There are few things like unemployment and potential catastrophic financial collapse to get you thinking. The mind refuses to stop re-playing and reviewing the past decisions and mistakes that led to the current situation. This is good, if you let it be a positive force in your life. This process isn't intended to be one to use as a crutch, or as an excuse. We do this to clean the garbage, to learn from our choices so that we can hopefully make better ones next time.
The wheel in the sky keeps on turning.
And that got me thinking about my own journey in Eve this morning. In September I will have been playing Eve for four years. Yesterday I passed eleven months in The Tuskers, the single longest time I have ever been in any Corporation. Even my own.
When I started writing Eveoganda almost three years ago I was in Dissonance as part of the Circle of Two Alliance in Providence. What started as a Null-Sec PvP playground quickly turned into a conquest and then failscade. Since then I've started two other Alliances and my own Corporation. Moving from Providence, to the Spire, to the North, to Syndicate, to Rote Kappelle, to Muppet Ninjas, to Curse, to Delve and various points within Low Sec. I've gone from Soldier to Pirate, from +10 to -10. From an FC commanding hundreds and protecting assets, to a small gang leader and now more solo pilot.
Lots of changes in such a short time. And quite the journey.
That doesn't even count the time before I started writing this blog/magazine/journal. The Null Sec wars, the battles for Providence, the twice over failure of CVA, LFA and Paxton. And more.
I think more than anything this chaos led to the current developing play style and the length of time I've been able to devote to a single Corporation. After all the chaos in-game, which happened during an especially stable part of my RL, the tables turned. My RL started unraveling and Eve needed to become more stable. I don't think I could have dealt with both being in chaos.
Now Eve serves more as an outlet. A place to escape, to control your own destiny. There is a joy that is undeniable in exploding someone else's ship now, that wasn't the same before. I readily admit to it. And I've become somewhat of an explosion junky, for lack of a better way to describe it.
For all my talk of separation lately, of the writer and the pilot being two different people, we do share a commonality that is profound. One serves the other and both of us benefit. And while I am personally unencumbered by the necessity to PvE for example, this act of writing on an almost daily basis, is my own cathartic method. My own PvE. My service if you will. And that act, no matter how trivial or often misunderstood, is an important one. And while its importance may only be relevant to me personally, it is something that I will continue.
The journey never ends. Until it finally does.
Thus ends the self-reflecting crap. Back to Eve next time, I promise.