Video Game Addiction
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For me i found out gaming and generally doing whatever i was doing to suppress myself was more of a symptom than a cause - for that reason once i started dealing with what really annoyed me in my life - my lack of personal growth and direction - i could still enjoy playing games, or at least games that were just games, games made to be fun not games that were full time jobs but fun when you wanted.
For me it changed the day when i woke up and really was satisfied with who i was, when i realized i respected myself. That happened after an intense period of focusing on getting unstuck from bad habbits that got me locked down. I was so depressed with knowing the right choice but making the wrong - once i started making the right choices i started feeling really good about myself. *poof* I am the light of the morning and the shadow on the wall, I am nothing and I am all. Last edited by Crackmonster on Nov 26, 2015, 4:55:45 AM
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People always say im addicted to playing games... in truth though, i only play games because i don't have much else to do, i honestly would rather have a job that i love, then play a game for 17 hours a day and waste my life in this chair... i miss being employed, but i dont have much other option, not until my backs repaired...
There are other cases that may look like addiction, but is really an escape from the persons terrible life outside of video games, i dont mean terrible as in, they do stupid stuff and all that crap, i mean, abusive parents, bullied in highschool, can't get a girlfriend, etc etc. TLDR; Dont judge a book by its cover. Twitch: twitch.tv/slayertip
Helping people with their builds, its somewhat a hobby, and a passion of mine, so don't be shy! https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1715639 <--- Build help forums thread thingy. |
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" Just qouting myself because i am full of it! ;D Nah. Qouting because this is really the true reason poe is a game made for addicted people, if you want to experience it fully you destroy your personal growth - it is not a game made to be fun at will, it is a game where it must become temporary goal to break through - and in the process it requires an ungodly amount of farming to experience full builds. Weeks to months of intense farming just for one build - made for addicts. Exempting those who can just lol around on various non-serious/lowlevel chars and have fun and don't want more than that. It is a pretty generic statement, but the thing with poe is that is a relatively extreme in that sense compared to most games of the western culture. - it is extremely made for addicts - so in that way anyone who are healthy and thriving it will be a bad choice for. It is crack - unfortunately not concentrated enough, but stretched like butter scraped over too much bread. I am the light of the morning and the shadow on the wall, I am nothing and I am all. Last edited by Crackmonster on Nov 26, 2015, 4:59:42 AM
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We are all addicted.
The only difference is whether your addiction is sanctioned by society as a whole or judged. In the case of computer games, its generally the later. Peace, -Boem- Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes
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Video Games are my respirator. Until recreational drugs are legalized, video games (and the promise of a ultra high tech future where there is a decent chance i will no longer be forced to labor) are the only reason i have to live.
I have min/maxed life. And gaming gives me the most enjoyment for a given amount of time. It is my opportunity to have the illusion of power... the ability to advance and have control over my own life/ environment. Something the current systems we are born into sadly lacks to any high degree. People who value traditional work and social structures to such an extent they consider them the essence of 'life' are very misguided imo. It's just another layer of control to fool us into slavery and conformity. For years i searched for deep truths. A thousand revelations. At the very edge...the ability to think itself dissolves away.Thinking in human language is the problem. Any separation from 'the whole truth' is incomplete.My incomplete concepts may add to your 'whole truth', accept it or think about it
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" Very well said, glad that someone else took the time to write this. I'm in the same boat. In my free time (when I'm not gaming ha) I tend to study/read a lot of things in depth, some of which relate to labor & leisure. Aristotle has interesting views (or at least what scholars can speculate he alluded to), and there are many other philosophers (or people in general) who also discuss existential qualms. Anyways, OP, I suggest reading into Nicomachean Ethics or at least contemplating to what "end" you truly wish to pursue, and whether or not this vacuous void you find within yourself can be attributed to the idea of your life lacking substance, or just the universally human confrontation with the Absurd? (see Camus). To prevent further ranting I'll end with a quote relative to passions and a great many things; "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words and tomorrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day."~RWE | |
" The key is to let go of the notion that you have to control everything. Let it go and enjoy what life offers you. I also like to take full control once in a while, that's why I love lifting heavy weights, I'm in total control there. But other than that I just try to be a good person and everything else will fall into place. GGG banning all political discussion shortly after getting acquired by China is a weird coincidence.
