Yeah, and somehow it just gets worse once you’re just scheduling a full calendar of scrims a week in advance and treat it like work that way. The pugs were at least entertaining in some way, but the rest of it was only ever going to be satisfying if it lead somewhere instead of being a clearly misguided wasted effort from the start

I wasted some 2-3 years of my life in CSGO too when I was younger. All my free time, down the drain basically. It wasn’t even fun after a while, just a hard, tiring grind. Attempted to compete on semi-pro level, somehow got it to my head that it was possible. Did compete ultimately, but none of my teams made it. Never got anywhere and the day I finally got off it was the best day of my adult life. It was bad.

I feel ashamed to admit this out loud. It’s just so cringeworthy. But it does some good to keep my head level and remember the shortcomings of my younger days.

Nowadays the closest I get to “addiction” level is bingeing a few months worth of evenings on the likes of Crusader Kings 3, M&B Bannerlord, Stellaris or Rimworld. Much more sane since it’s not as intensive, it can be paused at any moment, and ultimately there’s an end to it, so it just naturally withers away from my days eventually.

Believe it or not, I’ve been a part of it since I was born. I didn’t just come to be in a vacuum. I’ve influenced the society as much as anyone, we work together to make it better, we are a team, we protest. We sign petitions. We vote. We talk and talk and talk and have kids that will, too, become a part of what we’ve worked hard for and against and with.

Being proud of the team, of yourself, or the fact that you with your team are actively succeeding in not becoming a fascist shithole like the US or Russia for example. It’s not nothing. It’s worth being proud of. And takes effort, work, input every single day of every single month of every single year.

Yeah. I’m proud of myself and everyone around me. But I’m also proud of what we’ve worked together to build. This country did not stay this way by itself. It’d be ruined by capitalism and fascism the second we, the people of this country, stopped fighting against it and making this nation something to feel proud belonging to.

I think most people who are sensible but claim pride for some collective achievement or team or whatever, do so outwardly mostly because it’d be tiring to always include a philosophy lecture about distinction and differentiating between one’s own and others’ achievements. When we think about it actively, we can realize the faults and the details and could put them in words, but who the fuck has the patience to go in depth about all that each time they state they are proud of their team, their friends, etc.?

It’s just easier to say I’m proud of team xyz and hope the other party has the mental facilities to understand that it’s not a simple matter when you break it to pieces and start philosophing about it, but it’s just convenient and more prudent not to go into details or full analysis mode on all that every time…

One can be proud despite its shortcomings. Nothing is perfect in this world. But there are things worth being proud of, despite understanding its flaws and being consistently critical of it as a whole.

I am proud of my nation and its progressive, socialist nature, yet I am fully, and painfully so, aware of it’s shortcomings and problems.

But despite the problems, it’s extremely hard for me not to feel pride for the way we handle things within and without, especially in comparison to the rest of the world. We’ve been consistently at the top of the most socially progressive charts of the world, having also been denoted the worlds happiest country for over 5 years in row, and so on.

I do have my own prides, things I’m not ashamed to claim being very good at, and I do have a lot of very loud criticism against my nation too. But I remain overall proud just because we dare to be, against most odds, progressive and socialist.

I would defend my country, even picking up arms, because the chances are, the invader will simply be worse. Lead to worse overall situation here. Anyone surpassing us on either social or progressive counts, would be almost certainly not invading anyone, let alone us.

Maybe I am the fool the quote talks about, the good-at-nothing simpleton falling back to national pride for lack of any of my own. But I do not feel like one and I certainly have a lot more, explicitly outside the concept of a nation and this specific nation too, prides and accomplishments to be proud of.

I don’t think national pride is all that bad. I think it can be reasonable if the nation is best at its class on things most important and dear to you. Of course most national pride around the world is rooted on shitty stuff, and most nationally pride people usually being neo-nazi assholes, yet I still remain steadfast in my opinion that it need not be so.

It can be fine. I am sure of that.