I'm toying with the idea of just not using my computer anymore except for work and things that are necessary. I play way too much Quake 4, and I'm really never going to be good enough at it to be amazing and respected by the community, or good enough to make any substancial amount of money. I also spend a lot of time online looking at things like xanga and facebook and esreality.com and gotfrag.com and stuff. I could cut all that out, and it really wouldnt change anything in my life, i.e. I wouldnt know any less, or have any less fulfilling of a life. So.. If i were to drop all that and stop using my computer except when I had to, I would have so much free time. Like, I would probably gain about 6-10 hours a day of free time. If I spent half of that on Japanese and half of that on Real Estate, by the time the sememester was over I'd be so good at Japanese and probably have tens of thousands of dollars from real estate. This, as oppposed to being slightly better at Quake 4, which is something that is completely useless in all reality. But, at the same time, I've invested so much time into Quake 4 and gotten so good, and I'm signed up to go to CPL (a professional video game competition) so it'd kinda be a waste to throw all of that away. So I guess this dilemma is kinda like Iraq, with the whole "too late to pull out now" except no one died, so pulling out of Q4 wouldnt be nearly as horrible. :p I do enjoy Q4, but it seems to frustrate me a lot, and it's very rare that I get extremely excited about it. It almost feels like a chore now. I suppose, going by what I've written I should really just stop spending all this time on my computer and do things that have more posotive outcomes, and that you dont have to be #1 in the world at to succeed. If I had put as much time into real estate as I had with video games over my life, I'd probably be worth $300,000 or so by now. I know it's not completely realistic to say that I could spend the same amount of time doing work as doing something that I enjoy, but even just a fraction of that is phenominal. If I had done the same with Japanese, I'd probably be fluent by now. If I had done it with something like weight-lifting, I'd be completely ripped by now. I mean who honestly cares if you are good at a video game, if you aren't making any money or winning any competitions because of it.

Something that I'd also like to address is this: I dont know if I have what it takes to become any good. I am extremely competitive but I hate making other people feel bad. When you are playing matches that are 1v1, which is what I play, there is always a loser and a winner, and I really hate humiliating people by beating them severely. I don't really go on ego trips and I dont feel like I need to bash people. I also feel bad telling myself that I am good, because I am not good in reality. I'm good compared to 99% of the people that play quake, but compared to the 200 people I'll be playing against, I suck. So, a lot of times when I go into matches, I lack the confidence that a lot of people seem to have, which causes me to lose more often than I should.

I feel almost as though I cannot get any better at Quake. The amount of time I've spent trying to come up with good strategies sickens me. Especially since I cannot seem to get any better when I apply those strategies. Winning only 25% of the games you play is extremely frustrating, especially since I'm supposed to be good or something. The game is buggy as hell, which adds to the frustration. The Q4MAX team has done an amazing job at fixing a lot of the main issues, but still plenty remain. Simple things, like the game crashing several times a day (completely unacceptable), or the gamma being messed up on my desktop every single time I exit, or when I type things in to chat after a game the window pops up and I lose what I was typing. Small things, yes, but still frustrating. It sure doesnt help that every single map looks like a rusted steel cage and I feel like im trapped inside it. When i played CS:S it was a lot of fun and extremely refreshing, this is just painful. I'm not whining about it, and I know Q3 had a lot of the same problems out of the box that were later fixed, but that doesn't change how the game is right now. CS:S was excellent right out of the box, but unfourtunately playing with a team blows, and it blows hard. So, I want to play 1v1 games and if I want to have any chance at getting some money for this sometime in the future, I have to play Q4. I just feel like if I'm going to waste my time on a game, I might as well be able to trick myself into thinking that it is mildly productive. I just feel like playing Quake is not a good idea if at the end of every single day I am extremely unhappy at my playing, and extremely frustrated with the game as a whole. After a few hours I cool down and play again, only to have the exact same thing happen. If I invested my time into something that was more posotive and had a better outcome, I think I would be a happier person. Because really, thats all that matters in life.

But, nevertheless, I continue to play Quake 4. Partially out of habit, partially because I have this drive that I know I need to be good by the time I get to CPL which is in July. I think I still have some thought to devote to that.