EPTNo, that's not sadness - though I was sad by the passing of Violet, and thinking about it still sparks tiny stings in my chest, it is not the feeling I'm talking about. But on to that feeling a bit later.
You know, one of the reasons I don't play Starcraft too much is because of fear. Not the simply fear of failing, no. But rather, the fear of not having fear.
Wait, what? This sounds ridiculous. What am I talking about?
A few days ago, I was in the middle of my more active Starcraft week - I was playing dozens of games a day, and winning around 80%. TvZ, TvP, TvT, anything. High diam, low master, mid master, I usually won. I was about 5 points from reaching #1 diam.
Suddenly, something in my mindset changed a bit. I dunno what it was, probably just a bit of sudden depression after reading this. Very good blog, by the way, and if you haven't read it, you should consider doing so.
Anyhow, in a state of slight depression, completely unrelated to Starcraft, I lost a match.
At that moment, I was already a bit exhausted, both from the summer heat and the many games I already played, and maby duo to the hour as well, though I'm rarely tired at just midnight. Usually, I'd tell myself to stop, go take a break, maby even come back tomorrow... But, for some reason, I decided to be stubborn. I wanted to get that "one more win" before I'm done.
And so, I lost another match. The match after it I managed to win, though my execution was even more poor than in the last 2 matches. By that time, I should've definitly stop, but some strange mixture of feelings kept me from that decision. "Just one more win", I said to myself. "Just to even out that win-loss. If you stop now, you'll be giving in to ladder anxiety - just get one more win.". And so I played another match - and, expect idly, I lost. Again and again, I told myself the same words. Again, and again, played. Again and again, I lost.
One match followed the next, and my execution was became worse and worse with each time. From 14 gas in a 13 gas build and 11 Raxing in a 12 Rax build, to things like not getting Stim for a 10 minute Stim push, or completely fucking up a mid-game unit composition - all this coupled with horrible reaction timing and atrocious decision making.
After my 10th or so loss, I closed the game, and realized my head is aching, I can hardly stand, and my whole body can hardly keep balance while walking. Suddenly, I started to realized - I'm utterly exhausted, and has been this way since, if not before, that long before mentioned loss.
A second revelation came to my vary mind - I should have, by all and every mean, stop playing long time ago that day. Why didn't I, than? Apparently, I didn't stop because I was afraid. Afraid of being afraid.
I think that this is the right place to mention that this isn't the first time this happened - long time ago, in HoN, I sometimes lost a game, and became stubborn to play and win the next one. If it didn't happen, I'd get frustrated, queue again, and say "Fuck it, I'm winning the next one", playing worse and worse each time. It was all long ago, but the thing is, I somewhat remembered it, and at that time I learned from it. Up until 3 days ago, I always played Starcraft with caution, stopping when I feel tiredness, even if I was on a big winning streak or I haven't played many games yet. And 3 days ago, I fucked that all up (together with around 10 games worth of MMR).
In the end, I'll be fine. I took a short break (more for GW2 than for anything else), but tomorrow I'll play again, and build my points back. After all, you can get MMR just like you lose it. However, I can still taste that feeling - the feeling of "I really should have known better". That consequences of doing a stupid, retarded thing, that you'd never do if you stopped for even a minute to just think.
So, I guess my message to anybody reading this is: Be always mindful of your physical state, and never - ever - continue playing just because you "want to play a set number of games", "want to win at least one more game before you leave" or "don't want to fall to ladder anxiety".
It's important to play if you want to improve, but it's even more important to know when to stop.
