I’m irrational.

Or rather, because my brain is just wired to hit that high, I’m able to waste 6 hours and 38 minutes today playing an online multiplayer game (kind of like diep.io) instead of doing actually useful and fulfilling things. Why? Because it just feels so great when you win an 8-player FFA match and see your rating go up by an arbitrary ε number of points at the end. [1] The feedback loop is practically immediate (each match is only a couple of minutes long), and because of the fast-paced nature of the game, it’s incredibly difficult to stop playing during a match. And when the match ends, the sudden urge (and ease!) to press that looming Play Again button that’s taking up half the screen doesn’t help either. Much like a rat that runs through charged electrical wires to get another hit of dopamine, I found myself unable to stop despite being aware (!) of the hours that I was losing. It wasn’t even about just one more game. I had no plans on stopping. It was just more matches and more dopamine. [2] Again. Again. And again. The desire to get another win somehow overrode all sense of inhibition and discipline. I had a schedule for today, but this hecking game threw it out the window.

Dopamine is wild, and I’m a fool for forgetting that I’m still susceptible to the same addictions as everyone else. After hours of convincing myself that I had it under control. I concluded that I had no self-control and finally added the site to my growing perm-banned list in Cold Turkey Blocker. With that out of the way, I found the time to write this half-baked piece of a blog. (I had a much more interesting topic planned, but oh well. Maybe next week.)

But isn’t life just a series of highs and lows? Video games (and drugs) just happen to excel at condensing that high into a very, very short period of time. I dare say that we probably wouldn’t do anything if it didn’t give us dopamine. Or if we feared inaction. It all comes down to the avoidance of pain and the pursuit of pleasure, doesn’t it? No higher meaning exists, no other-worldly purpose exists for us pathetic flesh-and-bone creatures.

Because we’re all just hormones and stuff.

[1] I am ranked ~6k now. No idea if that’s good or bad. I hope it’s bad.

[2] I actually ended up analyzing the top-ranked players’ matches to intuit some kind of strategy, which unfortunately just got me more hooked on the game once I could win more.