It is Something You Create

Discussion

Nov 24

Growing up as the youngest in a brood of five children afforded me the opportunity to take an inventory of the nefarious deeds my older siblings attempted when they thought the wool was pulled over my parents’ eyes. Little did they know my mother could put some of the best detectives to shame, whilst uncovering their latest plot. A certain party while my parents were out of town and a previously overturned cactus comes to mind. Even though I made a promise to never make their same mistakes, my mother would simply say, “You’ll just make some new ones.”

This month’s post will be less about making mistakes, but I will be serving up a heavy plate of accountability. I was taught to acknowledge when I had done wrong, take accountability for it, make amends, and put measures in place to ensure whatever I did would not happen again. Over the years I have added to this sentiment based on my own unique perspectives and how I view the world we all live in. When confronted with an overstep or one of my many poorly phrased responses to a loved one, I have often said, “I am not making excuses for what I said, merely offering an explanation as to why. It does not erase my accountability in this situation.” The same approach will be applied here as we move forward.

In typical fashion, the References section in this article lists several resources I will be speaking about; while providing links to my prior blog posts were I have discussed similar content. This is designed to highlight how difficult it has been to prioritize my writing over the course of so many years, no matter how self-assured I appeared in those posts, thinking the matter had been resolved. Upon reviewing them in preparation for this writing, I felt a twinge of shame and hypocrisy although I was sincere and meant everything, I wrote in each of them. Do not worry, I am not secretly flogging myself as penance, but I do want to be fully transparent regarding my feelings.

If you have not read the prior posts mentioned in the references section, I would suggest giving them a quick perusal for context and I am sure you will denote a common denominator pointing directly to where my prioritization struggle is coming from. Even though I mention several factors related to my despondency in those previous writings as well, I used many of them as excuses to deflect from the root cause; a frequent behavior most of us exhibit without being aware we are doing it.

Even though the end of my 24-year marriage to my husband took place around this time last year is not related to what I am writing about specifically in this post, the ensuing periods of self-reflection are a direct result of our epoch together, where I have come to a much clearer understanding of who I am on a physical, mental, sexual, and philosophical levels. This is my way of saying I am thankful to have developed enough insight into how my mind functions and apply Zen to keep me grounded in the present moment. It is for this very reason why I was able to acknowledge the issue, stop overthinking it, write less about it, and simply do it.

What is it you ask? Was it too much computer gaming? Yes. Was I making too many excuses not to write every time some life event raised its ugly head? Absolutely. Was I deliberately taking my time revising book one to the Sy’Arrian Legacy Series because I had convinced myself it would never go anywhere? You betcha. Was I disappointed in myself because I felt I had let people down, people who believed in me? Guilty as charged.

In my last post for 2023, A Tale of Two Destinies, I wrote the following: I was destined to write this story, and I say this with the utmost humility I can muster. It has taken me far too much time to embrace this concept. I personally feel, had I not gone through the experiences with my prior publisher and learned very valuable lessons in understanding another aspect of content creation, I would not be where I am today. I want to be clear, I still believe I am destined to write this story but my actions in 2024 do serve as a direct contradiction, which I take full responsibility for.

Also from my final post of 2023, I will be looking to incorporate two important areas of my content consumption where focus will be on the very same storytelling elements, I have spoken to ad nauseum since beginning my online writings in 2017. This is my way of incorporating one area I have seriously neglected, which is sitting down to, well, actually read other books. The second area is designed to maintain strict control on how much time I spend doing it, which is computer gaming and, before you ask, no I have not fallen off the wagon as the saying goes. But, I did.

Take anyone of the its I mentioned previously, and I probably was using one or any combination of them to justify not sitting down to continue building a universe I created in high school. If you have followed my writings, then you know the story and recognize the very words I am typing on screen right now, so I will not insult your intelligence by repeating them once again. I do want to clarify; I was not lying to people when they asked me how my writing was going. What I told them in those moments was true, but I was lying to myself. I knew I was not giving my writing the proper attention, I was just too pig headed to admit it fully.

So, what have I done about it, you may wonder. Well, it came to a head, when I looked around my apartment and acknowledged the emptiness of my life. I was not depressed by any means but after another nightly gaming session, I felt a sense of boredom, like I was simply going through the motions and the meaning behind why I played anything at all had simply vanished. Even the joy I had initially felt when I first started playing games, in general, so many years ago had disappeared as well. It was then I decided to put my best foot forward, which was around the middle of October. I did something which had the proper affect and yielded a result where even I was taken by surprise.

