“Brent was frustrated. His Necrons sat in their case one more, weeks after he had decided to breathe new life into them. His new job had settled into a familiar rhythm and he had mowed the lawn. Several time since in fact. The baby was asleep, his wife was at work and he felt the urge to pull his dudesmen out of their tomb. Except he was comfortable on the couch and he knew that he would end up getting into it so much he’d go to bed late, likely wake the baby and end up with less sleep than was ideal.
Besides that rubbish movie that he didn’t really like but that was better than going to bed so early was on and the couch was so comfortable.”
Brent has hobby apathy.
Hobby apathy can affect gamers in a number of areas, be it finishing a
project or showing a lack of interest in some aspect of the game. But make no mistake; it is a serious and debilitating illness which can strike down any gamer in his primer (bad painting joke).
I am suffering at present.
My name is Warriorsong and I have hobby apathy. I am caught between wanting to paint and knowing it will be something I get stuck into and lose track of time. Not a bad thing? No, but because I also have a condition most people call “real life” I have to balance my options.
But this is not the underlying problem. If I do this painting (finishing my Nightbringer conversion of a Cairn Wraith, finishing my Destroyers and the last of my Warriors and starting and detailing my Lizardmen) it leaves me with the job I do and don’t want to do, a job that is fiddly, sticky and will no doubt make me sweaty, short tempered, thirsty and irritated.
Converting Warriors to Flayed Ones.
The fiddly cutting, shaving, gluing, pinning, packing, sculpting and moulding not to mention basing painting, flocking and washing. And that is just the first model to see that your plan works (it does by the way, as my Overlords left hand will attest).
I like to production line my work. Pound through the models and get to the same point on all of them in one sitting. I have a family I want to spend time with and if I can get through twenty-two warriors from base to finish in seven sittings (undercoat, top coat, shoulders, flock, painting flock, highlights with details, and wash) I damn well want to do the rest that way.
But I can’t. So I hold out for the time when I can. That mythical weekend. Or convenient sick day.
So hobby apathy? Not so much. To directly quote Wiktionary, apathy is -
Complete lack of emotion or motivation about a person, activity, or object; depression; lack of interest or enthusiasm; disinterest.
It’s not that. It’s too much or an interest, too much enthusiasm to be contained in the hour before I need to go to bed, more motivation than my body can handle (has anyone else here fallen asleep trying to paint details so the special colour you mixed but forgot to note how many parts of what to what you used so that it doesn’t dry up?) and an all abiding frustration that you can’t pore all the focus into it you would like because you have a job you enjoy and friends and family you love and who you want to spend time with?
Is more an antipathy I think – a contrariety.
“Brent shrugged his shoulders as he sat up. He had fallen asleep on the couch. His wife had woke him up with a hot chocolate and handed him the baby. She sat half asleep in his lap making sleepy noises. He wasn’t bothered about not getting to paint that night. He would paint at some point soon and he would enjoy it all the more for the fact it was his thing and it would taste like a fine wine, so much sweeter for the rarity of it. The contrariety of it.”
Appendix 2 (follows Appendix 3 which also contains a explanation) - Drafted 12-12-11.
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