Activation Energy

I’ve hit yet another weekend and yet another huge opportunity to do something creative. Something that pushes me forward. Something that really kicks the can down the road, or whatever it is the kids say these days. Yet here I sit with no real idea of where I should start. Should I start working on that fun point-and-click adventure game idea I have? Should I write that neat neo-noir sci-fi retro-futuristic detective novel I’ve been daydreaming about for years? Should I just clean the house? All perfectly valid questions and all things that take an absurd amount of activation energy.

I have no idea what that phrase actually means, so let’s look it up and write it down:

Activation energy is the minimum amount of energy needed to start a chemical reaction

Wait…that doesn’t sound right at all. Let’s try that again:

In terms of human activity, activation energy is the initial burst of motivation, effort, or mental push required to start a task or break a state of rest.

There it is. That’s what I’m looking for. That first burst of energy that it takes to begin some kind of task. Why is it SO impossible to seem to drag out of myself? Why do I sit at my desk staring into the abyss and not doing any of the above things?

I don’t have an answer for that. The issue is buried somewhere deep in the web of crap holding my useless lump of gray matter together. I think the main issue is the sheer amount of stuff you can see where other people are succeeding at whatever it is they’re doing. It’s like living vicariously through hundreds of YouTubers who are already doing the thing that you want to do. I guess I’m finding satisfaction in just seeing things get done rather than doing them myself.

Did we just figure it out? Am I cured?!

No. No I’m not.

I will say that I didn’t want to do this blog post at all until I started writing it. I’m writing it because I told myself I would write more stuff going forward. I have this slice of the internet to lay my thoughts and experiences out for the world to see and, by golly, I’m gonna use it. Even if no one reads it. At least it’s here for future data archaeologists to use to see how well a Millennial wasted his time.

I think my big plan these days is to try to get myself back on the streaming wagon a bit. I’ve already talked about that in previous posts, but I think today might be about removing the friction to sitting down and doing the thing that I want to do. I have other things that require my time and I’m not going to disregard those for my desire to put my big dumb head on the internet, but there is time I could use to make some content that I’m not using right now.

Whether this takes off or not remains to be seen, but it’s worth trying to talk myself into it and getting it going. I just need to find the thing I want to stream. I have limited time these days for that, so I need to be deliberate about it when I sit down. I used to do Saturday Morning Star Wars where I played The Old Republic and that was pretty dang fun. I also did The Adventures of Stephen where I played a point-and-click adventure. I really loved that so maybe I could carve off an hour or two for that.

I think we have some ideas. Thanks for helping me out, self. I’m glad I typed all this.

Later, folks!