I’ve been thinking a lot about age and mortality lately, and the shifts that have happened in my perceptions of the world as I start to see the first glimmerings of the light at the end of the tunnel that is my life.
Seriously…I look at all the unread books I own and wonder if I’ll live long enough to read them (definitely not, if I keep buying new ones). Things of that nature. Now my mom is in her 80’s; if I live as long as her I have plenty of time left. But I’m the age that my dad died at now. If I follow in his footsteps I don’t have long at all.
Anyway, I was thinking about blogging about these changes in attitude that creep up as we get older.
But I’m not sure if I should do it here, or if I should start a new blog. I’m not sure most of my readers really care about this stuff that they won’t have to worry about for 20 years or more.
I think, once I’m gone, that it might be interesting to read an online journal of a person slowly coming to grips with mortality and then passing on. Jeez, that sounds really morbid and I don’t mean it to be at all. But I wonder if other people think the same things I do.
Y’know the old “You kids get off my lawn” attitude that we joke about…that’s becoming reality for me, in a way. I find it interesting, when I can look at it dispassionately.
Anyway, what do you readers think? Do it here or keep it separate from all the gaming and puppy talk?
At the risk of sounding dismissive and trite, it’s your blog to do with as you see fit. I will say that I don’t see the correlation between this topic and the THEME of the blog, unless you fit it into a “gaming and age” mold.
Although I’m only 36, I also think of these things. I find it horribly ironic that we spend all this time of our lives learning stuff, doing stuff, making connections with other people, building things…and when we pass on, all of our experience and knowledge is just gone. We’re no longer available to continue our forward momentum, and anything that we might have been able to contribute to the world in the future is no longer possible.
There is something to be said for envisioning a repository for what we know and experience in preparation for the day when we’re no longer around to relate it first hand.
Just like you guys told me awhile back when I asked a similar question: it’s your blog, do with it as you will.
Heck, I barely do any MMO gaming these days anymore. And I’ve lost the majority of whatever readership I had as a result, it would seem. But mostly I ascribe to the notion of writing for myself. If I didn’t want to write it, I wouldn’t have bothered and I certainly wouldn’t have clicked the publish button. But I do love getting comments and some discussion, and that has been my greatest disappointment, even regret to a point, about slacking off the posting and the MMOing and such.
But anyway, like I’ve told a couple other bloggers over the years, I’m not always into reading just about the hardcore stuff or the number crunching or… whatever. If you’re writing about a game, my favorite posts are when people write about what they’re actually *doing* and how they’re enjoying themselves; not the ones where they take apart individual mechanics. Similarly, just like those type of posts kinda give me a feel for who the blogger is as a gamer, non-gaming posts may serve to give me a feel for one aspect or so of who they are as a person as well.
Isn’t that the end-goal for writing publicly? I say keep it here!
I’m approximately the same age as you. My mom died at 51, two years older than I am now (but I am not a lifelong smoker, as she was, either). My dad died at 70. I use those ages as bookends. 19 years when it is likely, based on family history (not just my parents), that I will die. It’s tough not to add 19 to everything — like, my daughter, 25, will be middle aged when I’m dead. My grandson will be through college and maybe starting a life of his own.
Since I’m single and likely to remain so, the question has to be asked: why get up each day and go to a job and come home to a dark house? Is the only reason I continue to live just the instinct for survival?
And naturally, I wonder how I’m going to die.
I have no problem with you keeping it here, but I’m pushing 40, and also finding myself getting more introspective about aging. I really started thinking about it when my parents came to visit this summer. In ten years time, my kids will be grown and out of the house and my life will likely be quite different. So I’m all for talking about the aging thing! If you decide to move it somewhere else, I’ll just add your new blog to my Google Reader.
I’d keep it here, but that’s just me. As I noted in your Buzz thing, “isn’t tilting at windmills and chasing dragons something that we all do in one way or another in life? Seems to me that the theme can expand quite nicely to include philosophy as well as games and puppies.”
Beside, we’re people first, gamers second, methinketh. I also believe that games work best when they speak to the human condition. Writing about humanity seems to me to be a Good Thing.
