Tuesday 26 November 2002

Pic of the day: Shedding? Did you say shedding? Sorry, I thought you said shredding! Uhm, is there a necromancer in the house? (Screenshot from Morrowind.)

Shedding

I have a rather long list of online comics in a hot-list folder in Opera (my favorite web browser). Eventually I made a subfolder called "inactive comics" for those that went on hiatus, which is not uncommon in that genre. And then I made another folder called "boring comics" for those that didn’t go on hiatus even though I really hoped they would. You see, keeping up with the online comics is becoming a chore. Even though it goes much faster now with ADSL, I still find that I wish I were through with them so I can play DAoC or write or whatever is on my mind.

It all happened before with online journals. I had a lot of them that I read, but gradually I realized that I was spending a lot of time I didn't enjoy. I guess I could still open them (I can open a whole folder with a click in Opera) so they got the "hits", but that's kinda dishonest. I still read every day of Nova Notes (on the bus, usually, thanks to Cassie the Pocket PC) and sometimes I go and see if Carol of Suicide Blonde is still alive. The rest of my old friends I visit so rarely that they have often changed both name and address when I come to look back. It is sad, but true. New interests crowd out the old. And then they too grow old, and I shed them.

Because I am not static either. I change. I tend to change very fast when left to my own devices. I immerse myself in something: A type of music, a computer game, a hobby ... and then I cross it and wade ashore on the other side, and move on. I had great fun playing Morrowind this summer, but it ended rather abruptly this fall when the lightning struck my computer. When I got it back, I had no interest in that game anymore. Right now it is DAoC again; it is possible that this will be my next Daggerfall, the game I played almost daily for 5 years and that had a place in my nightly dreams. But even in DAoC I have moved from server to server and from character to character. I have stayed pretty long with Itland the Paladin on Galahad, in fact I have only one other character at the same level and that will probably not last out the night. But now I am infatuated with the cooperative server. I like to meet new people and help them, not kill them. It may not be the American way, but then again I am Norwegian; and barely even that, it feels sometimes.

***

When I leave a long-standing favorite hobby of me, part of me feels guilty, like I am betraying something. In the case of online guilds, I guess that is somewhat true. Or for that matter the message boards and newsgroups I have left behind. But life is too short to do fun things that are not fun anymore. It's not like I am doing anything important. It's not like I make a difference.

I have sometimes wondered about this and the contrast with how I feel about love. I can keep loving the same person for years and years with very little encouragement. But is that despite very little encouragement or because of it? If I could immerse myself in that person - if I could bask in their presence every day, learn their every thought and feeling and quirk and habit - would I then eventually get fed up and move on? It is a disturbing thought in so far as it tarnishes my gleaming bright self-image.

And I am not quite sure it would happen either. After all, I have been writing this journal for over 4 years, virtually daily. There have been times when it was irritating to have to set aside things I really wanted to do, just to write something here. I guess you could see that when you read those entries. Was it a sense of duty? I am not paid to do this. It's not all that many people who read it, after all this time. I don't know, but I think it is a basic human need to share, when we come to a certain age or phase of life. Other people have kids, I have the journal. It is the one way in which I hope to live on in this world after I go move on. The next life is a matter of faith, but this one is dear to me, and I wish that some part of me stay with you.

It is a need that goes deeper than the need to have fun. The need to be needed, perhaps the deepest need of all. I may shed my hairs, but my bones remain. Hobbies come and go, but the need to create and to share and to mean something ... it is the essence of my humanity. In some form, I expect it to go on ... until I go out of this life as empty-handed as I came into it.