Loss
Stories of losing interest in what was once important or even the center of our life are somewhat common online. Sports, music, certain friends in our lives, genres of fiction, kinds of coffee, or certain media are all things to which our attachment may wax and wane. It’s natural that there is an ebb and flow. But sometimes the waves go out and never come back and we are left standing on the beach wondering where our enthusiasm has gone. It can feel as if a part of our life has vanished.
When I was a child, I learned to appreciate money only in so far as it could be used to purchase video games. When learning about opportunities to make money, I always evaluated them in terms of fractions of video games this could allow me to purchase. I was able to complete other things in childhood like practicing music, playing sports with friends, and doing homework, but by far I found the most enjoyment out of playing video games.
This lasted until my mid twenties when I noticed a considerable decline in my interest in video games. I wanted to enjoy them but every time I sat down to play, I’d become bored or want to do something else (often watching YouTube videos which is just another form of endless scrolling). This decline continued but I still tried to keep games in my life, each time failing to regain the previous enjoyment it brought me. Throughout this time, I was gaining more autonomy over my time. I had more money than I had previously and the distance from previous enjoyment grew. My experience is surely not unique and certain similar things happen to folks with their interests that are not games.
There are lots of reasons that arise on first analysis as the cause of such disillusionment. I’ve heard things like, “The games industry is going down hill and losing the luster of it’s glory days.” Or “When we grow up, we naturally move on to other interests.” Or “Stress and life have beaten us down such that we can’t enjoy what was once enjoyable.” Or “to perform a certain flavor of masculinity the childhood obsessions (like video games) must fall by the way side.” It’s hard to know which one of these have merit or which one would explain my experience or the experience of others
Surprises
Somewhat surprisingly, in recent years I have regained some interest in playing video games. This is surprising to me because I am now a parent of 2 children who I want to care for and because I work a full time job. Objectively I have less time than ever before to play games. But the 30 minutes I find here and there to play with my older child bring me immense satisfaction.
As a parent I was worried that by showing interest in video games that my child may obtain an unhealthy obsession and want to play games all the time. All that despite the fact that I feel I have a reasonable attachment to games. Every child is obviously different but so far that has not happened at all with my child. In fact they choose other activities other than video games frequently when given the choice.
What’s fascinating to me is that not until I had a marriage to maintain and strengthen, children to care for, and a full time job did my interest return. It may wane again naturally as I continue to age, but why did this moment present itself as as time for video games to resonant with me again?
At first I thought this was a classic “seeing life through the fresh eyes of our children” situation. But now I’m not so certain. In fact, when I try to share my favorite games of my own childhood, my child often rejects the choice and prefers another game. So it’s not just a matter of nostalgia and sharing media I used to love. I’ve lost direct control over the timing and choice of video games. Since I want to play games with my child, I cannot choose to play games that are hyper violent or otherwise too mature (I know that these would not be suitable media for my child). So just as in childhood I have regained a certain limited notion of what game I can play.
Resonance
I think my experience is a concrete example of “Resonance” as described Hartmut Rosa outlines in his book “The uncontrollability of the world.” We resonate with the world and things in it when they appear to speak directly to us. Some ways this manifests is a flow state. When we easily get wrapped up in the activities of exploring relations with those things. What Rosa points out is that, in our modern world, humanity’s penchant for control and observability are precisely the conditions under which things which previously spoke to us in a resonant way go silent. The more effort we expend to control, the less we are able to resonate with the world (and video games which are part of the world).
As I entered by mid-twenties I did try to force myself to have similar experiences I had as a child with games. Playing the same kinds of games as I did and expecting the same kind of result. But the conditions in which I played were very different in my twenties relative to my childhood. For one as a child, I did not have much money to purchase all of the games I wanted to play. I had to be selective with what funds I did have (I was quite fortunate to be gift games and money as child). In addition, I had obligations as a child to attend school. I also enjoyed hanging out with my friends (though we did often play video games together) and playing music. So as a child I had relatively little control over the amount of time I could play games.
As an adult I have many of the freedoms offered to adults in our modernity considering how time and money are spent. And yet ceding some elements of this freedom to important parts of my life like family and work have allow video games to speak to me once again. I often really enjoy just as I did as a child just wandering about and learning about the locations and lore of the game.
I don’t know if all of this will continue but it is a welcome thing. And I hope to embrace the next wave of waning interest and recognize if it is time to move on to something else rather than worry about losing something important to me. When we try to make a hobby or something enjoyable at the edge of our life the main focus, we end up squeezing it for enjoyment juice in a way that such peripheral activities could never sustain a steady flow of enjoyment. There are things at the edge of our life that are wonderful. For me, I love watching football on Saturday. Shouldn’t I try to make a world where every day is filled with Saturday quality football? No! And yet this is what I was trying to do to recapture and control my enjoyment of games.
It’s not wrong to use what we enjoy as a singal about how to spend our life. It’s clearly valuable data! But we have to be careful. It’s like trying to make a dish with only spices and seasonings. Those things are wonderful but fundamentally they must accompany something else and cannot be the main part of the dish.
Enjoy (or else)
Since there are real people who make a living doing exactly what they enjoy, it’s not implausible that something like a hobby can be turned directly into a life’s purpose or main substantive work. It cannot be said that it’s impossible to make a living watching football when there are in fact people who make a living watching football! The thing is we have to differentiate between things that are spices in our life from things that are substantive. And unlike how salt will always be a seasoning to food, different activities can be the substantive part of life to different people but only a spicy to someone else.
Even if we don’t set out to make things we enjoy our life’s purpose, our cultural climate emphasizes enjoyment to the point of excess. So it’s no wonder that one may use enjoyment as a proxy to measure activities that have meaning or purpose to us. The imperative to enjoy demands us to find something that brings us happiness and do it. That is the order of things now. It is a consequence of the notion of freedom we now have. The freedom to chose.
But finding ourselves constrained by important and worth while things in life may lead to the necessary conditions under which things which previously spoke to us but have since gone silent may speak again.