The line between obsession and dedication

[Helz]

Days like today I wonder about this line. What is considered 'normal' or 'competitive' or 'unhealthy.' As with any game there is levels of dedication but this is one that has a greater scope than any I have ever touched on. How far is too far and how do our expectations of what is normal translate into the norms we practice as a community's? Is there a line or should we accept its up to each individual?

The random thoughts crawling in my head right now..

[OzyWho]

I'm torn between:
"There is no 'too far'."
and
"When it interferes with your social life, it's too far."

I choose the first one, because the 2nd one would be unfair towards FM due to how much time a single FM game can cost you. (not so much here, I suppose, with our 200 posts days)

[bakermir]

Days like today I wonder about this line. What is considered 'normal' or 'competitive' or 'unhealthy.' As with any game there is levels of dedication but this is one that has a greater scope than any I have ever touched on. How far is too far and how do our expectations of what is normal translate into the norms we practice as a community's? Is there a line or should we accept its up to each individual?

The random thoughts crawling in my head right now..

It is certainly up to each individual since what you describe here is correlated with individual experience. People with more experience are able to dedicate their time to things in a more healthy manner. Helz is experienced in FM so if Helz here investing more time than others but others are calling it "obsession" or "unhealthy" then that becomes a fallacy. Unless Helz is putting their own health or someones health at risk, it will never be an obsession or unhealthy for Helz.

I think that line is purely defined by individual experience.

[SuperJack]

I think it depends on if you truly enjoy it and what negative impacts it has on you.
If you enjoy it, and it's not making your life, or others, worse. Then it's not a problem.
If your dedication to X is just because you should be dedicated yet you are not enjoying it, you need a major rethink.

[Marshmallow Marshall]

Obsession begins when something takes so much of your mental space that it harms your ability to do other things. If FM harms your ability to work (or perhaps more accurately, to live well economically speaking), study, or be with your family, then, like with literally anything, you should probably rethink your relationship with it. It's not specific to FM, to games, or to anything, really: there's a balance necessary to everything in life. For example, working so much that you cannot ever be with your family is unhealthy, and so is the opposite (since you're broke lol). The only exception I see to this is if you really see something as much more important than the rest because you have an highly important mission to accomplish. A president absolutely should care more about the people in his country than about his private life during his time in office, because it's what he's signing up for when he's running for presidency.

[Helz]

Obsession begins when something takes so much of your mental space that it harms your ability to do other things.

By this definition almost everything I take on in my life is certainly an obsession.

Some days I wish I was different. That I could experience things more casually or at least get obsessed with fewer things so I can accomplish the projects I start without them growing into things that consume my life until I have to walk away for periods of time. If there is some 'disorder' label in line with having compulsions to be obsessive in things that interest me I most certainly have it. But then again I also love it.

I am curious though. Does any one else have this 'problem' or am I actually as abnormal as I think I am about it?

[OzyWho]

I am curious though. Does any one else have this 'problem' or am I actually as abnormal as I think I am about it?

I care about nothing, therefore there is not one thing that I do that stops me from doing another. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Marshmallow Marshall]

By this definition almost everything I take on in my life is certainly an obsession.

Some days I wish I was different. That I could experience things more casually or at least get obsessed with fewer things so I can accomplish the projects I start without them growing into things that consume my life until I have to walk away for periods of time. If there is some 'disorder' label in line with having compulsions to be obsessive in things that interest me I most certainly have it. But then again I also love it.

I am curious though. Does any one else have this 'problem' or am I actually as abnormal as I think I am about it?

Fair. "Harm to an uncontrollable or very hardly controllable level" would probably be a better definition.

[theoneceko]

I care about nothing, therefore there is not one thing that I do that stops me from doing another. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

LOL, UWU HEWWO!!!

UUWU, OWO, UWOWU HEWWO!!!

[theoneceko]

By this definition almost everything I take on in my life is certainly an obsession.

Some days I wish I was different. That I could experience things more casually or at least get obsessed with fewer things so I can accomplish the projects I start without them growing into things that consume my life until I have to walk away for periods of time. If there is some 'disorder' label in line with having compulsions to be obsessive in things that interest me I most certainly have it. But then again I also love it.

I am curious though. Does any one else have this 'problem' or am I actually as abnormal as I think I am about it?

By this definition almost everything I take on in my life is certainly an obsession.

Some days I wish I was different. That I could experience things more casually or at least get obsessed with fewer things so I can accomplish the projects I start without them growing into things that consume my life until I have to walk away for periods of time. If there is some 'disorder' label in line with having compulsions to be obsessive in things that interest me I most certainly have it. But then again I also love it.

