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Well, I got over it actually in a few days/weeks and didn't go to see a therapist.

 

Lately I've been getting a strong feeling that an era has ended (mostly for me personally).

 

My grandma died and even if we weren't super close lately, and I should have spent more time with her than I did, it still gave me an overwhelming feeling that the world is now irreversibly different.

 

Then there's also that I turned 40 just last year.

 

Then there are several things that have been happening over the past few years.

 

I'm no longer hanging out with some friends from childhood at all. We've just grown apart and some spend all their time with work/family. I also had a break-up with a friend who turned out to be an asshole, I think I wrote about it here when it happened. I have made some new friends, thankfully.

 

In my digital life, I'm no longer enjoying computer games as much as I used to. When I play some longer games now I have a nagging feeling that I should be doing something else. Then there are these Idle Thumbs forums here, which don't feel active at all any more and I'm not sure that Slack can fully replace forums for me. Also I rarely listen to the podcasts now when I don't play games much. I'm not sure that I'll ever find another place like this used to be, though.

 

Also now a server that we set up at university in 1997 or so is being closed down and I might lose the e-mail address from there. I've mostly migrated my e-mails away already, though. But I like, still have all those e-mails in a locally running Mozilla Thunderbird, while for other stuff I've used GMail since that's been available.

 

To add to that I'm developing a different attitude to work because I'm not enjoying it as much as I used to. If it wasn't for financial obligations I've managed to create, maybe I would quit IT and try to work in film. But I know it's probably super hard from what I've heard, especially in a place like Estonia where we don't have a big film industry. I've also been thinking if at some point I should have after all seriously tried to become a game programmer instead of working on business software and dev tools. But I think by now game programming (at least when it comes to graphics) has evolved into such complexities that I'm way too behind to consider that again.

 

And a decade also ended (or will end in a year, depending how you count). There's also the political changes in the world... things that were unthinkable 10 years ago seem almost normal now. But on the other hand things have also improved in many ways, there also seems to be a lot more acceptance of people who were ignored before.

 

So yeah, feeling kind of nostalgic and sad right now, but hopeful.

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Hey Erkki, thanks for sharing all that. Your feelings are eerily similar to where I'm at right now.

 

It feels like so much has changed in just a couple short years and lately I find myself wondering what I'm ultimately trying to accomplish in life. I'm at a point where it's clear that despite reaching most of my life goals and making some important changes in my life, I haven't reached a greater plain of happiness and find myself looking back fondly on the good old days when I had less responsibility and less life clutter.

 

It's funny to think of how much time I've spent looking back at the past fondly, looking towards the future eagerly, and not fully appreciating where I'm at in the moment. Working hard to fix that but Jesus Christ it's hard to stop myself from falling victim to my own internal narrative.

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Mid-life crisis buddies high five :)

 

I think it's a shame that this concept has mostly been treated as a source of comedy (getting fast cars and upgrading your wife) instead of talking about the deep existential dread and awareness of mortality that underlies it. At a certain point you (or at least I) realise that you've completely lost sight of what you're doing thing for. I'd tell you the solution if I had one.

 

Anyway, fuck slack, yay forums.

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Man, I wish I had the solution too. But I know enough now to know that I don't know shit.

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I've been feeling the stress a lot more than usual lately.  On top of the normal horrors that exist in the current social/political landscape, my home life is in a state of flux right now.  My daughter is 3.5 years old and she's entered her "NO" phase where she doesn't want to do anything but run around and scream her head off.  That in itself isn't a huge issue, except for the fact that my son is due to be born in a month so we've been trying to get the house baby ready again.  Not to mention this Wuhan virus is preventing my in-laws from coming over to help out like they did when my daughter was born.  They're fine and not in any immediate danger but the travel restrictions mean they're going to be stuck in China for the foreseeable future. 

 

Life has such shitty timing.

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That is some particularly bad timing @SecretAsianMan, sorry to hear. As frustrating as those different childhood phases can be and as desperate as you end up feeling when you are sleep deprived and overworked and wondering when you'll ever get a break again, I always thought it was pretty damn cool to see just how much you are truly capable of when you are solely responsible for guiding a little life towards adulthood. That shit is terrifying when you actually stop to think about it!

 

Hang in there man, and cherish every second. They really do grow up way too freaking fast!

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Wow, it's been a long time since anyone's been on here. Hope everyone's been doing well.

 

Life has taken some wild turns these last couple years. Wife cheated on me a bunch and my marriage went down the shitter. Moved from Arizona to Colorado. Got divorced. Got full custody of my kids. And somehow at the end of it all ended up with the woman of my dreams, someone I've known since 3rd grade and who I reconnected with through a chance encounter on one of my Twitch streams. 

