I am on the search for another White Whale in Warframe. I want to build a Burston Prime. I need four parts to build the Burston Prime. I have three of them, the blueprint, the stock, and the receiver, but am missing the barrel to make the gun. You know how I can get that barrel? From cracking one (1) specific Relic, and it isn’t even guaranteed to drop from said Relic. I could trade for it, I could figure out how to work Warframe Market to buy the part for the Platinum I have built up. I don’t necessarily want to do that, I want to farm it. I can do it if I have to, I just don’t necessarily want to. Farming the one Relic that hasn’t been Vaulted (hello Destiny 2!) isn’t guaranteed at any of the places it can drop, which exasperates me more. I don’t want to cave, but, it might end up happening just to save myself the headache. Do I need a Burston Prime, especially when my Mastery Rank isn’t high enough to use said Burston Prime? No, I just would like to have one. My AX-52 and Braton Prime are carrying me well enough, I can hold my own for a while in harder missions, I just want to have it for when I do get there. I could (and should) work on other weapons, drain the Mastery from them to climb another couple Ranks, passively farm the Relics, then crack them at my own pace if I’m going to be as frugal as I like to think I am with my Platinum. You know, save myself from driving myself insane from it, that’d be wise. I am not wise. I will probably drive myself mad solely for the love of the game before I did anything intentionally wise for myself. It is a continued habit I have, where I do the most obtuse, aggravating, tedious things possible rather than doing the smart, sensible thing. Doesn’t matter if it’s a game, stuff for work, housework, I will do it some other way in order to satisfy some voice in the back of my head that thinks the regular way, the sensible way, is “taking a shortcut”, “not earning it”, all those things that make a ton of sense for anyone else to do, but in my mind is “cheating”. I realize this is not normal, nor is it a healthy mindset to have, but it is one that I have never been able to shake for as long as I can remember. I have spent hours farming specific items in games instead of doing the reasonable thing and trying to buy it from an Auction House, or from another player, even when I can easily afford it. Don’t ask me why, I probably won’t have a good answer, or will gripe and complain about being asked why I do things the way I do. It carries over to real-life as well, during my battles with my garage, my idea for draining the chest freezer I wound up replacing was to stick a hose to a hose to a contraption to drain it. Not realizing that no, there was another release valve inside the thing that I needed to open as well. So, I wound up emptying it by hand. With a bucket, and clearing spoiled food with a snow shovel and contractor bags. The bucket had to be replaced as well, and I busted at least one bag, spilling meat juice and spoiled ice cream on my head. I dove head-first into the shower after that. I like to talk a big game about being efficient, streamlining and optimizing, but when it comes to myself, and the things I want to do, I completely disregard my own mantras and go full-caveman. “Me must prove to ghost in head that me strong!” he says, knowing damned well there’s a hand-truck in the garage he could have used to move thing X to position Y. What is to blame? Probably that toxic masculinity, that need to prove that I’m not weak, that I’m capable of doing things on my own. You know, the downfall of many men over the years. That thing that will probably cause me to either invent nuclear quantum engineering, or atomize me into space dust. In my mind, it’s not enough to do something and do it well, it has to be so far and away ahead that no one can catch me, or I have to do it in a way that no one else has. It’s a running problem, and one that I have never been able to nail down. I want to prove myself, be the high-achiever I’ve always had to be, and doing something the “normal” way isn’t good enough to appease the ghosts in my head. It’s why I overcomplicate tasks, go so far above and beyond when I have no need to do so. A regular fix won’t do, being middle of the pack won’t do, not out-damaging my whole team combines will not do. I have to be the best, do something so over-designed that you can’t ignore me, playing right into the hand of the insecurities that control me. I want people to be proud of me, I want to feel appreciated, so I go off the path, I do something different or inefficient at the same speed or better so that I feel like what I do matters. If I do it and it looks easy, I just did something anyone else could. If I do something in some out in left field way, I can tell myself I did it just as well as anyone else who did it the “easy” way. It’s a running problem, like I’d said. If I don’t overcomplicate a task, I’m not able to show how much I know I can do. You make it make sense, because I sure can’t. I will probably keep slamming my head against a wall for that part tonight, partially out of stubbornness, partially out of foolish pride, and partly because I don’t want to figure out yet another third party tool when I’m off the clock. Unless I can convince myself that it’s okay, which I tried to do on my drive this evening to get out of the house. Maybe after dinner I’ll give it a look and try to wrap the three brain cells I still have around it.