It was a Sunday, when I came into my office and removed everything from my personal computer. Every game, mods, internet links, Steam (a gaming platform), and any documents I created specifically for gaming. Once I finished those tasks, I drilled down deep into my computer’s files and removed leftover folders associated with any of my previous games. This was one of the most thorough eliminations I had ever done and, to be fully transparent, I had done it before only this time I was on a mission.

Once my purge was completed, I took a four-week detox from playing anything, which allowed my mind to recalibrate and begin seeing a world where so many of my prior interests were standing around looking at me as if to say, What the hell took you so long? Remember me? The thing you used to love doing. But what I noticed not too soon after beginning my detox is my mind and imagination started to churn again at a rapid pace. My characters didn’t just start nagging me again, they began talking so quickly it was like listening to the Chipmunk’s singing Christmas carols. It was a very heartwarming experience because I had allowed myself to begin thinking about the other areas of my life I had put on a shelf. It was through this process where I flipped my narrative.

In an Instagram post from October 26, I declared my gaming was an addiction, which on face value did fit once you look at some of my habits. Also, during my detox phase, I started branching off in other areas of interest, which I had previously put by the wayside because I was spending too much time doing one thing.

I started following Andrew Huberman, a neuroscientist, on YouTube and, although they are lengthy podcasts, I have found the information to be very enlightening even to a layperson. I would suggest watching his video titled, Controlling Your Dopamine For Motivation, Focus & Satisfaction, which provided some ah-ha moments and gave me insights on how to address the mysticism I had towards my inability to prioritize my writing. Links to his channel and the video in question are in the references section.

Game Quitters by Cam Adair and the video, How Gaming Affects Your Brain (Andrew Huberman) is what got me started in understanding my own relationship with gaming and how I came to Andrew Huberman’s channel. On the channel, Healthy GamerGG, I watched the video, How I Conquered My Video Game Addiction by Dr. Alok Kanojia, a Harvard-trained psychiatrist, who provides a layered approach to creating healthy gamers. His video is listed in the references section as well.

What I learned is my issue is not solely an addiction problem; it is a prioritization issue. I found this to be puzzling and surprisingly energetic all at the same time. I know this may have you cocking a curious eyebrow, images of Spock come to mind, but knowing myself the way I do, I was energized because I now had something tangible to work with. Admittedly, I was a bit weirded out at first given I have no prioritization problems at work, but nuance is not lost on me, so I understood why one was easier to comprehend than the other.

In the end, I flipped my narrative by moving my content creation to the top of my priority list and moved gaming to the end of it. I now have myself on a schedule, Monday through Friday, where from 5:30pm to 8:30pm, I am working on content creation. The time before and after leave breathing space for going to the gym and taking time to read or some other activity not related to gaming. Saturday and Sunday are what I call my go with the flow days where I build in time to meet with people, do more focused world building, and make up for any interruptions, which may have taken place during the work week. I also use the focus feature on my iPhone and created time frames where no interruptions are allowed.

In the time period since flipping my priorities, I have accomplished more than I have during the entire year. I have since finished by read through of the third revision to The Cradle of Destiny and sent it my friend, who is also an editor, to perform a once over before resubmitting it to a tried-and-true publisher. I have completed several minor tweaks to book two, Destiny’s Shroud, while there are a couple major world building tidbits left, which I can work through while writing it. This is on top of ensuring I work on getting blog posts completed closer to the middle of the month, rather than always the last couple of days before the month ends.

I want to be fully transparent going forward. I reinstalled one game, which I have already finished once before to serve as a test and see if my reprioritization techniques stay the course. I can sometimes rush to a diagnosis, especially when I find information speaking to a potential confirmation bias on my part. I have done this before in my life, which is a conversation for a later time. Trust I am keeping a very close eye on my mind and practicing Zen to keep myself present in the moment. If I find old habits returning, I will not hesitate to remove the distraction.

Based on my prior writings, I know proof will be in what I produce and share with you, the reader. I do not expect automatic believability of my words because as the overly used but still very accurate saying goes; actions speak louder than words, whether they are written or verbalized. So, let us see where this road leads us and, as always, I appreciate your willingness to come along with me on this journey.

Until next time, your moment of Zen is to talk less, do more and be humble. This will allow wisdom to take hold and give you the ability to help yourself, while being effective in helping guide others to take their journey towards living in the moment.

Be safe, be well and let us get back to honing the fine art of creative writing.

References

Andrew Huberman

https://www.youtube.com/@hubermanlab

Controlling Your Dopamine For Motivation, Focus & Satisfaction

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmOF0crdyRU

Game Quitters

https://www.youtube.com/@GameQuitters

How Gaming Affects Your Brain

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0JafEWu-lg

Healthy GamerGG

https://www.youtube.com/@HealthyGamerGG