I am curious though. Does any one else have this 'problem' or am I actually as abnormal as I think I am about it?

For me, I’ve only been obsessed with videOWO games. I used to be very dedicated to things IRL, now I’m like OzyWHUWU, and don’t rly care about, or let myself care about, anything. UWU!!!

If you’re wishing that you were different, maybe you’re obsessed with your projects to a point that is UWUnhealthy for YOUWU. However, you also say you lOWOve your compulsions. So like, I think it’s up to you to decide if you should try to stop your compulsions or not. There were and are a lot of famous and successful people who had and have mental illnesses or ‘disorders.’ Since you’re a fucking marine and don’t seem troubled, um, I think, mebbe, that u have the self-control and discipline to stop doing something if it gets too unhealthy for you. UWU!!!!

By the way, I experience the same thing when I try to tackle projects. I start seeing all these different directions my project can go in, then my vision of the prOWOject gets overwhelms me to the point where I quit entirely UWU. There’s also one other example of this, but it’s something I’d like to keep private UFU

I also share your thoughts on putting labels on your compulsions, like whether they should be called a disorder or not. I think if you saw a therapist, they would probably say you’ve OCD, and I’d somewhat agree with them. However, you probably consider these compulsions a part of who you are, so to just label that as a disorder may actually tick you off.

This probably relates to the current discussion on whether mental illness should be solely treated with drugs or something that should be treated with therapy. But anyways, I’m going off on a tangent.

UWOWU!!!!

[OzyWho]

I want to mention a study that I think could be relevant to this topic. I won't bother searching it up though, sorry for that. But I'm sure anyone could find it themselves if they wanted to.

The study I'm talking about was determined to find the answer to this question: why is it that makes people stop? (Something like that)

This is what they found out.
-Whenever you do anything, even as little as moving a finger, small amounts of norepinephrine/noradrenaline get released into your system.
-When you get enough of it, then your body will tell you "fuck you, I'm not doing anything anymore".
-The only thing they found that can increase this threshold is with dopamine.
-This dopamine, according to them, can't be increased with just happy thoughts. But rather, for example, it must come from genuine beliefs.

This is something that's fun to think about. On the one hand you have happy and emotionally/mentally healthy people being by default more successful than "damaged" people, just because of this. It's whatever. But on the other hand, you have people with random bizarre beliefs makings records or being the most successful - and they end up advertising their beliefs in podcasts or motivational books or wherever and everyone's taking them serious because of their success. LOL
I had a friend who told me to listen to podcasts, and for his best example he told me about some black guy who pushed himself to extreme limits because of his weird principles or beliefs or whatever. I understand the black guy, but I can't understand why other people get inspired by stories like that and listen to podcasts just for it (among other things presumably).

Back to the topic.
How is that study relevant here? Because I believe that we can view the difference between obsession and dedication in how you get your dopamine.
Just like a physical addiction doesn't let you quit doing the stuff because of all that dopamine that you get physically, so too is obsession an addiction also. A mental addiction if you will. Except, unlike a physical addiction, in a mental addiction the dopamine that you get comes from a different place. What place would that be? To answer that, one would need either professional help or very very high level of emotional intelligence.

I wish I conveyed my thoughts coherently here. I view obsession similar to physical addiction, and dedication similar to just a hobby.

This also reminds me of people saying that you can't get addicted to weed because it doesn't directly add dopamine to your system. What a load of BS. You can get addicted to anything, even biting rocks or eating dirt probably.

[yzb25]

I am curious though. Does any one else have this 'problem' or am I actually as abnormal as I think I am about it?

Err, maybe. I was planning to be productive this friday, then I ended up walking for 3 hours after reading the definition of a turing machine, trying to think about how one would make something so rudimentary-looking do more sophisticated things. I seem to have a habit of being interested in everything except the thing I should be interested in right now. Right before major exams I'd always end up learning a bunch of unrelated things, and projects I work on get unrealistically ambitious unless I keep kicking myself to chill out (which I often fail to do, honestly). I think I also use obsession as an escape, to a degree. I like to distract myself with a philosophical question or the strategies in a board game if I don't know how to address my feelings. Sometimes for weeks. Is it like that? Or am I describing something different?

And more pressingly, would you even find solace in having that kind of connection with a toiletman? Maybe someone more normal will be able to validate your experience =P

[OzyWho]

I imagine it's person dependant wether or not what you do when you procrastinate is an obsession.
I could procrastinate by just going for a walk and that's hardly an obsession. But for a disciplined person - it probably takes an obsession to make them procrastinate.

