Topic: Goodbye/Vacation Thread

@Th3solution Nah. For some my family, apparently, vacationing involves swimming with dolphins and spending hours on buses in Mexico to check out Aztec ruins. For me, it involves spending hours laying around a dark, cold room and only occasionally and begrudgingly leaving for food, exercise (got my best record in a 5K this year!), or so the room attendant can tidy up. Temperamentally, I have more in common with the sort of animal you'd find hiding in the back of a cave than anything.

@RogerRoger Back... online.

Spending a week without internet access is surprisingly tough. I'm so reliant on it. I feel like my connection to the world is severed when I can't instantly google something now.

@themcnoisy Cool. Thanks for so deftly working around my sudden absence while still incorporating my input!

@Ralizah Aztec ruins sounds pretty awesome to me. Swimming with the dolphins is a hard pass though. But yeah, laying around doing nothing but gaming, reading, sleeping, and watching movies is a perfect vacation as far as I’m concerned. And congrats on the 5K! It reminds me I need to get exercising again.

@Ralizah I'm of a generation that boasts "hey, I remember a time before the internet, so I can totally live without it" and yet, as soon as my Wi-Fi goes down, I'm tearing my hair out... so you have my sympathy. When I was away last week, I stayed off my phone for three days. It was tough!

@themcnoisy @DerMeister @RogerRoger @Frigate Thanks guys. Life has been coming fast. Hoping to get everything sorted & have some normality return to life.

Hopefully I’ll be back by the time Death Stranding is out😁!

It looks like it's my turn to say goodbye.
Some recent misadventures made me move away from what I thought it was my "normal" life. I'm losing interest in many things, videogames included.
If I'll ever play again, I'll surely be back here since this felt to me like the best community around.
Bye!

@andreoni79 Wishing you change for the better, and clear horizons.

@andreoni79 Sounds like life hit you in a hard way. We will miss you here. But foremost, just take care.

I hope that while video games might feel hollow for you right now, you'll find some pleasure in another passion. I seem to remember you're a music lover, right?

Anyway. Hope to see you back again someday!

@andreoni79 All the best with your endeavours. Hurry back!!

@andreoni79 Didn't see this. Hope things work out for you!

Everyone else has pretty much got this covered but hope everything goes well @andreoni79 !

Looks like I'm back. And it's all because of Kojima...

@andreoni79 Phew. How are you?

@Kidfried Oh, the cruellest question! Let's say that I have not solved my problems yet, but I'm working on them in a new way and this helped me to approach again both gaming and writing.
Death Stranding is the mysterious, beautiful and intriguing game that made me revaluate a media that lately I felt too frivolous, while "Time regained" by Marcel Proust (the 7th and final volume of his "In search of Lost Time) convinced me to work hard again on my writings thanks to his thoughts about the connection between art and life, about how we can translate a sad event into a positive experience by understanding the real meaning of the ideal hidden in that practical event. But my English surely isn't good enough to explain what I mean so I let the author talk:
“At every new torment which is too hard to bear we feel yet another vein protrude, to unroll its sinuous and deadly length along our temples or beneath our eyes. And thus gradually are formed those terrible ravaged faces, of the old Rembrandt, the old Beethoven, at whom the whole world mocked. And the pockets under the eyes and the wrinkled forehead would not matter much were there not also the suffering of the heart. But since strength of one kind can change into a strength of another kind, since heat which is stored up can become light and the electricity in a flash of lightning can cause a photograph to be taken, since the dull pain in our heart can hoist above itself like a banner the visible permanence of an image for every new grief, let us accept the physical injury which is done to us for the sake of the spiritual knowledge which grief brings; let us submit to the disintegration of our body, since each new fragment which breaks away from it returns in a luminous and significant form to add itself to our work, to complete it at the price of sufferings of which others more richly endowed have no need, to make our work at least more solid as our life crumbles away beneath the corrosive action of our emotions.”

@andreoni79 are you OK bro?

This year I have questioned my commitment to gaming. My life has built up into a crescendo of anxiety, stress and kids. Which has coincided with one of the worst gaming years for absolutely yonks.

Whenever I used to be at a loose end I would put on a game, even when my wife was in a coma a few years ago, I wasn't allowed to be with her in hospital so I put the kids to bed and put on Titanfall 2 that evening. I didn't play it very well but it was good to hear from the lads I was playing it with whilst trying to make sense what was happening. Fortunately my wife recovered and Titan fall 2 will always have a special place in my heart. Especially that moving platform level were they are making pre fab housing. It was the perfect metaphor for what was happening at that point. Gaming is a hobby to me, but it's also a safe place to wrap my head around what's happened that day, week, year.

Starting now gaming is back with DS and we have a bunch of amazing games to look forward to. Write about it mate!

@andreoni79 @themcnoisy Thanks, my friends. You have inspired me today with your words. I had a rough day and both of your posts gave me a little encouragement.
I’m saving that quote.
“let us accept the physical injury which is done to us for the sake of the spiritual knowledge which grief brings; ...to complete [our work] at the price of sufferings of which others more richly endowed have no need...”

Love it.

@andreoni79 Amazing quote hope you are Ok and enjoy Death Stranding.

@themcnoisy For me, this has not been a great gaming year. I have been a bit burnt out on it and not many games outside the indie scene have spoken to me. I am looking forward to next year though.

@Rudy_Manchego 2020 is gonna be ace. Until then we have DS and Dreams.

@andreoni79 Welcome back; don't worry, your English is more than good enough, I get what you mean. It's really great to see you posting again and yeah, as others have said, enjoy Death Stranding.

... Very unforseen circumstances have happened today...

I'll be taking some time off here for a while. No idea when I'll be back

@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy I... uh, saw what you said on NL about it.

Obviously random internet people aren't going to be any help, but... I hope you'll be OK. I'll have you in my thoughts. And if you ever need to talk, know that I'll be available.

Take care.