...

Recently I've found myself wanting some things again. I know, it's stupid of me.

I'd been trying to keep myself from wanting. Desire and expectations are the path to misery, and all that. But I recently began diving into a new hobby, and it is potentially very expensive.

It's stupid, but it's wargame miniature collecting. These little plastic soldier, barely over an inch tall, posed in a diorama of war. Unpainted. Unassembled. The barest minimum thing. And it's still so expensive. Thirty-five bucks (thirty-nine now, thanks to tariffs...) for a set of 24 small plastic soldiers.

These little toys mean nothing. They are meaningless. Plastic. But there is something enticing about collecting and assembling and painting these things. But I know I shouldn't be spending my money on toys. Not at this stage in my life. Little pieces of plastic. I've spent enough of my life playing with toys.

Yet...there is something soothing about painting these miniatures. Something about imagining the lives they must lead. Something about placing them on the table and setting them off to war so that I may roll a few dice and see which of them get taken off the field.

I have to tell myself that I must not want.

I must repeat this mantra.

These things are meaningless. Just pieces of plastic. They will be destroyed by time like all thins.

Look at me, a grown man spending his time thinking about little toys. What the fuck am I even doing? What even is the point in any of this? What is the point? What is the point?

My friends dwindle away as they move out of this place. I feel left behind, trying desperately to grasp on to these little things as a coping mechanism.