Pleasant, redefined

As I get older, it seems harder and harder to have an experience that feels truly pleasant after it’s over. I have memories (possibly faulty ones) of time with friends playing games, eating food, or sharing stories that are 100% delightful.

Today, however, I have a hard time reaching that state. I so often feel some chronic or acute pain, have indigestion or a headache, feel tired, too hot, too cold, too hungry, too full, or otherwise at least a little bit un-well. The pains are manageable, but distracting. And if physical discomfort isn’t at my side, mental anxiety, fear, frustration, and doubt certainly are.

I do have good times, I just don’t feel well afterwards. The should-be pleasant afterglow of a good meal usually feels like an overfull belly or that I’m still hungry, or sometimes both. After a game with friends, even when we had a great session, I’m often doubting choices I made, wishing I could rewind to have been better at reincorporating an idea, following the fiction, or remembering a detail that would have made the game that much memorable and fun.

This often leaves me chasing another game, another hangout, another dinner, another, another, another. I remember that I did have a good time and I want that back.

Compare this to doing good work

Things like putting on Big Bad Con, publishing a game from a marginalized creator, helping with neighborhood cleanups, doing local emergency preparedness. That work still feels satisfying when I close my inbox, hold a book in my hands, hang up my garbage picker, or turn off the radio that we’re testing on our block. It can be exhausting and frustrating, but the work is rewarding and meaningful…I just don’t want to do work all the time. I work a lot and it’s burning me out.

What to do?

I think I need an updated method of measuring the satisfaction I derive from any encounter. I thought doing something new would help. I took improv classes (shout out to All Out Comedy Theater), I started reading a lot more, and (a while ago) got off all social media. Each of these things are rewarding, but I find my baseline feeling of contentment is still low.

Maybe in October when I’ve retired from Big Bad Con and don’t feel that constant low-level panic that there’s something critical I’ve forgotten, I’ll be able to mentally unwind a little, but till then I’m going to try and capture that moment of satisfaction more “in” the moment. Maybe a picture with friends. Maybe an AP report just after the game finishes (before the brain weasels can convince me I did it all wrong). Maybe just saying “ah, that was a wonderful time” (to myself more than to anyone else) so I remember that it was.

I know I’ve tried some versions of this by writing post cards to people after we see each other. That’s nice. Or taking extensive notes in a game so I can write an AP report that really captures it all. They feel like good mitigation strategies and I think I need to work on capturing those moments before my physical and/or mental decline sets in, trying to spoil the memories of something wonderful.

Worth a shot.