This story is still ongoing. But it'll probably end up with me being like this.

There are things in life you absolutely have to do; you suck it up no matter the pain. And there are things in life that are completely optional; you should have fun doing them or not at all.

I'm just not having fun playing Street Fighter anymore. I wasn't willing to sink in the time to get good, I couldn't rank up and am now stuck in a rut. The game is now practically a psychological torture device. Losing is by itself not an impediment; not having fun losing is.

Above a point, life ought to be subtractive (or at least not additive). What I should do, if I'm wise, is to quit the game and relegate it for parties.

This game is as twitchy as they come. That means time capital is needed to condition reflexes. I'm not one to use age as excuse, but it is a deterrence.

There are many more pursuits worthy of my time. They can be fun, financially rewarding or carry hidden learnings. I could spend the time to get good at smart contract security, Pavlov VR or coding side projects. Street Fighter produces neither money nor fun. Even the hidden learnings that carry over to other domains is questionable.

Yet...

I have a hard time letting go. Every time I try to commit to quit, something feels icky, it's just not right. Something reminds me about how you do one thing is how you do everything.

So here's my ultimatum: I would get good enough to reach Silver rank. If I can't do that in two months time, I will accept it and quit. If I do rank up, I will have an easier time letting go of the game knowing I've done it.

I've enlisted help to figure out the how. I expect this to be a painful process.

Pain I can handle. Fear/uncertain/doubt is another matter. I'm less concerned about the how than the why.

Why get this hung up about a game (especially when there's no stake)? Why am I not similarly anxious about other competitive games? Why does quitting now irks me?

Any answer I can offer to those questions now are probably bullshit. There's no justification for continuing that can pass the rationality smell test.

So I can only temporarily accept that this is a matter of the heart, where reason has no place. The Warrior archetype simply wants to fulfill himself, no amount of rationality can talk him out of it.

That was probably why 阿虎 above went back to the ring.