I joined Blaugust this year again. This site was mainly a blog before, so I'm giving it a new go this year with a fresh look.

This year will be a bit slower, as I am more than often pretty beat and tired; Europe is undergoing one of the worst heatwaves I've ever witnessed: Hot temperatures above 35°C all day, reaching highs like 40°C and not really cooling down during the night... a rather unpleasant unexperience.

That said, I will shortly present what you can expect on this blog, and some current thoughts.

What I will blog

My posts were mostly about games! I added old posts back to the site (click here) so you can get a rough view of what to expect. But my mantra was always just posting what I wanted, what I was interested in. That often happened to be about games. I posted about my music and other topics too, and I tried to be philosophical sometimes too (like I will try to be in the following segment).

Must You Do Something?

Since I joined Blaugust, of course I want to actually post something and not just let the month pass. But I tried to not stress myself about it, I'm happy If I even just get this post out! The heat is a major nuisance, but it made me realise even more, I don't have to, and I also shouldn't do something if I'm not required to do it and I don't like it. I definitely have to clean up/do chores, because if I won't, my space will become uninhabitable fast; but nobody forces me to play a game or read a book. For example, I felt bad for not finishing games. But there are so many other cool games to enjoy, and if I really don't have fun anymore, why should I finish it? Just for the sake of it? I recently finally picked up Fire Emblem Engage again, because I finished it to roughly 90% half a year ago, and I actually really loved the game! There it made sense to think about it, come back into it again and get a satisfying conclusion. But if a TV show is just not hooking me anymore, why should I watch it? I want to do these things for fun, and if they start feeling like a list to just work off, it doesn't make much sense to go further.

Concluding, this means you shouldn't optimize your free time. In a way that you shouldn't make it a list of things you want to do and HAVE to finish. It should rather be a list of things you could and want to do! I want to visit this place, I want to read that book, ... the most important thing is that you actually want it. And of course, it's okay to not want to do anything too. It was too hot to properly enjoy a book, so I scrolled through social media, watching short videos, etc. I often criticize myself for this, but then I think of a post I read, which had the core message
"Your life is not an optimization problem"