I have less money now, but I don’t care. I’m much happier being where I am now.
People underestimate just how much work life affects your entire life.
We need a four-day (32-hour) workweek. Give me a 20% pay cut, I don't care. Most of us here make well over $100k/year. What we need is TIME.
Typically when I play a game I like to explore every nook and cranny, trying to find secrets and glitches and stuff. Lately it just gives me anxiety to start a new game when I know it will be on deck for years. I've been playing through Tomb Raider since 2019 and I'm not finished yet... I think I need to consciously change my play style and expectations, and just barrel through main story lines.
I went over to a younger coworker's apartment last night to play video games, which is a very rare activity for me. Left 4 Dead was a lot of fun a decade ago. He loaded up whatever the latest call of duty zombie horde shooting game is, and it was more stressful than fun. I have an interesting anecdote about stress and Tomb Raider. In 2020 my heart AV nerves all stopped working. My effective heart rate got down to 20-30bpm, and wouldn't increase with demand. A few days before I ended up in the hospital, I tried playing Tomb Raider just to see what would happen. After about 5 minutes my peripheral vision started to black out and I felt like I was having a panic attack!
LA Noire and other games like it (e.g. Red Dead Redemption, Destroy All Humans!) seem to have the opposite problem, where I seem to remember the game being more engaging and challenging (in a fun way) than it is now. I guess that's a result of growing up and getting "smarter".
We haven't even touched on the micro-transactions/pay-to-win stuff...
As for the panic attack- I read an interesting book recently called The Body Keeps the Score. It's about PTSD and how, even today under the DSM V, it and similar conditions aren't getting the attention they deserve. While reading this book, I realized that my "fascination" with Dead By Daylight (similar to Left 4 Dead) might be rooted in adrenaline/stress hormones rather than pleasure hormones. Indeed, I had (have) several "hobbies" that my brain seems to be interested in for the stress they cause (like stock trading, holy fuck). The book poses that my subconscious thirst for stressful activity is actually a coping mechanism that is derived from my dysfunctional attachment style to my parents and my subsequent childhood experiences. In other words, stress and worry are all I've ever known. I'm in therapy and taking an SSRI for this now, and I'm significantly better than I was, mentally.
Speaking of Red Dead Redemption, I am working toward being able to robustly stream games from my desktop computer to the living room TV. I'm hoping to try playing through Red Dead Redemption 2 once it's all set up and working. It's non-trivial, as I will soon be relocating my desktop to a detached guest house. I think the reason I am drawn to Rockstar Games is because of their level of immersion despite the relative lack of gameplay complexity. I like that the only customization in L.A. Noire is picking an outfit, and if you want a bigger gun you have to open a car trunk in the middle of a shoot-out.
I am certainly nostalgic for the games I played in my youth. StarCraft, EverQuest, Starsiege Tribes, Medal of Honor and Battlefield 2, Freelancer, the list goes on. My old friend came into town a couple years ago, and we had a small LAN party for old time sake. We spent an hour just getting StarCraft to run reliably on everyone's computers. It was just as fun as ever.
That does sound interesting, I'll have to check out that book. My wife copes with a vaguely similar sounding past. I think her "Left 4 Dead" is watching shows like Criminal Minds. Glad to hear the therapy and SSRI are helping you. It's tough.
I recently started trading individual stocks for fun, but with a relatively small principal that won't stress me out. I see so many "news" articles telling me which stocks to buy, and I've always assumed they're manipulating me into being a sucker. So, I've been blindly taking the free advice to see what happens. I'm only down about 10% right now. Also, my investment in SHIB coin is due to take off like a rocket at any moment!
The Body Keeps the Score mentioned some alarming statistics... I don't recall the exact figure, but MANY Americans are dealing with some amount of PTSD whether they recognize it or not, as a result of having a non-secure attachment style as an infant. It sounds kind of strange that a lifetime of strife could come from how your parents were with you as an infant, but the science seems clear-cut.
With stocks, generally speaking if you are reading about a stock in the news, it's too late to hop on the roller-coaster and you will get left holding the bag. Most of my money is in index funds, but it still stressed me out trading a small portion with individual stocks.
Avoid ARKK/Cathie Wood. I have no idea what she's doing. She just loaded up on TSLA, as she does when one of her picks tanks, but automakers typically trade around a 4 P/E and TSLA is still well-above that at ~$120/share. TSLA will almost-certainly fall below $100 this year and perhaps even below $50 in the longer-term.
That also made me notice that, even though I played quite a few single-player games when I was younger, most of my fun with games was on multiplayer/competitive games, it could be a grind to get better but there was a practice and I could feel myself leveling up my skills and playing them better, some up to competitive levels. That's always been more satisfying to me.
Newer high budget single-player games (feels like in the past 10-15 years) also feel much more like an interactive movie than a proper game, I don't want to be clicking to interact with a movie, I like mechanics and figuring out the metagame, I realised that watching something unfold with some interactive action in-between is not really my kind of gaming.
For the last 10 years I've basically stopped playing videogames, my gaming nowadays is mostly getting together with some friends and playing tabletop, it's social, it's fun and you always get to see a different persona of the people you know.
Then adulthood came and I just don't have time to enjoy games. I do watch a ton of TV shows and movies because they're easy to start up, put down, or even watch while doing something else that doesn't require full attention.
I do occasionally do a Let's Play of a game that looks promising, ideally one with little commentary, where the player focuses on the story elements rather than completion (prioritizes talking to characters over a speed run, or 100% quests completed, all collectables collected, etc).
Those are unfortunately hard to find (though I'd highly recommend the Cinematic Playthrough of Last of Us for anyone interested in experiencing the medium at its absolute best).
The nice thing about a Let's Play is that you get the story elements of the game, and can 2X speed through slow dialogue, skip action sequences as soon as they become monotonous, etc. You don't get to explore at your own whim unfortunately, but I've found it a good middle ground for being able to experience (and talk about) excellent games, while investing 10-20% the time actually playing it would take (not to mention it's free). It does tend to be more enjoyable with games that are fairly linear, rather than something like Fallout where there are thousands of ways to explore the game and align your character.
Other than that, I enjoy playing board games with friends.
Where else in the world people dont spens most of their lives at work?
I work for a large swedish company in USA. None of my coworkers in sweden work less than 40 hrs, like not even one.
So is having that choice really relevant and does it really make it different than USA.
If Swedish residents can work fewer than 40 hours at their discretion, why is it you think most in your circle do not take advantage of this?
Qualtrics released the results of a survey recently stating that 92% of Americans are in favor of a 4-day workweek (that's not necessarily 32-hours)[1]
Maybe because they want the money and working 40hrs isn't so bad? But i really have no idea.
That survey isn't directly related to your original point about working less than 40hrs.
If you are claming that its much different in other countries mere existence of some law isn't enough, it would be a stronger point if you had quoted how many people are actually taking a paycut in those countries in exchange for a day off.
Also sounds like you haven't really looked into laws of MOST first world countries ( whatever that means) yet you made that claim without any proof.
I've worked in some manufacturing domains where unions negotiated the ability to essentially opt-out of large amounts of the work year. There were people who would take off Nov-Feb to essentially focus on families during the holidays, hunting, etc.
I think, to a certain extent, the fact that we're highly productive yet have an expectation to work constantly is a measure of our value systems. (Obviously, highly context and culturally dependent.)
It would be interesting to see how cultural aspects affect this. In the West, it seems like so much of our life/identity is focused on our job. "What do you do for a living?" is one of the most common opening questions upon meeting someone. I wonder if the impact of work life on one's happiness more muted elsewhere.