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I definately have a gaming addiction, by choice. Gaming provides much needed escape and interaction with others that I can't and don't get on a daily basis. I rarely get the opportunity to leave the apartment, simply because I wind up passing out from pain at one point or another if I am out to long. I so rarely leave the house, I don't even have a cell phone. 7 years ago I got diagnosed with a pain and nerve disorder and 4 years before that at 27 I had a full rupture of a disk in my neck that led to the nerve disorder, luckily the disk was caught in time because it had broken off and had my spinal cord/nerves growing around it. I'm lucky to not be paralyzed but it's easy to forget I'm lucky when dealing with day to day pain that never, ever stops.
Gaming lets me drown out the pain for hours at a time, sometimes more than the pain medication does. It's been a struggle since my computer decided it wouldn't support games without shutting down but I've been reading tons in the last few months to cover the twitches from missing my game. I'm due to have some good luck so hopefully the disability claim I've been waiting for freaking ever will finally go through and I can replace my computer eventually. Under 40 and waiting on a disability claim when I was used to working 80-100 hour weeks in a high end retail store is quite a change and quite depressing if I think about it to much so gaming was filling those holes. However I've met people who have a "normal" life and prefer for whatever reasons of their own to participate in gaming rather than "real" life. We all have issues and problems and mine aren't any worse than someone elses, just different. We cope where we can. I can honestly say computer gaming probably saved my life on more than a few occasions and have no doubt it the same for a lot more people than would actually admit it. “Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.”
—Leo Buscaglia Contact support@grindinggear.com to report issues relating to the game or forum. Thanks! My beloved pets....  | |
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^All i got from that was
"i am a though cookie!" :D If anything you show a lot of empathy because of the history you walked true. Sometimes i find it rather sad this only seems to be imparted on people that have to go true ordeals like yours. Your very much correct though, most if not all people share pain but revel in it's secrecy. Peace, -Boem- edit : apologies for my gross generalizations btw. It's just easier to get the message across like that. Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes Last edited by Boem on Nov 27, 2015, 4:41:34 PM
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Spoiler
" I completely agree that gaming has helped a lot of people in amazing ways. I've met countless people who have turned to gaming as a hobby to survive drug addiction, depression, disability; to say that time is wasted for those people is absurd, same goes for anyone who games just for pleasure. Time is only wasted if you perceive it that way, and many people have skewed perceptions of what "fulfillment" really entails and almost adopt a utilitarian-like viewpoint for critiquing themselves, attributing a vast majority of their present dissatisfaction to underachieving in certain areas. In modern society virtues and happiness are often overlooked in turn for high paying careers, social status, good grades, and many other menial things that obfuscate the important things in life. We're pressured at a young age until we die to chase all of these things deemed "necessary" when they're often not.
Quote in regards to dissatisfaction
The Well Tuned Brain” (W.W. Norton), “our acquisitive mania, with all its unintended consequences, has emerged not because we are evil, but because in a time of plenty, such ancient instinctual strivings no longer serve their original purpose.”
Excerpt regarding The science of craving
"If you had opened a textbook on brain rewards in the late 1980s, it would have told you that the dopamine and opioids that swished and flickered around the reward pathway were the blissful brain chemicals responsible for pleasure. The reward system was about pleasure and somehow learning what yields it, and little more. So when Berridge, a dedicated young scientist who was more David than Goliath, stumbled upon evidence in 1986 that dopamine did not produce pleasure, but in fact desire, he kept quiet. It wasn’t until the early 1990s, after rigorous research, that he felt bold enough to go public with his new thesis. The reward system, he then asserted, has two distinct elements: wanting and liking (or desire and pleasure). While dopamine makes us want, the liking part comes from opioids and also endocannabinoids (a version of marijuana produced in the brain), which paint a “gloss of pleasure”, as Berridge puts it, on good experiences. For years, his thesis was contested, and only now is it gaining mainstream acceptance. Meanwhile, Berridge has marched on, unearthing more and more detail about what makes us tick. His most telling discovery was that, whereas the dopamine/wanting system is vast and powerful, the pleasure circuit is anatomically tiny, has a far more fragile structure and is harder to trigger." The science of craving - Amy Fleming
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