Great read, its amazing to see how mappers tend to gravitate to similar paths. I don't really know any of you but i feel like im bonded to you all in a strange geeky way.
The state of my life right now is it's bright and early in the morning, im a little hung over from last night, and i seem to remember making out with a random girl on the dance floor last night, the shame in that being that i have a girlfriend and i can't feel bad about doing it even though i want to.
I haven't done any REAL mapping in more than a year now, Im in a constant state of lethargy, where my life mostly consists of laying around in my university residency playing games, watching movies, maintaining decent grades, but really i feel like my life has no purpose right now, i feel utterly lost. When i was younger i thought i had everything figured out, i knew what i was good at, and i knew what i wanted to do. But in the past few years i feel like i've lost so much of my passion for life.
The irony is that I'm about a year ahead of a few of you who are trying to mature your lives out of game dev fanboyism, and i still dont feel like my life has gained any more meaning, in fact my former isolation gave me a greater sense of self satisfaction because i was so deluded sitting awake into the nights staring into a fluorescent screen that i could at least make up some delusions of grandeur. I miss the peer validation i got when I would post a WIP and get compliments, other than that there's nothing im missing about game dev.
Last year i met an absolutely amazing girl, who is so far out of my league it's not even funny, she's horribly in love with me and i think she would marry me if i asked. But my problem is that i just dont appreciate her anymore, as though all my love for her has simply faded away, I have this strange subconcious desire to sabotage the best thing i have. I create fights sometimes just for the sick excitement it gives, i just want to have more passion for my life, I think I'd be a happier person with a cause to be depressed, because right now I don't even feel like i exist. I'd rather be dead than bored.
So i guess the question is, what do you do when your life is perfect and you still can't be happy?