Figuring Out What Works: Getting it Out of Your System

A forewarning: This post is unapologetically geeky, and may contain a dose or two of “Get off my lawn”.

Every once in a while, I find myself doing something that is a total waste of time. Examples include playing an MMORPG, or trying to build the perfect trading card game deck.

Nobody’s going to care about that awesome deck I built (Not to mention the banlists always change, rendering efforts obsolete), and sooner or later, the MMORPG character I put so much time and effort into is going to be deleted, or the game server is inevitably going to shut down.

All that time and money invested, down the drain. When you’re young, you don’t see it yet because you haven’t gone through the vicious and punishing cycle of losing your work over and over enough times to care. But as you grow older, you realize what a colossal waste of time, money, and effort these kinds of activities are.

Unfortunately, when I do feel that need to waste my time on something geeky and fruitless, I tend to go all in, studying the intricacies of how to build that perfect character, learning the ins and outs of the game mechanics, and I’ve even gone as far as creating meticulous spreadsheets and guides.

So what’s one to do? Well, I’m sure people with great willpower can steel themselves against this kind of thing, but one thing that’s worked for me in the past is burning myself out. If I stay hyper-focused on a fruitless activity for long enough, I get so sick of it, I never want to do it again. It’s like eating your favorite food … for every single meal, every single day.

Let me just say: MMORPGs have got to be one of the worst timesinks ever devised by man.

So I burnt myself out by playing too much EverQuest. I knew I couldn’t resist it, so I just had to get it out of my system. In the proceeding years, other MMORPGs were not as fun for me, so I decided they generally weren’t worth the time and effort to install, update, register an account, create a character, and learn, just to see if I like it or not.

I noticed the newer ones tend to lack imagination, have uninteresting dungeons, are too hand-holdy, or are too linear. They also tend to have quality of life improvements hidden behind expensive paywalls, or have “pay to win” equipment. That kind of defeats the whole point, doesn’t it?

I’ve also pulled back the curtain by learning about Skinner Boxes, further ruining the previously immersive experience for me. It bothers me that game developers use this kind of mind manipulation to get players addicted in much the same way a drug dealer gets first-time users to become regular customers.

Plus, players aren’t nearly as friendly as they used to be back in 1999. And that’s just for starters. These reasons are more than enough to keep me away for good.

As far as collectible card games are concerned, well, it was easy to quit those. I had about 10,000 Magic: the Gathering cards taking up space, and I used to get sick to my stomach thinking about how much money I used to waste on cardboard, especially in my undergrad years. I used that as an excuse to stop playing and decided to let the cards rot in my basement.

Lo and behold, last year the cards somehow appreciated in value enough that it motivated me to finally sell them and be rid of them for good. I made my money back many times over, all but erasing my sin. Besides, it just didn’t make sense to keep them around since most of my friends don’t play anymore.

In the decades since I got interested in CCGs, players went from playing mostly for fun to being cutthroat and vicious. And the companies that own these huge name brands have gotten way too corporate for their own good. Bottom line: I don’t feel good about giving money to such corporations, so I don’t.

If I ever do feel like playing Magic: the Gathering–which I haven’t for years–I can always boot up the old 1998 Microprose Duels of the Planeswalkers video game, which to this day has never been topped by similar modern MtG offerings (and it even gets patched by fans every now and again). In a pinch, this game does a great job of scratching any MtG itch I might develop.

I noticed over the years these fruitless consumer-based hobbies tend to pounce on me when I’m nervous about something, such as a few weeks before I start a semester at school. I get anxious and little bit self-destructive, wanting to slack off as much as possible before the ball gets rolling. Fortunately I’m done with college now, so I’m hoping this phenomenon goes away for good.

Also, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve noticed the sudden desire to waste large amounts of time on such vices is becoming a less and less common occurrence.

But if some geeky pursuit does still manage to force itself into my life, I just do a combination of the following:

• Get jaded and find a reason to shrug it off, or even boycott all modern offerings.
  These days, the owners of previously important intellectual properties make it easy. For example, I’m fairly certain I’m never wasting my time on a new Star Wars or Game of Thrones property ever again. In other words, Don’t Give Money to People Who Hate You.
• Steel myself.
  Sometimes, this actually works. I’ve even written daily through a semester of college or two.
• Burn myself out/Get it out of my system
  If I know it’s a losing battle, I just marathon the heck out of the thing until I can’t even stomach it anymore. Afterward, I’ll move onto something else. (Hopefully something more productive.)
• This kind of goes along with “get jaded”, but as you get older, you’ll go though the cycle of getting burned as a consumer over and over again until you finally come to certain realizations, such as the fact that companies don’t value your business as much as you might think, and that all the digital stuff you’ve ever bought isn’t even yours, among other harsh life lessons.

As a result, I have a lot more free time on my hands, making it far more likely that I’ll grow bored enough to open up a word document and start plugging away.