Last November I reached 40 years old.  Lately I’ve been looking back and feeling nostalgic and a bit unhappy with how I feel about some of my hobbies and the stuff I used to get really excited about.  Maybe the world has changed or I’ve just changed which is more likely … but finding things that really pinch my enthusiasm is getting harder and harder.  I continue to love movies and video games but the excitement I had either as a kid or even a young adult has lessened to some degree, and well, I sometimes even feel I’m going through the motions.  That feeling has also bled into my day to day life occasionally.

In recent years I’ve pretty much turned my back on writing, especially fiction writing although I can still exercise that interest with my writing on the blog – but that’s different than putting a story together, coming up with situations and creating characters.  I have several stories spanning many chapters that I am proud of but I look back on them like they come from a world I no longer belong to.  I’ve let other things enter my head, other responsibilities and distractions to such an extent that I can’t even bring myself to attempt fiction writing anymore.  It makes me sad to look back, to think of the hours and the passion I used to put into that part of my life, but now barely recognise it.

I think this disillusion is a lot to do with getting older, maturing and having work and responsibilities, but it’s a shame I feel I can’t relate to some hobbies or even approach them with the same level of excitement I once did.  The same goes for music which I used to be passionate about but that has left me feeling cold and bored apart from a small handful of artists.  The same also goes for relationships or the idea of one … where I have been hurt in my search and now feel so ‘meh’ about the whole subject I can’t find the energy to attempt it again.  Also this information overload / social media world we live in breeds contempt when everything that is thrown at you is thrown at you by the bucket load and I just end up feeling overwhelmed, unable to focus.  There is a heck of a lot of superficiality to everything these days it seems … and entertainment, celebrity and life in general has at times felt cheapened as a result.

Yet that’s not to say there isn’t some merit to be found, it just feels a much rarer commodity to really get excited about a TV show or a game or a movie, and then to want to talk about it.  Occasionally I have to force myself to find things to say even about a subject I really love.  Luckily I still manage to get there, to write something interesting (I hope) and to keep this blog going.  But lately it’s getting easier and easier to just be lazy and let the entertainment wash over me with hardly any concentration.  Life can get me down, it can be stressful and particularly tiring and I long to be younger sometimes and have no other worries and just indulge myself in my own little world.  Hey, I liked it there.

But I suppose we all have to grow up.  Only thing is, for some it can suck big time.  That’s why adults tell children to enjoy being young – it really is the best years of your life.

Craig.