Splintered Focus

It seems like it’s not an uncommon problem these days for fans of video games to have too many options to choose from when pondering what to play. Whether the result of endless Steam sales, Humble Bundles, or Game Pass additions, we simply have a large library of unplayed titles to choose from when deciding what to play. We’re spoiled for choice and, at least for me recently, unable to decide on something new to play. I’ve been surprised at how difficult it’s been for me to find something new apart from the routine weekly things to do in Destiny. I have literally hundreds of games to choose from, and yet I’ve played only an hour or two of a handful of things, most often going back to the highly familiar things like a quick skirmish in Halo Wars or running some strikes in Destiny.

This inability to decide on what to play next feels more substantial than the typical “paralysis by analysis” that can set in when faced with too many choices on Netflix or in the candy aisle, unable to decide because there are simply too many factors to consider across too many choices. Yes, there are some things I’m looking for in the next game I want to tackle. Something on the shorter side, because I’ve been playing big epic games lately. Something a bit more linear, because the idea of spinning up one of the many open worlds available to me seems daunting and I don’t want to get lost in some side quest for 100 feathers. Something a little simpler to pick up and set down after a brief time because I’d rather not have to invest several hours at a time to feel like I’ve accomplished anything. I have no doubt if I intentionally sat down to decide what to play, making use of various tools like How Long to Beat and the GG app, I could whittle my list down and pick something relatively easily.

And yet I don’t. Why is that?

I’ve been listening to audiobooks on my commute to work. I’m going through John Eldredge’s book Get Your Life Back right now and enjoying it. Early in the book, Eldredge talks about the way our focus has splintered in the modern age, with too many things vying for our attention for us to actually adequately address them all. Never before have we had access at our fingertips to such a wealth of information, everything from events down the street to tragedies across the globe, and yet we don’t have the bandwidth – mental, emotional, or spiritual – to give all of it our attention. Even when we feel that we’re staying informed on all the things, it’s quite often only at a surface level, rarely going into depth on much of anything. Worse still, our attention spans are shortening to the point where we’re basically all addicted to the distractions that come our way every few minutes. We flit from text to email to video and beyond, never coming to rest on any one thing for long without some serious intentionality behind the effort. And our souls are suffering for it.

As I’m pondering the ways this is true in my own life, I can’t help but think of my inability to choose what game to play next and stick with it. It seems silly, at first, perhaps unrelated. But on a few different levels, I feel like my attention can’t settle, can’t rest for long enough to engage. There are things going on in the world that feel important, that demand a certain level of thought be given over to them to at least determine how I feel about and ought to respond to them, and disengaging the analytical part of my mind to engage with slaying virtual monsters of one sort or another feels like it might be an unworthy use of the time. There are also things going on in my personal life that are deserving of some processing time on the old noodle, and once again detaching from those things for any length of time feels like a betrayal of some responsibility to “figure things out”. At the same time, there are other interests, other hobbies, or projects, that also crop up, wanting a piece of my time, mind, and attention. And let’s not forget family, church, or work either. This blog, even.

So there’s a lot to focus on, and at the same time there’s this unspoken societal expectation, I feel, that we need to have all of these things and more on our plate. That if we don’t, we’re not doing enough, we’re not broad enough, we’re not informed enough, and not well-rounded enough. It feels like I could be a great craftsman, making beautiful pottery renowned the world over, and if that’s all I did or was known for, people would sneer and say, “that’s it?” Breadth, not depth, is expected, even revered. We’re all supposed to be renaissance men and women, right? Conversant in an ever-growing litany of topics and concerns.

As I attempt to survey my life and take inventory of all the things that want my attention, it’s almost no wonder I can’t settle on a game to play. I just don’t have the bandwidth for all of it, and feeling that I need to make decisions around all these different things – or at minimum dedicate some time and thought to them – almost leaves me longing for the distraction of the next notification from my phone. At least that way I have an excuse, right? I’m just too busy to think about that right now. And while sitting down to play a game might seem like the perfect distraction from the concerns of the rest of life, investing more than a few minutes causes whatever game it might be to all of a sudden take up its own chunk of my mental capacity as I try to keep track of an ever-growing list of quests, sidequests, plot threads, collectibles, equipment, skill trees, and on and on. And so choosing a game to invest my attention in almost feels like adding yet another thing to my already crowded plate. I long for a distraction from the distraction.

I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve fought the impulse, even as I’m writing this, to pull up YouTube or put on some music, just to have something on in the background. Something to split my focus with.

There’s a lot going on here, and it’s going on at a global and societal level. It’s embedded into our culture in a way that’s obvious when you think how “weird” it sounds for someone to just disconnect from everything for a little while. I wonder if we might begin to address some of this by offloading some of the mental burden we’re all carrying around. A video-game style quest log that automatically tracked and recorded everything for us, giving us the context and history behind any task or conversation on demand would be nice, but a simple journal might be enough to start with. By taking some time to reflect on things regularly, to record important details and thoughts, we free up the mental resources that are dedicated to tracking some of these things and allow that record to hold on to things for us instead.

Is it enough to begin with something so seemingly simple? If I’ve learned one thing recently, it’s that small steps add up over time. So maybe a journal is just step one. Hopefully, it’ll be enough that we can talk about actual games here, next time around.