My UI is disappearing

My UI is disappearing.

That eternal interface between me and the world. The one that tells me where I am, what I need to be doing, what I have, what is effecting me and what my status is - actually it tells me everything I need to know about me and my environment. And it is disappearing.

All that is remaining behind is me. And the world around me.

And it is terrifying.

What the hell am I doing here? What am I meant to be doing here? Where the hell am I?

For so long I have become accustomed to interacting with my UI. I have customised it and added a bunch of mod and add-ons that have made it easier to play the game. Hot keyed spells, macroed actions, an infinite stream of data about targets/enemies/myself, inventories, maps and quest logs. I haven't even had to think about playing. Stimulus - response. UI tells me mana is low - I drink potion. UI tells me enemy player has buff - I disenchant. UI tells me enemy player's health is low - I smash until they are dead. I have become so used to my interface that I have stopped playing in the world and have completely been playing with my UI. In fact I am beginning to wonder who was really playing the game - me or my UI?

And now it is disappearing.

It is a strange thing to be with no purpose. To have no comparitive statistical ability or an inventory of what items I have does not seem to bother me that much. These things used to be important to me but without my UI I couldn't care less. But my inability to know either where I am or where I am going has left me a bit unsettled. It is much like sitting in front of Google and saying "Okay what can I search for?". Well, anything really. Too many options are crippling. Ask any artist or writer about how terrifying a blank page can be. The only way to overcome that is to put pen to paper and draw/write anything. Scribble. Doodle. Write a grocery list. Anything. And eventually you may be inspired to write a sentence or draw an outline that becomes a scene which is filling up with details and hey presto, you are on your way again.

So without my UI I can stand here and slowly disappear.
Or I can pick a direction and press 'w'.

wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

LFG

I had been grinding for EVAR with no end in sight. My experience bar was not moving for shit and the respawn rates are so high that I was struggling to stay alive AND motivated to even stay alive.

So while I was contemplating just dying and respawning even though I have no idea where the nearest respawn spot is, I got a /tell

Intern says hey can i come grind with you? you are a higher lvl than me so you prolly don't need my help but you can help me ALOT! and maybe I will be helping you too?!!

mmmm this will go quicker with help...

Electrra says sure!

/invite Intern

Intern says yay! this will be fun! thanks! can I invite a friend? she is a different class and also a nub but she can help?

Electrra says okay

/invite AnotherIntern

AnotherIntern says hi OMW. We can also help you with some epic quests at your lvl. I have some other friends who can join us then. yay!

Electrra smiles.

Ding!

It is hard to say that life is like a game without feeling a bit like a Gump. But the life-game analogy really rings true with me.

At least once a year I lvl up. I would have spent months grinding through some mobs, completed a long epic quest chain, killed the boss and her minions; and amongst the bullet time chaos, vampire tears, happy alcohol abuse and mind numbing boredom, a sweet chime will sound in my head that announces my advancement into a new phase.

At this moment I usually spend some time reflecting on where on my UI I can place my new skills, how hot I look in my new phat loot and just generally soaking up the sense of expansiveness and grounded-ness it brings.

And then it is off to the next area to see what challenges await.

So this blog is about my life. And levelling up. And all the bits in between.