Stepping off the train.

Stole the title from that discussion of leaving the Marvel films.

What are you giving up on this year? What TV series are you abandoning? What game are you never playing again? Which expressions are you finished saying?

Personally:

1. I quit The Flash after the first season, because they'll never top that story arc.

2. I'm done with heavy euros. They don't bring me joy.

3. Those one friends who never initiate contact? We got the message.

4. Food. My gut is a roiling furnace from acid reflux hell. So I have to eat all kinds of weird stuff to try and rebalance my gut, and pizza makes me cry. Goodbye white flour, milk and everything that has flavor. Hello Kombucha, sauerkraut, and fistfuls of probiotics.

5. Facebook. I left in December for like the fifth time. It's getting embarassing.

6. non-mechanical keyboards. I bought a gaming keyboard to write with, and it is wonderful.

7. Unmedicated ADHD. Time for a little dance with my old friend methyphenidate. I took 20mg on Friday and graded for six hours straight, then stayed up until 1:30 a.m. What could go wrong?

8. The nastier strains of Secular Humanism, irony and cynicism, social constructionism, postmodernism. I'm an academic in the humanities, and love this stuff, but at some point I have to believe that my actions matter and that individual relationships are the foundation of life.

Ugh oh, if all me friends do number three, i'll be out of friends

Yay number five. Make it stick

The Walking Dead, does anybody care any more ?

I was the season finale and really liked it but still won't get back into it. Who's that Morgan fella anyway?

I passed on Doctor Who with season 9. Then people told me it was much better than the Matt Smith junk so I gave it a spin. For me, it wasn't, especially the godawful finale, so I'm done. Skipped season 10, have no plans for the future unless I hear amazing things about whoever replaces Moffat.

Thinking about going all digital on comics. Tired of having to figure out what to do with them after I read them. I tend to read artsy fartsy shit that my local store can't re-sell, so they won't buy them, and my library also wasn't interested (which is odd, because they have a decent collection). Going digital means I just delete 'em when I'm done. As an added plus, I don't give any money to Steve Geppi, owner of Diamond Comics Distribution and general shitheel. (Note I'm talking about buying digital comics through things like Comixology, not downloading them.)

Mechanical keyboards are great, but can be loud. I had to buy a Matias Quiet Pro (not cheap) keyboard because the rattle from my Unicomp keyboard was going to drive my cube neighbors to murder.

Loud keyboards are my trigger. I hear them and it's like you're announcing to me, "Listen to me type, I am a massive douche."

Josh Look wrote:

Loud keyboards are my trigger. I hear them and it's like you're announcing to me, "Listen to me type, I am a massive douche."

Mechanical keyboards are so much better than the $10 membrane keyboards that come with a PC that it's not even funny. I'm not talking about needing it for MMOs or FPSs, I'm talking about daily work if your job involves typing.

One of the lucky things about my job is that my coworkers and I get along really well. So much so that we turned down moving to offices, because we'd lose our next-door neighbors. We just recently moved to a much nicer blob of cubes, where we all get to keep our neighbors but get window views now. However, the sound tends to echo off of the windows, and the keyclicks from my keyboard are now annoying me, and it's my keyboard.

craniac wrote: 8. Secular humanism, irony and cynicism, social constructionism, postmodernism. I'm an academic in the humanities, and love this stuff, but at some point I have to believe that my actions matter and that individual relationships are the foundation of life.

Yep. I think this stuff is promulgated by people who don't get laid, or get laid by people who otherwise couldn't give a fuck.

Legomancer wrote: I passed on Doctor Who with season 9. Then people told me it was much better than the Matt Smith junk so I gave it a spin. For me, it wasn't, especially the godawful finale, so I'm done. Skipped season 10, have no plans for the future unless I hear amazing things about whoever replaces Moffat.

Yep - stepped off that train after season 7, well part way thru season 8 exactly.

You know what the "comfort zone" is? I think I suffer from a variant of it, the "lazy zone".

The lazy zone is when you stand in a small circle of activities not because it's what you like, but because you are "too lazy" to do something better. Having fun, or doing something intersting requires effort and that effort is not physical, but purely psychological: You have to decide to move and do something better instead of taking the easy way out. Basically, I end up doing "semi-fun" stuff which is a waste of time.

