no chill ( rant (??) )
I don't think I have truly done anything casually before.
Maybe, long ago, when I was young (younger) and dumb (dumber) I once enjoyed doing things purely because they were fun. Apparently, like when I was three, my favorite hobby was throwing my toys across the room, which may not have been fun but more closer to "dayum! I can throw this thing further now!" Then I would cry when the toys stopped working. Hmm.
But in the very selective memories that I have, I don't think I really have a hobby that I've done casually. I have done things that I didn't take very seriously, but if I like, SAID I wanted to do something, it was either do it all or do nothing.
So for example, I played chess as a kid because my dad said "you're going to play chess".
I played soccer as a kid because my dad said "you're going to play soccer."
I played piano as a kid because my mom said "you're going to play piano." etc.
Now as any good old "worthless youth these days", what I REALLY wanted to do was play video games. What I would do is that I would get enamored by a new game, spend lots of time grinding, playing, figuring out things about the game to get better than my friends and at a faster pace than them, making myself feel very accomplished in the process.
But now that I'm old I feel like I may have wasted my time.
So is this a good mentality to have? Since I am unsure if it is a problem or not. Half the times I don't know if I'm doing something because it is fun, or because I simply got good at it.
Usually when people ask me why I play chess these days, I would answer with something along the lines of "I started because it was fun, and I continue because I'm not good at anything else."
Often times I try to download some games on my phone, but then I'd have the pervasive thought of "you won't have enough time to devote to this game... you're already committed to other things." and then I'd spend no time trying to learn the new game, and if I don't know what I'm doing in a game, I find it boring and I click "uninstall".
wwwwwwhich is why my phone has only two games on it.
I used to play some computer and console games, but since getting my new phone I have almost completely stopped playing them.
I feel like I only stick around long enough to get decently good at something, before I judge it to be "too hard" and "too time consuming" before I decide "you know what? Let's go do something else that you can learn from the bottom up to make yourself feel like you're smart."
Right now I think this pattern is getting into my chess. I remember that my dad said that he wasn't sure if I would stick with chess, so he would only buy me premium if I reached 1500. Been there done that, but recently as you guys can probably tell I have lost quite a bit of motivation for chess.
These days all I do is play a couple games and then call it a day so that I don't "get rusty". I do next to no tactics. I still play alright, if only because chess is like riding a bike.
I would be lying if I said that I hadn't, for a period of time, given up on my goal of NM before college, because it felt too hard. It seems that when I stop improving, I stop enjoying. Really not sure what to do about this.
Sorry for the rant. I have stuff to do but I just don't feel like doing them. I'm not sure what's up with me.
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what was just written was simply a stream of thoughts that one by one popped into my head. They may not make sense. Thank you for reading