[yzb25]

I imagine it's person dependant wether or not what you do when you procrastinate is an obsession.
I could procrastinate by just going for a walk and that's hardly an obsession. But for a disciplined person - it probably takes an obsession to make them procrastinate.

ARGH, I'M JUST DESCRIBING LAZINESS

goddammit! XD

[Marshmallow Marshall]

"Obsession" is a word with a very specific, technical meaning, not to be confused with its general use of "thinking a lot about something". If one does not see the distinction between the two meanings, he is going to diagnose everyone with an OCD for having interests, which is obviously wrong.

Yzb, I have the exact same behavior with unrelated things while studying, and it doesn't make me obsessive, since it doesn't prevent me from doing what I have to do. And if you do literally anything but what you have to do and that it prevents you from doing what you have to do, you're not obsessive, you're just too lazy xD (and you're not alone in that...). That's just a matter of discipline. Easier said than done, I know, but I don't see another way - and self-diagnosing with """"OCD"""" certainly isn't one.

[Oberon]

When your head feels like it's about to explode at any moment, I'd say that's obsessive.
Also when you start getting angry at strangers on the Internet.

[OzyWho]

When your head feels like it's about to explode at any moment, I'd say that's obsessive.
Also when you start getting angry at strangers on the Internet.

What's this head exploding feeling? Idk it.

[Oberon]

What's this head exploding feeling? Idk it.

When you get a literal headache from playing this game

[OzyWho]

When you get a literal headache from playing this game

All I wanted was googling which type of headache can obsession cause, but I ended up reading about OCD. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

One OCD description calls obsession as intrusive thoughts:

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) occurs when intrusive thoughts become uncontrollable. These intrusive thoughts (obsessions) may cause you to repeat behaviors (compulsions) in the hope that you can end the thoughts and prevent them from occurring in the future.

@yzb25
Rumination OCD might interest you.

Rumination is one of the core characteristics of OCD that causes a person to spend an inordinate amount of time worrying, figuring out, trying to understand, analysing or clarifying thought or theme. Individuals tend to ruminate on certain topics: Philosophy. Metaphysical. Questions of life and death.

Though I believe that rumination is a compulsion and not an obsession, but close enough.

[OzyWho]

I now hold the opinion that I have a compulsion to not care about stuff in order to protect myself from being in the Helz's Hell.

[theoneceko]

I want to mention a study that I think could be relevant to this topic. I won't bother searching it up though, sorry for that. But I'm sure anyone could find it themselves if they wanted to.

The study I'm talking about was determined to find the answer to this question: why is it that makes people stop? (Something like that)

This is what they found out.
-Whenever you do anything, even as little as moving a finger, small amounts of norepinephrine/noradrenaline get released into your system.
-When you get enough of it, then your body will tell you "fuck you, I'm not doing anything anymore".
-The only thing they found that can increase this threshold is with dopamine.
-This dopamine, according to them, can't be increased with just happy thoughts. But rather, for example, it must come from genuine beliefs.

This is something that's fun to think about. On the one hand you have happy and emotionally/mentally healthy people being by default more successful than "damaged" people, just because of this. It's whatever. But on the other hand, you have people with random bizarre beliefs makings records or being the most successful - and they end up advertising their beliefs in podcasts or motivational books or wherever and everyone's taking them serious because of their success. LOL
I had a friend who told me to listen to podcasts, and for his best example he told me about some black guy who pushed himself to extreme limits because of his weird principles or beliefs or whatever. I understand the black guy, but I can't understand why other people get inspired by stories like that and listen to podcasts just for it (among other things presumably).

Back to the topic.
How is that study relevant here? Because I believe that we can view the difference between obsession and dedication in how you get your dopamine.
Just like a physical addiction doesn't let you quit doing the stuff because of all that dopamine that you get physically, so too is obsession an addiction also. A mental addiction if you will. Except, unlike a physical addiction, in a mental addiction the dopamine that you get comes from a different place. What place would that be? To answer that, one would need either professional help or very very high level of emotional intelligence.

I wish I conveyed my thoughts coherently here. I view obsession similar to physical addiction, and dedication similar to just a hobby.

This also reminds me of people saying that you can't get addicted to weed because it doesn't directly add dopamine to your system. What a load of BS. You can get addicted to anything, even biting rocks or eating dirt probably.

LOL!!!! UFU