Thank you to Daigo-Bah, Spuffy, ruiner, Nicklab, and Jesse, and anyone else I might have missed who was being cordial with me in discussing the topic earlier.
This might sound odd, but I'm going to write something personal here now.
After getting home from work tonight, talking with my wife for a few minutes, and getting online to surf the net for a bit and then get back to real work for my job, I noticed how much I neglect the more important things in life like my family.
Then I came back here and thought about all the comments that I let get under my skin here in this thread, saw earlier today the troll posting comments about me in several threads, thought about how serious I take customizing, how I go on toy runs every chance I get, etc. And I realized I've let this hobby consume most of my life, and I've taken it too personally. For the last 11 or so years now, this hobby has almost always been the defining thing in my life, the thing that keeps me really going (especially when my closest collecting buddy, Mike, died in 2001. I had been friends with him since 1st grade). But I've fallen in love with it too much, to the point where it's affected my health and my job. For those of you that are aware of my sleeping disorder, my doctor has indicated that it could be attributed to my Star Wars fetish for customizing/photonovels. That when I try and sleep, my mind obsesses with it. I was too embarrassed to admit before. But I don't feel embarrassed about it now. It's the truth.
For my age I feel I am really immature when it comes to having such a love for Star Wars, I look at so many things through the eyes of the child I was in the early 1980s. It's fun trying to recapture that feeling through this hobby, that's the reason I think a lot of us do it. And for those who question my ideas, I guess you don't understand my reasoning. I'm a kid when it comes to just about everything. Here I am, almost 30 years old and even my two best friends, I've been best friends with since we were 7 years old back when we loved and played Star Wars together. I guess I'm trying to hold onto my childhood too long.
My wife and I are expecting our first child this June. Because of that, my life will be changing a lot obviously. I won't have the time I have had the past two years to customize and create the photonovels that mean so much to me. I'm not going to be able to afford all the figures I am wanting to get. And you know, that's probably a really good thing for me. Maybe once I have a kid, I'll experience "living through your child." I think I need that desperately. I won't push away time with my kid for the hobby. I probably do that too much already with my marriage.
Sorry for so much personal stuff and going off topic like I did. I just felt like I should maybe tell a little more about myself to those that don't know me here, beause I feel like not too many really do. If you take the time to read that, maybe you'll understand my intentions/motivations more when it comes to wanting things like playsets, making photonovels, and why sometimes I've let things get under my skin too often.
thank you,
Justin