My Joy For Gaming, Replaced By Endless Productivity

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I don’t know when it happened, or even how it happened. But I know it did. I used to get home from work and spend most of my free time consuming another game. That was in my twenties, mostly, and also in the space of time that I was unemployed and suffering disability-levels of anxiety. But then something changed, and I became a machine.

Most days I come home from work, now, and I immediately load up VS Code and start typing. But before that it was music, and before that it was writing, and my Second Life store, or analyzing social media trying to figure out how to expand my audience. Why? Why do I now suddenly spend maybe five hours a week gaming, and the rest of my time just making things? I mean, I know why.

It’s partially my need, and want, to do something special, to do something people remember, or celebrate. But it’s also my need for self fulfillment. I used to go to work, come home, and just do whatever, and be content with that, and always that. But I’m not content in that anymore.

I went to tech school in the middle of high school to learn to code. I wanted to be a full time web developer. I wanted to be sitting at a computer, analyzing networks, building more efficient web apps, and just … basking in the code. And that was stolen from me. I don’t know if I stole it from myself, or if society pushed me into a place where I subconsciously deemed my lifelong dream career as secondary to what I needed to do in the here and now.

Except, we’re at the now, and even through accomplishment, and self improvement, there’s still just more struggle.

It hardly even bothers me anymore that I might just be single the rest of my life. It bothers me more that I’ve been doing all of these things, and building websites, especially, since 19-frikken-99, and I’m … opening boxes for a retailer? I’m wearing a vest and driving into a big box store, and I’m clocking eight hours, and just going home, and thinking … is this the rest of my life?

I think the switch came on when I realized that it wasn’t.

And now I’m terrified of stagnation.

That’s the post. I don’t really know how to remedy this, short of continuing to submit my resume to places hoping something sticks.