 

Definitely some bad years and dark times but somehow life now is better than it's ever been. 

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Hi Zeus! Outside of the 3MA board, it's mostly me occasionally posting on my adventure game playthrough and a bunch of spammers/shillers on here these days. Lots of people are on the Slack and on Nick's Discord, though...

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Ah cool, good to see you Ben and I hope life has been treating you well! Cool that we at least have one old regular still popping in. 

 

I'll try to check in a little more often. Hope to see some other regulars back in here at some point.

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Hey Zeus! Glad to know that you've been doing well after what sounds like an incredibly rough patch. I'm embarrassed to be checking in... uh, two months late? But yeah, I stop by sometimes.

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Not terribly much, the general fucked-ness of the world aside! I got furloughed for the first year of the pandemic, more or less, then got rehired, but I'm getting bored at a job that's getting busier without getting more interesting, so that may change someday soon. I also caught Covid despite a booster right before visiting home for Christmas, so that sucked, but otherwise things have been good. My relationship with my current girlfriend is stronger than ever, my podcast is still alive somehow, and Elden Ring has managed to get me back into games.

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Hey Gorm, I know it's several months later but that's great to hear that your relationship is going well and that the podcast is still alive. And I appreciate you inviting me on that one time years ago, that was fun. I hope life is still going well for you and for everyone else on here. 

 

Reflecting back a bit, it's amazing how much of a difference it makes having a truly good and supportive partner. Sometimes I can't believe how good life is now. That's not to say that there are no struggles or challenges (there are definitely some difficult things we are dealing with right now). But man, being in a relationship where we both lead with empathy and put each other first just makes every challenge seem insignificant in the grand scheme of things.

 

I'm closing in on 38 now and for the first time in my life I don't feel like anything is lacking or missing. And even better, my partner treats my children (now 9 and 13) as if they were her own. They suffered a lot of verbal and emotional abuse from their mother and it's been great seeing how much life has improved for them too. I can't imagine how hard it is for them to reckon with the fact that their mother completely abandoned them (none of us have heard from her in over a year) but they genuinely seem so much happier now than they've ever been. 

 

In times like these I try now harder than ever to take the time to express gratitude and not take any of this for granted. Fuck the hedonic treadmill. 

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It's probably been almost a decade since I last checked in over here, despite loving Thumbs back in the day.

 

I'd like to hope some people are still around here, like Toblix, Elmuerte, Wrestlevania etc, but I know that was a lifetime ago.

 

Quick update on the last decade:

 

Was a Teaching Assistant for almost a decade, then I got my dream job teaching English in Japan with the JET Programme. Weeks before departure, COVID hit, and it ruined the whole thing.

 

However, I met my life partner on the programme, and a few months ago, I moved from Manchester to Devon to spend the rest of my life with her. I'm about to start a job at a private hospital in the countryside as a receptionist after a crappy few months of working for the council

 

I still keep in touch with James, who is doing well.

 

Is this forum still active at all, or has it all moved over to Discord now?

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Hello! Congrats on moving to Devon - I moved to Dorset a few months ago! Bit rainy and cold down here now, innit?

 

There's a lot of people on the Slack, barely any activity on the Discord,  a few Thumbs on Nick's Discord, and a fair few people on the idlethumbs.social Mastodon.

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2 hours ago, Ben X said:

Hello! Congrats on moving to Devon - I moved to Dorset a few months ago! Bit rainy and cold down here now, innit?

 

There's a lot of people on the Slack, barely any activity on the Discord,  a few Thumbs on Nick's Discord, and a fair few people on the idlethumbs.social Mastodon.

The rain here for the last few days has been crackers. My partner is actually from Dorset, she's from Weymouth.

 

I almost aquaplaned (Is that what you call it?) on the Bypass the other day, very scary

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Heyo! Hope everyone is doing well. Saw that the last post in Banter was sometime in April and thought this section was overdue for a refreshed timestamp. 

 

Fortunately, life has been good in the Zeus household. I'm very grateful for my children (10 and 14 now) and the amazing relationship I have with my partner. We'll be getting married soon and I couldn't be happier with our situation. It's strange because my past life feels so foreign to me now. But those memories are there and stand as a vivid contrast to the life I am living today. And I'm glad they're there because they are a constant reminder to feel gratitude every day and not fall into complacency. 

 

Anyways, I hope life is going well for others and I miss you all.

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