#oneaday Day 1085: Where'd the week go?

I'm not entirely sure where this week has gone. We seem to be sitting at the end of Thursday at after 10pm and I've no idea where all the time has disappeared to. I wouldn't position it as either a particularly "fun" or "stressful" week, so I'm sort of surprised that things seem to have flown by as they have.

Was feeling a bit down with everything earlier… still am right now, to be honest. I feel like I'm "waiting" for something to happen — practically speaking, part of me is probably waiting for the current pandemic situation to be over, which looks increasingly unlikely to ever happen at this point. At the same time, though, I feel like there's something just sort of… indescribably frustrating that feels out of reach, and just to add to the frustration, I'm not even sure what the thing that is out of reach actually is.

I'm also, to be honest, getting a bit run down by the sheer pace of modern Internet life, and a little upset at how much I can see it burning out people that I like and care about — and they don't seem to want to admit it. Those who have taken to streaming in particular seem to be having a really rough time of late, and quite a few people I know almost sound like they're doing it out of "obligation" rather than anything else. There's no joy in what they say about their streams; it's all chasing Affiliate or Partner and counting Channel Points rather than expressing any sort of enthusiasm in what they're playing or the friends they've made in the process.

There are exceptions, of course — I know some of you who are kind enough to support me here are running your own streaming regimes, and I hope those are going well for you. I'm talking more about a few people I've seen on Twitter recently who seemingly got into it because they felt like they had no other option; a few years back I feel everyone had a much more realistic perception about the possibility of making money "playing video games online", but that seems to have dissipated in the last couple of years — at least partly thanks to the pandemic, I'm sure, since streaming doubtless appeals to those who don't feel comfortable leaving the house amid all this.

With all that in mind, I think I'm resolved to not establish any sort of regular streaming regime for myself, at least not for my own personal hobby side of things. Work might be another matter at some point — though the writing and occasional YouTube vids are more than enough right now — but for now, I'm happy with what I do; I feel like I'm contributing something meaningful and useful to the community while at the same time doing something I enjoy. The moment it starts feeling too much like work is the time to hang it up and just "reclaim" my hobbies for myself — something which I think some of the people I just mentioned could probably do with doing, even if it's just temporarily.

I'm not ruling out streaming for special occasions, mind. I'd like to do something for one of the charity stream marathons at some point, because the couple of occasions I did Extra Life it was great fun. I'd likely do something a bit more "local" next time, though, since although Child's Play and Extra Life are wonderful things, they're still quite America-centric. I believe the charity Special Effect do more EU/UK-centric events, so I will probably look into those. I have plans forming for something along the lines of an Evercade marathon; I think that'd be really fun.

Anyway, that went off on a bit of a tangent. It's half past ten now, so probably time to go sit upstairs and play retro games for a bit, far away from the Internet. Join me!