viator/wayfinding

A thought digest for 9/12/2023

Hey all. Been a bit. Just going to write down a couple things I've been thinking lately.

Baldur's Gate

I've been playing Baldur's Gate 3 a bit lately, and I'm pretty happy with how it's going — I'd initially written it off because a lot of the marketing seemed firmly in the "we need to get the fanfiction audience" kind of space, and it didn't do a lot for me. I was also pretty burned out from playing some similar games (namely Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous) which were 70 hour+ affairs.

I guess I’m getting there, though…

These kind of games aren't exactly something you can play back-to-back, but I'm happy I decided to scratch a particular itch. D&D 5th Edition is a bit easier to wrap my head around than Pathfinder 2nd Edition, and there's a bit more constraint, which is fine. Ironically, I feel a bit more engaged without being put at a head of a nation state (who knew?); I don't think anyone's called me a chosen one so far, almost 50 hours in.

It's a nice way to roll some (digital) dice, and if you're a min-maxer you'll have plenty of ways to mess with your build. I just think there's a lot of polish and quality to this kind of thing; there's just so much voice acting that it makes typical NPC conversations a lot more rewarding, and I think that's one of the things I find most tedious about RPGs.

It's a good time, and you can find it on GOG as well as Steam (no affiliate codes).

Fixing my shit

I've been kind of going through a weird brain revolution lately, in that I'm trying to do more without thinking a ton about it.

This is hard for me.

I've started reading Atomic Habits, and it's kind of clicked for me in a couple ways. It's kind of funny — I told my therapist that I was a bit embarrassed that a self-help book actually did something for me because I've definitely been that kind of person to make a well-selling book into my whole personality, and I hate when people do that.

I'm not about to just spout James Clear all the time, but the idea of habits being less about goals and more about systems is kind of breaking down a lot of how I've approached motivation and "what I've wanted out of life."

That leads to some dumb existential places; I can't exactly answer the question of what I want, but I've at least listed a few types of people that I want to be. That kind of adding more identity means (in theory) that I'll be more invested, and confidence will compound as small successes bolster my new, budding persona.

What I've also thought, though, is I'm stubbornly holding onto bits of myself specifically because I haven't made them work, and I want to keep trying. The hard part is having the self-awareness to truly say "I wanted this for the wrong reasons" and being comfortable letting it go entirely.

I feel like it should be easy to tell, like I'm dropping some kind of facade or finally giving myself the grace to admit that I actually hate what I was trying to do with my life.

But I didn't, and don't. So here I am, writing something.

Street Fighting

I'm almost Gold in Street Fighter 6. I wanted to write a lot more about it, but the last few weeks have been a bit nutty at work, and I haven't found myself in the mental space to want to sit down and learn/grind.

Ironically this kind of thing is a habit that I'm letting lapse (see previous section) but I don't want to say "okay, that's all I've gotten out of that" because I feel like there's so many more hills, mountains and plateaus to reach.

I'm still in there, but I'm very scared of any loss of personal momentum (not motivation) leading me to slip away from the act that I need to keep up.

I hit Silver 5, though.

After a busy two weeks at work, my brain was pretty burnt out and I just needed sleep. I kind of forced myself to more social interactions than I should've, which again, made me a bit tired.

But IRL, I'm at least still going to the gym and eating (sort of) decent again; it makes me happy that I can pick back up habits that I've lapsed in order to protect myself, or at least give myself the grace to not be perfect.

I find it hard to write about this thing sometimes because it's advantageous to portray yourself as some kind of perfectionist that's finally learning to take a chill pill and become more well-rounded. It makes for a better narrative, but I don't think I was ever that.

I think I was (and am) more stuck in the mental bog of contemplating wasted potential, and being more eager to self-criticize or self-flagellate than actually do the thing. It kind of ends up with a double dose of shit, because I'm both beating myself up and continuing to not do the thing, ensuring the cycle continues.

But hey, we're here now. I definitely wanted to go to bed before I wrote this, without ever opening up a laptop.

But we did it. It's imperfect, but we did it.

And we're going to continue to do it.

Until next time.