I guess that's the best way to describe what I'm going through right now.
The Itch:
I don't want to play the same game I quit, but a lot of my friends are all converging on one of the newest games coming out. And I don't live in the same state as them anymore so the itch to play it is there. Fortunately, we got rid of our internet at home. Sad thing is I have some friends both on message boards & in real life that are all talking about the same game. Ugh! It's rough. Well on the bright side I can keep looking to the darkest aspects of what happened to help keep me out of that world.
The Void:
Wow, at first I could keep myself busy but what can I say you can only "Organize the sock drawer" so many times. Pretty soon your pacing. You've read all the books you wanted to, the shows on TV are not appealing. Rebuilding the world is a slow process & those moments of nothing can be painful.
The Hole in the Soul:
In my case it's rebuilding trust after betrayal & all 3 of my demons can feed on each other. It's when I'm sitting alone in silence that I begin thinking the most. What if I'm being lied to again? Piecing together the past and every time you see a possible lie you let it build again bothering you until you bring it out. You want to run back to a game & bury yourself in that sensory comfort. Empty the Void, scrath The Itch. But you know it will just feed The Hole in The Soul in the long run.
So you make it through another day...
Peace
-Seth
*shrug* . . . when it comes down to it, an MMORPG is nothing more than an overglorified chat program. Furthermore, as one friend of mine has found out, they're all pretty much the same: you've got this cookie-cutter graphic for yourself, and with this pretty cookie-cutter graphic you go kill stuff to get XP so that you can level up to kill bigger stuff for more pretty graphics that allow you to kill bigger stuff for XP and so on. Pretty soon, you realize that they're all pretty much the same, and you wonder why you placed so much importance on the thing in the first place.
As far as the friends thing goes, why not find another group of friends that you can actually meet in person? E-mail, message boards, and chat programs are nice and all, but in all honesty, there is nothing better than chatting with friends in person. Of course, finding this group of friends may be hard, but . . .
. . . you can always pick up a different hobby, which could lead to a new group of friends. For example, why play in somebody else's dream world when you can create your own? Heck, I'll even pass along a link to a relatively inexpensive 3D Modeling/animation program if you're up to learning it:
www.hash.com
Oh, wait, here's one more for landscaping (and it's free!):
www.povray.org
There's plenty to do. Ya just gotta start looking, that's all.
-Jerry Hong
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"Though unreceived and scoffed at through the years,
Though made the butt of ridicule and jest,
Though held aloft for mockery and jeers,
Denied by those of transient power possessed,
Insulted by the insolence of lies,
Truth never dies."
-Author Unknown
Oh, I have found friends out here, a few. But so far they're not as deep as some of the friends I had back where I used to live. But of course friendship takes time like everything else in life. Gotta keep working at that.
Then again. Everything in life is kind of more intense when you can't just run away from it all & log in to escape.
-Seth
Seth, your writing is profound and heartfelt. May I suggest that you journal if you're not already?
I'm out of my MMO for 38 days now, and I'm finding that learning HTML is a positive thing. I even made a web-based C.V. to help in my career search. Oh, and I've got some people interested in paying me cash money dollars to help develop their site.
Fortunately for me, my gaming buddy gave up playing in favour of being a good father, and the rest of my family thought I was a complete whack job for playing as much as I did... I have my own "glad you quit" fan club here.
Blessings,
Brad
The happiness of a man in this life does not consist in the absence but in the mastery of his passions.
-Alfred Lord Tennyson
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