The Garden of Everything

DISCLAIMER: It was not my intention to post about this kind of stuff in this or any other blog, but I feel like I should get this out of my system, so bear with me here.

I rarely ever use FAQs or Walkthroughs. For the main game or storyline, at least. I use them quite often when it comes to things like blue orbs in a Devil May Cry game or ridiculously long or convoluted sidequests in contemporary JRPGs, but other than than, I need to be seriously desperate to use them.

Right now I’m kind of getting desperate about my life and a guide telling me what to do next and how to do it would be more than great.

The thing is, I’ve achieved most of my short-term goals. I have a freelance job in an important gaming magazine, and considering that I want to be a game journalist, this is very good for my resumé. Of course that doing this is less exciting that one would think it is, but when someone is passionate enough about his job, all the little tedious things become meaningless. And you know I am passionate about videogames.

The problem is that freelance thing, not because of the money (I wouldn’t mind getting more, sure), but because I work entirely from home. The magazine I work for is in a totally different city from mine and right now is not possible for me to move there in order to ask for a steady job. I do get other freelance jobs in other areas (such as advertising and music) from time to time, but just as with the journalist thing, I do it at home. There’s only one job I have that requires me to go out (English teacher), but right now I only do it one month, every four months.

Why is that a problem, you ask? Well, because to my unpleasant surprise, I’ve discovered some hikikomori traits in me. Of course, unlike the real thing, I do have some friends and go out once in a while. I don’t earn a lot of money, but I do have jobs. Also, I don’t have any problems talking to strangers if by any chance I get to meet one. But truth is I don’t like going out unless necesary. For the past two weeks I only got out once, and spent most of my time either reading, playing games, writing, playing piano, practicing guitar, etc. Things I surely like a lot, but doing all in the same scenery is making me sick.

And I’m beginning to feel lonely and sad. In order to “cure” myself, I try to go out at least with friends, but unfortunately all of them either have actual jobs or are missing in action (meaning, I don’t know where they are). Besides, while I’ve always been a not-too-many-friends kind of guy, I always thought that the few I had (you know who you are) really loved me, as I love them, but in recent years my list of friends –those who at least call once in a while just to say “hi”– have grown thinner and I wonder what I did wrong. I know I can be difficult sometimes, but I don’t think I’ve ever said or did anything that wasn’t for the good of my friends.

In any case, we can all agree that I’m depressed, clinically speaking. I’m not sad for something in particular, which makes my case less troublesome, I guess (the only thing that really gets me -for years now- is my inability to find a girlfiend). Yet, the combination of the little activity I have, plus doing almost everything in the same place, plus not getting in touch with actual people is bringing me down. I do want te get out of this situation, and I’m willing to fight it, but the problem is I don’t know what there is to fight, or how should I fight it. I really don’t want this to go beyond, because it could get worse, but since I don’t know what to do, I feel like a beast in a self-imposed cage.

So I went to GameFAQs.com to find out what to do next, and they didn’t have my life in their database. What to do?