On a gaming kinda note: one of the reasons I know longer play MMOs is because they bring me no value — they are just wasted days, hours, years spent doing nothing. I might as well have been in a coma when I played EverQuest. I used to display my /played time with pride, but now I realize it is a mark of shame. I feel sick about my time in EQ and WoW now.
I think it’s fine to keep it here, old man. Blogs are personal accounts, I think it’s much more interesting to be able to see the change in a persons writing as they get older and more experienced. I’ve only been blogging for a couple years now and I can already look back to some of my first posts and say, “HA! dumbass!”
@Tipa
not to totally derail the post, but I actually don’t look at MMO’s in that respect. I’ve ALWAYS been sick at the sight of my /played time, but I still enjoy them for the experiences. =D
But, maybe that attitude will change one day for me as well!
Everyone else has stated their reasons, and they echo mine, so I’ll just say this: I say keep it here. 🙂
Here sounds fine. Or whatever. The RSS feed doesn’t mind either way.
Now you’ve made me all melancholy on my 41st birthday! Seriously, though, I imagine that a lot of us float in a similar boat, at least those that are geographically close to their parents and grandparents: aging is difficult to ignore once you get past the wonderful, energetic twenties and are observing the effects on a regular basis.
My boss laughingly told me today, “Just wait, it gets worse!” I chuckled back and said, “I know, but it sure beats the alternative.” 😉
I vote for here. I don’t subscribe to feeds, so if you go somewhere else I’ll forget to look and then I won’t be able to commiserate!
No, please keep it here. This place might have a core in gaming, but I think your voice, you as a person, is what keeps people coming back. I’d appreciate reading it.
Up to you, it takes me two seconds to skip a post I’m not interested in and two seconds to subscribe to a new RSS feed.
As someone halfway through his 30’s and the father of a 2 year old, I’ve been thinking about aging from a few different perspectives as well. I’m always interested in other viewpoints.
Without meaning to make this sound like psychological advice or the rants of an individual who is obviously a few years your junior, I have to say, you don’t need to start a new blog. This blog is who you ARE. It is the evolution of your thought-process, your metamorphosis as a gamer, and a little window we all have into your life. Whether your 40 or 400, this is the one place where you can express yourself in any manner you see fit, but this place, by virtue of its association with you, is effectively an extension of you.
As for mortality, it is really not much to fear. There are only two constants in life: death and taxes. Taxes never scared you all that much did they? Why should something as inevitable and ageless as death? Add life to your days, not days to your life. Live it up man, this helluva ride around on the third rock from the sun comes around only once.
Blog on!
Rock on!
I am not one of your regular readers, I’m just a gamer that happened to stumble upon your blog today… And I see nothing wrong in mixing the gaming theme of your blog with the realities of your existence.
Perhaps I am younger than many of the other commenters, but turning 30 this year has gotten me to a place where I have started to realize my own mortality. Strange that it took 30 years. What’s next from here? Do you fear it more or less the older you get?
Another vote for keeping it here.
To me a Blog about ‘self’ and sharing of that self with others. To split on a specific topic is to diminish the understanding of where the thoughts and experiences shared come from. It’d be a slim glimpse through a gap in the curtains to your soul, not a true perspective of who you are and where those thought fit into you as a whole.
I’m closer to 50 then 40 and I , as we probably all do, have similar thoughts at times. I go through patches of what was summed up nicely by Tipa with “why get up each day and go to a job and come home to a dark house?”. Then I have days where I step outside into a world that just amazes me with its beauty and exhilirates me. These swings impact my gaming , my work and every aspect of my life, just as in turn changes in my life influence that very state of mind that brings on such moods. Let us see it all unfolding.
Not a regular reader either, but I do think that you should write about whatever you want. I have never been a fan of compartmentalization. Keep up the good fight!
I’d love to see you share your thoughts on aging. And yeah, I can recognize the shift in the way I think about it. Still, it’s sort of relative. In some aspects I’m still a 17 year old in my mind – in others I feel like I’m 80. Still I try to be who I am, without any lies or pretence. I’ve written a couple of gaming-age-related posts on my blog in the past and I suspect I’ll come back to it again.