Wednesday 2 February 2000

Pic of the day: "... one of my deepest needs, to build something, stone by stone..."
(Screenshot from the game Pharaoh.)

Have you experienced this? You start doing something because it is fun and exciting. But then it sort of takes on a life of its own, growing, taking up more and more of your resources, wearying you out, growing heavier and heavier by the month ...
No, I'm not talking about a pregnancy here. (I'm not really in a position to say anything profound about those.) I'm talking hobbies.

This morning I glanced at the inbound e-mail, a little spam and quite a bit from the mailing lists. On one list, Al Schroeder asked what we would have done with our time if we weren't writing journals. Thanks a lot, Al! You're not exactly helping, you know ...

But actually, journal writing is one of the last things I would give up, in terms of hobbies. It is pretty essential to the me that I am now. And it fulfills one of my deepest needs, to build something, stone by stone, a monument of my life (or what passes for my life).

Much as I'd like to build monuments in the strategy game Pharaoh, which I recently bought, I simply don't have the time. So far the game seems to be worth the money. I am not sure it has the same potential for playing again and again like Civilization or Master of Magic, though. The progression is too linear. But it is cute in terms of graphics and music, as befits a game under the Sierra label. The game that got me "hooked" on computer games in the first place was from Sierra, if I remember correctly: "Jones in the fast lane", a humorous career simulator. (Do you want fries with that?)

At the height of my computer gaming craze, I would buy a couple of titles each month. And they were expensive, at least here in Norway. Now it is more like a couple a year, and that may be too much. The real cost is not the money, but the time. I don't have that much of it anymore. Not even enough to play a good game that I have already bought.

This is sort of funny. I have no kids, no wife, no social life, not even a TV. I do have a job, though I try to minimize the time spent on it. I don't work overtime, I no-work undertime. Meaning that in some months I actually work less than 100% and have my salary reduced correspondingly. For Januar, I underworked by 7 hours. :) At one time I would travel frequently in my job, either learning or teaching. Now I rarely leave the city. I spend the time on the commuter bus reading; there is not much time for that any more. (And not work-related stuff, let me tell you. Hobbies only.) I remember when I lived closer to the city and would walk or bike to work. But that's also long ago now.

I guess our interests will always grow to fill all available time. Either that, or we will be bored. I am not easily bored, however. Working with monotonous tasks at work will bore me. Being sick in bed will bore me. Being stuck with humorally dysfunctional people can be pretty boring too. But alone at home, there is simply too much fun to be had. Books! Games! E-mail! News! Prayer! Meditation! IRC! Memories! Music! White paper and color pencils! Digicam and Photomagic! And trying to write books, of course. And probably much more. Don't get me started on food..

And now, of course, this entry has grown to fill all this space. You see? They do this all the time.