I'm not sure what my point is for documenting this, or for documenting this here. Apparently it is of some importance to me because I can't seem to focus on anything else. Maybe this isn't the right comm for this? If so, let me know and I'll move/remove.

Like a lot of people, I picked up some new habits and routines during the COVID pandemic lockdown, some good and some were coping mechanisms. The two categories were not as brightly defined at the time, there's nothing wrong with coping during periods of stress. I often joke that before pandemic, I was a 185 lbs rock-climbing vegan. Now I'm basically none of those things. What I am though, is a gamer. Before covid I would play video games, sometimes quite frequently, but never so much that I became actually good at anything I played. This has changed.

Since the beginning of covid, I have played Bloodborne for something like 1700 hours, Destiny 2 for about 1600 hours, and logged probably around 1000 hours in Monsterhunter World and Rise combined. I have friends who were also in lockdown playing a lot of videogames and interacting on discord, though this has mostly fallen off and I have gamed mostly solo for about the last year or so. Last year when I finally lost interest in Destiny 2, I started up playing Bloodborne again. I joined the huntersbell community on discord, and helped new players navigate the difficult that, and vibing with veteran players. After less than two months, having completed at least 6 or 7 full playthroughs, including 3 full runs of the optional story chalice dungeons, I became annoyed with the discord server because soulsborne players can be really toxic, left and put the game away shortly after. Haven't played it since this past week.

There was definitely a part of me that misses playing games with good friends. One of the reasons I have so much time in a mostly single-player story, is because the coop was the way I and two other friends spent time. Every day. For hours. The same is true of Destiny 2 and I only played for another season or 2 after a good friend dropped off, and then another. I didn't pick up Bloodborne again a week ago to be social, but it wasn't long before I had rejoined the huntersbell server to try and pick up some games. So I assume I was after some of these feelings of comeraderie. The fact that I was coping with covid, and was feeling antsy after finally finishing MHR and wanting something familiar to play, also contributed I believe.

Well last night I was playing and in that server, when a few of the veteran members pounced on me for seemingly no reason (giving inaccurate/incomplete advice while in the middle of typing it all out.) The whole thing made me so turned off I don't really want to go back at all. Not just to the discord server, but to that game or really any game ever again. There is a finality that I feel and almost a mourning. Although it could all be fake and I'll be back again in a week. I don't know. I can feel the pieces inside of me shifting and reorienting. Its scary because when I feel like this I usually end up with a whole new, multi-years long, absolutely convinced that I'm right and justified, way of looking at the world. If I gave up g*ming I would be fine, and I could stand to smoke a lot less weed too. But I'm afraid to.lose other things, like my passion for social justice, my will and ability to organize, etc.,

I'm neurodivergent (an neurodivergent communist, imagine that) so I simultaneously rely on the specialness of my brain while being extremely skeptical of my abilities in some areas. That skepticism is expressing as worry, and nothing else. I don't have time to have a crisis about videogames ffs but here we are.

Thanks Hexbear comrades.