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Learning How to Not Treat My Life Like I Do My Video Games
My slow crawl towards proper self-care and listening to my feelings
Elden Ring is a role-playing game where you wade through a dying world to become a lord, striking down heroes, villains, and monsters alike. Along the way, you level up your character and upgrade weapons with chunks of ore.
When it first came out in 2022, I pecked away at the game for a few months, quitting on the verge of completion. Recently, I started a new playthrough and quickly built up a stash of ore, hesitant to apply even the most common pieces onto a weapon I didn’t like.
Linear improvement where you work up from the bottom by investing in level-appropriate gear? No thanks, I don’t enjoy spending goodies on short-term gains. So, I bashed my head against a high-level boss until I won, grasping hold of a weapon I wanted to use.
Unfortunately, I forgot the weapon required a special type of ore, different from the piles I was lugging around. When the common ore became purchasable en masse, my stubborn logic collapsed, riddled with holes. Why exactly do I pinch my resources like pennies?
Regardless of the game, I follow the same pattern. This behaviour has a name: the less-than-serious Too Awesome to Use Syndrome.
