I am feeling guilty.

[sundancer 42976xp 5]

Yes, I really do. For multiple reasons. I feel guilty towards my self because I spend money on things that then don’t get used. Be that the mini that stays untouched in the blister or the game that doesn’t get played because, well, C19. I feel guilty towards my family because I take time to (sometimes) do hobby and not spend it with them. But one of the biggest guilts I feel is when I just sit in front of the PC and stare at YouTube videos, 9gag and other time sinks and do nothing but breathe and sit…

And then there is a feeling of guilt towards creators who really own some acknowledgment and recognition because they take time out of their time to create things for all of us. Starting with things like Codebusters from @warzan where at times I just shrug it off because I don’t feel like investing time. Even though he has. And @brennon and @avernos writing up all those lovingly created articles where I usually just glance over. Or those very long battlereports and videos @oriskany does. But it’s on a gaming system I don’t care about. And some twitch streamers I’d really like to watch more often but getting up at midnight to watch someone play old video games and rant about them when you need to get up at 5am…

Yes, I know, this is a bit weird maybe but I see all these people trying to make something fun for others and then get frustrated because nobody gives (positive) feedback. I love (almost) all your content you lot are creating even if I’m failing at saying so at certain times.

That just needed to get off my chest. Now back to the usual stuff… or as Mel says: Crack on! (Oh great, now I feel guilty because I haven’t finished his book yet… )

[commodorerob 11076xp 4]

I mainly feel guilty that I want to game and paint figures instead of working and earning the money to feed my need to game and paint figures.

[sundancer 42976xp 2]

I was just wondering where the sudden influx of Forum topics came… then I watched the Weekender today… XD

Please do not consider this topic to be part of the giveaway thingy. This was a genuine post that I needed to get out of my system 🙂

@commodorerob  feeling guilty because you need to do something to be able to enjoy something you want to do… that’s a level 😉

[ninjillyParticipant 11673xp 3]

I feel you @sundancer. I feel a lot of guilt for similar reasons. I was active in quite a few Twitch communities last year and I feel bad for walking away but largely I just don’t want to spend all my time in front of screens these days.There are lovely people in them but the last year has just changed my priorities.

I hate the terms content creator because it inherently demands that the content be consumed – like you say, sometimes you just aren’t interested in the topic/game and yet you end up feeling bad for not watching or reading it all. I’m sure content creators enjoy the likes and subs but if they aren’t making it for themselves and the audience who are genuinely interested in the topic, it’s hollow praise. Stars on your arse are worthless. I have a lot of respect for people who make things but we all know nothing can be for everyone. Finding the audience is a whole different discussion and a painfully difficult thing to do.

[damon 7525xp 2]

Consumption is easier than action/reaction.  After a long day at work/life, just vegging out in front of a PC/TV is an easy way to divert our brains without any effort.  After a little while, the guilt at inaction starts to make me feel embarrassed about joining in with a thread/discord chat because I haven’t ‘bothered’ to engage with the community up to now and acknowledging the work of others highlights to myself how little I have achieved recently and reinforces the guilt.

We just need to be kinder to ourselves and allow how we find the individual enjoyment of our hobby to take it’s own form and accept that others do it different.  A sincere ‘well done mate’ to a project/post is all that’s needed to give everyone a more positive vibe about whatever they have posted.  Oh, and mickey taking/shit talking/slagging off, obviously, we can’t get too kissy cuddly can we?

[crazyredcoatParticipant 13642xp 3]

I have the problem all the time. Even before The Event (Stay Indoors), but it’s only gotten worse this past year. I have a pile of books I haven’t read, the eponymous Pile O’ Shame that needs working on, school work that I feel I’ve neglected. It is pretty sucky, to be honest. But, it is kind of all in my head. What’s the saying again; ‘time you enjoyed wasting isn’t wasted’, or something like that? You put more work into your streams that I think I could, were I in your position, and when I have time to pop in to the streams I’m always entertained, so that’s a tick in the box. That really goes for the OTT Team as well. Like I said, it’s been a shitty year, but I have to say this site and forum and community and team has made it better. Even though I sometimes feel guilty about scanning through forum posts rather than doing my homework, deep down I wouldn’t change that. As @damon says, we just need to be kind, but the kindness goes both ways. While it’s always nice to read a positive comment on my project posts, not everyone is interested/has time to do that, and that’s all good.

[timchubbKeymaster 3166xp 5]

@sundancer I hear what your saying, but I would like to point out that you also do a Stirling job keeping the forums active with the unofficial weekender threads, not to mention the awesomeness that is the uHH which if anything has kicked me up the arse to make time for a community I truly care about.

I won’t lie what you just said has really struck a chord with me, but rather than start annother thread I will say it here.

