Thursday, January 3, 2019

I mean, what's a couple of years when you're playing the long game?

So... yeah.

It's been a while.

Time has a funny way of rushing up to greet you, silent like some bastard assassin, and before you can respond it's already past and continuing to move with a speed both constant and unattainable.

After a couple of years of working (quite a lot), gaming with friends new and old (quite rarely), a little bit of writing and a lot more reading, here I am.

In a vow to myself to keep the spending at bay this year, to slow myself down, to find more joy moment-to-moment, I've decided to try to go back to appreciating "the internet that was." And what I mean by that, more directly, is less of the immediate-fixes (Facebook primarily, since I don't do Twitter or Instagram or anything) and more of looking at blogs and message boards for my news.  Facebook, for me, has become too aggressive on the senses, making me feel like I'm missing out on something almost every time I look at it when I should instead just appreciate my situation here and now.

From a miniatures gaming/hobbyist's standpoint, it's constant streams of "NEW BUY IT" or "Coming soon to Kickstarter" or "LIMITED AVAILABILITY" ...or the worst one: "DEAL OF THE DAY"... for things I not only do not need, but absolutely do not have the time to do anything with anyway.  For example, I do not need another Warmachine army.  I haven't played a game of it in over a year, nor have I worked on or painted anything for it during that time.  So it's important that I remove myself from the stream of advertisements about Discount Games Inc. selling the Crucible Guard starter box for 50% off, and I need to avoid the buy/sell/trade groups of other gamers offloading their toys because they, too, are suckers for an excellent deal and bought more stuff than any sane person should.

This year, I'm starting fresh (not a "new year's resolution" or anything, just using a convenient calendar change as the starting point).  A hard lock on new purchases, for one.  I need to work on the games/miniatures/terrain sets I do have, all of the stuff sitting in boxes and totes, before I go buying new stuff.  And I need to get out and play some games again!  The friendly locals at HobbyTown have been playing the new Kill Team consistently for weeks now (maybe months?) and I'm still just twiddling my thumbs thinking about how cool my Orks could be rather than taking the time to make it happen.  Some of my best friends have been poked and prodded and dragged kicking and screaming into Frostgrave, yet I still haven't even finished my warband!  I could go on and on, but then why bother?  I should just do something, take some pictures, and write about it here.

I'm spending too much time living in the mind space of the Potential, but no where near enough time in the Actual.  It's gotten old.

Time to change things up.