Despite the Wind

I was out on the bike this morning for a good long ride and as the miles ticked by, my mind turned to EVE.  Around mile 27, I had a fully fleshed out post that just sort of erupted into my brain faster than I could remember it.

The words I'll write here will in no way be as elegant or as insightful as the words in my head during that Gatorade fueled haze, but I'll try to reconstruct them.

As a biker, there are two constants in life:  hills and wind.  Hills you can predict and plan for (or plan around).  But wind is everywhere, on every route, and can't be avoided.  Wind is an ever present adversary that changes direction, gets stronger when you don't want it to, lulls you with false compassion and then grinds you into dust.  You'd can try to minimize it's impact on your ride, or ride with the wind and take advantage of the extra boost ... but it will eventually turn on you and make you pay for being clever.

Wind is greatly affected by the local geography.  The way it licks around a stand of trees, or the way it howls through a river valley, or pushes across a flat corn field are nuances few people truly understand.

Wind is relentless, always present, and inescapable in a suffocating sort of way.  It can be maddening if you let it get to you; otherwise it's best just to accept wind as a tax that must be paid on every ride.


The parallel to EVE is that our 'community' can be a lot like the wind on a long bike ride.  There are pockets of civility, but after years of slogging through it, eventually you'll hit your limit.  Being dispassionate enough about your gaming time to maintain a positive disposition through the onslaught of gankers, scammers, and other chuckleheads wears at me like the wind.  I can hear the howl of the wind in the constant chaos surrounding the ongoing patches - fozziesov, missile changes, WH spawn rate, people hating on Incursions, people hating on missioners.  Relentless, inescapable, and suffocating.

It makes me weary to my core.

There's no singular event that is causing me to write this.  And this isn't a hatemail aimed at the gankers and scammers, or CCP's desire to set up the game mechanics the way they have.  I'm no stranger to burnout, and this isn't that either.  But the tax I pay dealing with the negative experiences ingame and the background droning of complaining and conjecture adds up over time.  I just feel tired.

And so, yesterday, I had almost the entire day to waste on the PC.  I hovered over the EVE icon, hesitated, and then did something else.  I was logged in just now, finished what I needed, and bolted for the logout.  I'll do something different today too.

I enjoy biking and expect to continue, despite the wind.
I enjoy EVE and expect to continue, despite the whine.


What's Playing:  The Black Keys, Attack & Release, I Got Mine