I would like to apologise to every member of the community, my friends and especially the OTT team, for having been unable for the last 18months or so for a verity of reasons to keep on helping the development efforts of OTT, implementing features fixing performance issues, being active in the community, keeping in touch or even keeping up to date with the developments in our hobby.  For a variety of reasons I have been unable to devote any time to things outside of my immediate family and work.  For this I feel profoundly guilty and can only apologise for any frustrations caused by the project system failing to update or a post getting lost, the site falling over, and the general lack of second phase of v2.0 happening.  I’m hoping to resume actively working on things behind the scenes and focusing on what I can be doing in the community be it joining in or maybe running another community painting competition… (Watch this space)

Any way with that off my chest I would like to extend a massive thank you to @sundancer for keeping things alive and reminding me what I was missing out on and taking the time and effort to create things like the uHH, keeping the weekender threads alive, being proactive on the spam alerting and helping keeping this community awesome.  While you may feel like you should be doing more/different you have nothing to feel guilty about in my book 😀

 

[sundancer 42976xp 2]

Thanks @timchubb  that is very kind of you and nice to hear. 🙂

[bicskeizParticipant 819xp 1]

Thanks guys, now I found even more things, where I can feel guilt about… ?

[jamescutts 6924xp 0]

This as for a lot of others really struck a chord with me @sundancer. I’ve been struggling with similar issues recently and at times have got myself into a spiral of guilt. @ninjilly really sums this up well for me, in addition to the excellent points, others have raised.

Our hobby really has exploded in terms of the amount of content that’s produced for us to consume, there simply is too much. I think most of those creating content, outside a select few I think everyone realizes it’s never going to be the day job and do it mostly for their enjoyment and to share that with others. As such any views/interaction is generally greatly appreciated but I don’t think expected and we just have to not feel guilty if we didn’t get round to it.

That being said I really appreciate the work everyone in the community does in creating content, taking the UHH is an excellent example, I just cant watch/read/engage in everything all the time, and thats OK.

What have I done to try and help this?

I cleared my desk, quite literally I threw it out and got a slightly bigger one that I now try and keep clear as far as possible.

To help with this I now store all my paints and supplies in drawers rather than on racks or on the desk.

I have project “trays” cheap Tillgang from ikea, I try and have no more than two of these on the go at once with a “small” project of minis on each.

I obstruct my screens while painting just something simple like a lamp half in the way.

I watch content in the background, rather than giving it my full attention.

I try and have a goal for the week hobby wise e.g. paint this unit. but if I don’t manage it I don’t worry and just roll it over.

I plan my hobby time around set weekly events, The weekender, XLBS, UHH, and the Plastic Crack Podcast to name a few, each of which gives me some planned in hobby time of a few hours each evening most, but not all days of the week.

I take hobby days, holidays being a bit less of a event as before C19 i now use some of my days to take the time off and just hobby, in much the same way I take the odd day off to just have a trip out somewhere.

Hows has this helped?

Well, I no longer have a pile of paints, half-painted minis, and general clutter on my desk, I now can quickly grab a tray, pull out some paints from the draws and start painting. I no longer feel guilty looking at mess or guilt from putting painting off because it feels cramped. As an added bonus, I can take a tray outside and paint and no longer feel guilt of being stuck indoors.

I now don’t feel I have to be doing hobby each evening, I do it when there’s something I can watch in the background to a vague schedule, I do occasionally do extra but I’ve tried to stop it being a big focus of my free time.

I still listen to and watch other people’s content but find I don’t fully focus on it what I found was there’s so much content out there that I would just end up looking at the screen, and feel guilty about not doing other things. Now I tend to combine this with my hobby time, by watching things in the background, yes I have a slightly guilty feeling about this but I think the removal of other issues helps balance this into a positive. For example, I watch the Weekender, XLBS and UHH all in part of hobby time while painting, modeling etc. the lamp obstructing the screen helps me see the minis, but it also breaks the focus on video enough that I don’t just watch it.

I try and spread some hobby time into the normal day in small micro chunks work permitting, if I can I’ll watch a video in the background or if I’m in a long meeting I might crack out the paints, or I may take 10min to write a post or reply to a comment while waiting on somebody else. Thankfully for my job this works, it does not take away from what I’m working on, and on occasion having a short distraction can actually prove beneficial and help the mind think of a different approach and get over a problem.

As for the pile of shame, I dislike the term as it encourages guilt, I now just have a collection of bargains I’ve acquired that will either be sold off for profit or one day become a project that gives me enjoyment. But I’ve stopped feeling guilty about it, I like toy soldiers and will continue to buy more without feeling any guilt.

[sundancer 42976xp 1]

As for the pile of shame, I dislike the term as it encourages guilt,

It’s no longer the PoS. It’s the PoO (Pile of Opportunity) 😉 Horationoseblower had this coined earlier this year.

The PoO may be big, but it’s also warm! … or something.

[jamescutts 6924xp 1]

It’s no longer the PoS. It’s the PoO (Pile of Opportunity)

Rule of Acquisition no 9. Opportunity plus instinct equals profit.

?

[mecha82Participant 10037xp 2]

Personally I don’t really mind having Pile of Shame. It just means that I won’t be spending money on more miniatures until that Pile of Shame is done or at least gotten smaller. With plenty of miniatures need to be painted (including BT ones that are pre-assembled straight out of box) it’s not really problem.

[Author]

Posts