1) Pointless internet browsing. I must have wasted hundreds of hours this year reading stuff in the internet that I do not truly care about.. Forums like this one, or a couple video game ones I follow are ok, it makes sense for me to read them and I enjoy to. I get something out of them. But there's a lot of stuff I cpend time on that does'nt give me anything in return: "Internet comedy" sites. Webcomics. And news. I don't have fun with those. They don't make me smarter, or a better person, I just follow them because I'm too "lazy" to play a game, pick up a book or write.

2) Pointless social media chatting: I often end up talking with people on Facebook or Whatsapp more out of boredom than out of any social necessity. Basically, I hit people up to see if something interesting or fun may come up in our conversation instead of bringing something to the table myself. I should simply hit people a bit less often but make things more interesting.

3) Emotionally draining navel-gazing: I think you can engage with a lot of stuff that is emotionally draining and that, deep down, has absolutely nothing else going for it other than that aspect. Being emotionally engaged is addictive. It makes you think you are doing something, something important even, when all you are really doing is standing there like an idiot. Internet drama is probably a good example of this, but to show how insidious this stuff can be here's a better one: Reading about how difficult it is to commute by bike in most cities.

I already know that, I have a bike and take it out on the streets. It's not really helping me in any way, it just takes some of my energy away so I can feel "engaged". It's pointless. Discussing politics, or supporting "causes" like this goes nowhere, it's navel-gazing. You are not actually helping, you just are confirming pre-concived notions. And it's hard because this kind of navel-gazing is everywhere and often hard to tell apart from, well, informing yourself. But I think it's one of those things I should better drop off this year.

The Secular Humanism stuff is a perfect example of this, actually.

1. Almost all board games.
I've played probably a thousand games and I have to accept that most are just spins on older ones, and in most cases inferior. So, I'm only playing shit I want to play.

2. Writing.
I find that it is mostly a labor of love that is mostly unappreciated and mostly fruitless. My "writing career" peaked long ago and without BGG's huge user base to push traffic, keeping the Circus running is mostly a lot of effort with almost no return. I'll keep doing MM for a while until I run out of games to write about, and I'll likely stop that too. I'd rather spend an hour playing a game I want to play, or hang out with the family instead. $20 is not worth an hour of hanging with my kids.

3. Trying to please people.
I spend a disproportionate amount of time worrying about the people around me, but I am finding that I am alone on this, so my new attitude is "me first". It's gotten to the point where being around negative people is getting me back to being angry a lot and I don't want to end up like that. Life's too short.

4. Mopping.

I'm not mopping anymore. Ever. Fuck mopping.

I tried number three for awhile. I think a life not living for others isn't one worth having. Also happiness is so much better shared. I think you can find a happy medium between the two extremes.

Erik hit my biggest ones (especially 1 and 2).

It's an interesting topic. I don't really have any for "this year" so I suppose my post is sort of a cheat but here are a couple trains I have stepped off in the last year and a half.

POLITICS: Now understand, my belief system hasn't really changed but my attempts to defend what I believe to people of opposite views have greatly decreased. I once thought that reasoned discussion could plant seeds of doubt or reconsideration in people of opposing sides but I think it now rather pointless and wasted energy. I have embraced that what I think or know to be true is sufficient. What others think is beyond my ability to alter.

ANGER: The majority of my life has been filled with a righteous anger at what I saw as injustice and stupidity. I have made a conscious effort over the last 18 months to let that go. Anger is an anchor. It holds you and it chains you. By attempting to break that chain I think I have opened up new possibilities for myself. It's a shame that this has come so late in life but better late than never.

SELF DOUBT: Speaking of anchors. I have tried to internalize that I am capable of a great many things. To do them well and to be successful at them. Along those lines, to stop undervaluing my own worth. On a superficial level this is related to the amount of money I earn doing any given job but it's deeper than that and has a lot to do with reprioritizing the focus of my energies from what is expected to what is important.

Is this TMI? Perhaps, but if it is then blame Engineer Al for buying that third serving of Earth's Coldest Beer.