Eating The Sunken Cost

Tagging this under "Goals, Plans, Hopes" as it pertains to my long goal, the goal of severing myself from society at large as it stands.

I have had to come to terms with the fact, over the last few years, that I will have to just eat the costs that I have sunken into my escapism.

That is to say, that when I finally get out of this rat race - I will have to give up a great deal that I have sunk countless hours, and enough money that I don't even want to think about it, into.

Let's look specifically at video games - I don't know if you could tell, but I'm a bit of a gamer.

Probably the least proud I've been to see my amassed playtime in any game was that of Fortnite.

You may deride me all you wish, but this game is intended to be addicting - it was hand crafted to be addicting.

I only started playing it because my good friend's dad died, and he always played Fortnite, and he was down in the dumps - so I hopped on.

The next season, I still had it downloaded, and there was one skin I liked.

That spiraled into an insatiable need to grind out at least 200 levels every few seasons, Tim Sweeney has lined his pockets with my vbucks purchases a great deal - and all in all, 1000 hours of my life has been wasted in that game and I'll never get that time back.

Essentially, this pattern repeats itself with every game that I "own" digitally - because I can't own them physically, and some of them are GaaS (Games As A Service) or Live Service games.

Helldivers 2 is quite fun, I quite enjoy it - but when I'm out, I'm out. I'll miss out of a lot most likely, I have to be alright with that though.

My Steam saves of Binding of Isaac, Fallout 1 - 4, Call of Duty WaW, etc. etc. etc. - I'm gonna have to kiss them goodbye someday.

It's not the first time I've done something like this though, which is why I know I can do it.

I used to have an addiction like none other to Call of Duty, especially in late 2019, early 2020 - I had been laid off for the Winter, and then I was unemployed because I had went crazy (and then I couldn't find anywhere hiring because of Corona), I digress.

I played Modern Warfare (2019) so damned much that it was the only Call of Duty that I was ever able to get the final mastery camo (Damascus) on. I was also a surprising bit of the way done getting Obsidian.

Regardless, I had to stop at some point because it consumed so much of my time and attention.

I used to tell people, when they asked me to hop on Modern Warfare, "I can't, I just got off that heroin."

It really is like a drug, the way that they make everything these days.

Retention as opposed to interest, grinding as opposed to fun - it's evil, truthfully at it's core that's all it is.

I wish to free myself from this system of consumption via a slave's mentality - if I am to consume I want it to be of my own volition.

As such, I've gone cold turkey on a lot of the new "heroin"'s I've become obsessed with over the years.

I have many dreams, many projects I must complete - but my mind must be clear and focused before I can complete any of them.