I don't believe I will ever have "it".
What is it? For that we have to step back a moment and consider the past. For we are all a conglomeration of our experiences. A distillation of common purpose, squished down and shaken but not stirred. We are not today, we are a flip-book of past days. We are a collection.
I'll use a sports analogy. Everyone loves those. I was always extremely good at sports. Baseball and basketball being my primary sports growing up, but I was good at others. But baseball was where I shined the mostest. State championship teams, all-star teams, and I had a blast playing and hanging out with my friends. At first.
As time wore on and I got older, I started noticing the stuff that kids are not supposed to notice. The angry parents, the kid who got to play simply because he was the coaches kid, the little cliches, the bullying, the winning at any cost mentality of the adults and how that slowly, but methodically took root in their children. Quickly, in a span of years, the game wasn't about having fun and good sportsmanship, it was about other things. Things that didn't interest me. For me, I played because I enjoyed it. I had fun competing and being better than some and challenging myself against those that happened to be better than me.
Whatever "it" was that infected the other kids, I didn't have it. I really didn't want it. And I couldn't understand how they could become so easily brainwashed by it. I kept playing sports well into my young adulthood, but slowly I stopped competing, there seemed to be little point to it. And, of course, other things became more important.
I mention this because "it" happens to infect a lot of Eve players. The same group mentality that I noticed growing up in sports is often at play in New Eden. The angry players, the little cliches, the bullying, the winning at any cost mentality. And while these attributes are perfectly at home in our little "game", and goodness knows I partake as much as anyone - the difference is hard for me to balance from time to time.
I only play Eve for one reason and that is to have fun. Goodness knows there are a lot of other things I could ( and often should ) be doing with my time. And while I certainly strive every time I undocked to be a professional pirate and a outstanding member of my Corporation, my decisions are often dictated by a desire to fight against the things it takes to accomplish those goals.
I am in many ways, my own worse enemy.
And that double desire, the willingness to pursue a goal simply because it would be "fun", against the knowledge that it also might be stupid - is what drives me crazy in the context of Eve.
I know that I don't have "it" and that "it" eludes my grasp. I am well aware of what it would take to have "it", but I don't want to fully commit to having "it". Because at some level I realize "it" would take away from me the very thing that makes me... well, me.
I apologize for the self-awareness crap I'm spewing in this post. Please feel free to ignore it if you find yourself laughing at the level of psychological back slapping going on here today. But, if my gut is correct, you feel anything remotely similar in your own experiences - then this wasn't wasted words. And while your past may not be the same as mine, in this single regard, that doesn't mean we do not struggle with the same issues.
Nothing that I've said here keeps me from blowing up ships. But it does get me into trouble more often than not. And deep down, right where it matters the most, I don't care.
I'm having a blast having fun. And the demon of my mind won't stop. In the final analysis I don't want it to ever stop. Those demons make me write, keep me questioning and wondering at the world I live in. Whatever the reasons happen to be, the point is to know yourself. To be aware.
And in Eve, to win at any cost. As long as your having fun doing it.