting me know that I have a serious problem. I’ll probably be in the hospital in a couple of days, dying of malnutrition and exposure in a soiled pair of pants because I can’t play Wii.

Either way, it’s time to go back to bed. Happy 2009.