Reply To: Anti Shiny Syndrome League

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After spending most of my life collecting shiny boxes which mostly remained unopened, I have started in the last few years to question this habit and make slow but quite dramatic changes. It all boiled down to the declining effect of this spending spree bandaid. I have suffered, since childhood, from anxiety and depression, making it a habit to purchase new things to calm for a while the angst and sadness that regularly reared their head. Several years back, after a break from the hobby of many years, I dipped a toe back in and was immediately lured into delving deeper in the acquisition of paints, games, miniatures, etc… To the point that today I have populated a large corner of my office with a painting studio  and annexed one room of our home as a game room full to the rim of shiny boxes which most are left unopened. Yet, I came to realize that the acquisition of these new toys no longer masks the anxiety and that, rather than calming  my spirits, new kickstarters, games, miniatures tend to increase the angst and provoke hobby paralysis. As a result, I started selling tons of games and putting a major break on new acquisitions, deciding instead to focus on the more than a ple collection of what I am interested in playing. I will of course retain my 3D printers as I use them to bring terrain to life for games such as Frostgrave/Stargrave/Moonstone, but have cancelled my patreons and not acquiring any 3D printed miniatures. I have decided to not delve into miniature-intense kickstarters any more, going so far as to planning the immediate sale of a couple, coming my way before there are even open. I try to make my sole hobby expenses the next few months paints, brushes and a few spools of PLA. I find it hard, but it freeing as it allows me for the first time in a long while to focus and calm my mind on the riches I have without desirting any more and rekindling my childlike ability to immerse myself with a few miniatures on a corner table without daydreaming about what I will get next, in short, to be present.

Thank you for this thread and thank you for raising the flag of responsive gaming. I am glad to join this sub cult and spread the word 😉