So it finally happened. I'm falling asleep while playing video games just like when watching a boring video or a boring movie.
After all these years of girls telling me video games are cringe and childish, my parents telling me I'm old to play video games (I'm 24 though), everyone around me exclusively playing one / two games or singleplayer games that they wanted to play because the story is just good bro (so they take the cinematic value over the gameplay value, i.e. TLOU over Factorio) and some very pretentious people claiming video games are a waste of time it finally clicked.
No, no. Not because games are cringe for childish people or a waste of time. If they were, Elon Musk or Henry Cavill, who are very successful and reasonably intelligent people wouldn't play games on their free time. Call them childish if you want, but I don't see you in space or directing Warhammer.
Not because of the opinions of others. Oh, to be constrained by others opinions on you, and not to enjoy your live to the fullest. Just imagine. At that point just be part of a hive or, better yet, seek a religious life and find a higher purpose.
What is it, then?
It's that I finally managed to accidentally brainwash myself into thinking anything except working, socializing and talking to people, learning about things or working (be it on myself or in whatever projects I'm doing) is a boring thing to do.
I have yet to reach the levels of Willyrex, a spanish youtuber, who had “anxiety” when Fortnite dropped. His channel was doing great at that point and all he could think about was to do more and more and more Fortnite, and he just wanted more and more money (or so he claimed on some podcast)
I bring this up because he literally did nothing except play and upload Fortnite. I'm not as obsessed as he was. I seriously don't think that's a sane thing to do.
Brainwashed... How, exactly?
I don't know. Again, I'm not obsessed with work. I have been listening to The Score, Sam Tinnesz, Jaxson Gamble and other motivational-esque alt rock / whatever their genre is for the past 5 years, I think. All of the “I'm a warrior, I'm a legend, I'm unstoppable” type of music.
And yet, I still wanted to play videogames, go out dining with my ex-girlfriend, go out with friends... Just generally enjoy life. At least what I can enjoy. More on that later, but even though I was listening to a lot of “I can be a hero!” type of music I didn't gaslight myself into thinking everything else except side-projects were boring.
I got bored of Twitter (now X): I jumped to video games. I got bored of video games: Instagram it is. With YouTube in between, just watching random content. Mostly Aurateur, extremely chill guy, Save a Fox, WarOwl, Sam Tabor... Generally a bunch of people.
Nope. It wasn't the music or “jumping between things”.
On the topic of shit entrepreneur inspirational accounts
You won't fucking believe it because if you told me 3 years ago, while following @entraprenure on Instagram and other “entrepreneur parodies”, I'd laugh at your face.
You see where this is going? And I still stand by it: most “inspirational” shit on IG and TikTok is done by unsuccesful people trying to sell a life they don't live.
But... Yes. It was the fucking inspirational accounts 😓. Not those with Dave Goggings telling you “man you should just go running while it's cold dude” or Cristiano Ronaldo saying “Yeah actually if you work on something you'll be better than everyone else”.
No fucking shit! Thanks, unfollowed. No fucking shit parodies are more famous than your “warrior mindset” ebook probably made in a weekend with ChatGPT.
How I brainwashed myself accidentally into thinking only doing side-projects is fun
I started following valorgi (80% of the content is useless), Unbeatable Mindset (same as above), hudsonfilms, thestoicswan, arcstrive, goatd.minds... (notice how I have 0 criticism of the latters)
I love it. When they're not repeating the same things over and over, they're extremely good videos. I genuinelly think it! They're basically art for me, plus a good underlying message.
It clicked.
Small timeline of how it actually happened
I've been exposed to these messages for well over 8 months. At month 1 I was trying to get my partner at the time to work on a silly side project we had.
Forward to month 3, I was starting to dig doing it, learned React Three Fiber even, told her to research how to do the business parts because I didn't really want to do everything: no luck.
Month 5. No longer friends with her. “We” abandoned it since I had no direction, saw no product-market-fit and was building her product and chasing her dream, not mine. Even with Claude Computer Use I don't think that product is good for someone who's not an expert in 3D modelling, animation AND desktop software development (or someone who can learn the three, I can only learn the last one, I tried).
Thought a certain app was bad, and I just switched projects. Told another friend and my brother. I knew this friend wanted to learn how to run and manage a business, my brother wanted to learn Flutter or anything in the frontend for fun. Thought: hey, I won't have to do everything myself!
Fast forward to month 7 and I'm alone, making a meme app to reply with AI on X and halted that other idea. LMAO. The database was almost modelled, but I'll have to figure out what to do with it next.
Fully Brainwashed
But something is still... changing within me. I no longer entertain the idea of living with a wage forever, I enjoy working on things on the side instead of playing video games or meeting new friends and girls... I'm not annoying with it, I still respect people who don't want to make it big or make a name for themselves...
...but I feel it in me, and there's no going back.
It's not that I just want the wi-fi money solopreneurs talk about, it's about being in complete control, and being solely responsible for my life. I really don't know why or how my brain has been rewired to find entrepreneurship appealing, but yes, all of this shit of “Be your own boss” is starting to grow on me.
Not because I ever hated any of my bosses, like literally, real talk: my first boss at SDG was INCREDIBLY AWESOME, my second bosses were AWESOME too (not better than the first one who not only was goated at his work, but he also was extremely friendly and always tried to make you smile! 10/10 vs 9.8/10), and not because my bosses at Lynx were bad (I would actually give them a 9.8/10 because they're just too overworked and can't be like the first guy at SDG, seriously).
No, I'm actually LIVING. Life as a “wagie” as the wojak-posting people from 4chan like to say is fucking amazing. Literally? It's not even the whole golden handcuff dillema of “man, I don't like my workplace but they pay so well :/“. Hell no. Life is amazing.
I mostly like what I do, I do it (I think) kind of well enough to not be stuck for decades at the same role, I don't think.
I literally don't know why I'm starting to be like this. This is why I say I accidentally brainwashed myself. I just know I'm brainwashed, but I can't quite point my finger as to why.
You see my life in retrospective and everything (except for not having a beautiful girlfriend) is just... Perfect. Am I just seeking thrill for the sake of thrill? Maybe. Let the closing remark be I don't want to research about this, but I think it's either of two:
1. I actually love money and want to seek entrepreneuralship just for the money
2. I'm chronically depressed and I really can't enjoy anything, ever. Which is sad, and I hope I'm wrong.
Yes, I won't research about the second one because I know I will gaslight myself and actually fall into a depression again. So these are the closing remarks: whatever it is, I hope it leads me to a good place.