On the growing resentment of all things gaming

So, there's this growing.. thing.. in the bottom recesses of my mind. It's weird because it's not something that makes sense on any surface level. Basically, I'm starting to get exceedingly frustrated with the entire concept of gaming. It's an insidious little thing, but it's one that's starting to have a noticeable affect on my social interactions.

I find myself having a genuine issue really caring about gaming. I don't just mean video games, I quite literally mean all kinds of gaming. I was speaking to a friend this morning about pen and paper games, and I just couldn't feasibly care less. The only reaction she managed to elicit from me was when she said Palladium died like Dungeons and Dragons died. I blinked at her and corrected her. That has little to do with gaming and just my general sense of knowledge and truth.. she believed that Palladium was more popular than D&D. It.. isn't. It wasn't. It never has been. I have trouble with people that declare beliefs as facts, honestly.. and sure, I probably come across as being an arrogant dick. I don't really care, if they don't believe the things I tell them, I'll show them as much proof as I can muster.

It bothers me because I really do love games. They're something that's reasonably important to me, and it just suddenly strikes me that, for as much fondness as I have for them, I just don't care.

On another occasion, I realized that I also don't really like most of the players. The consumers of the gaming industry generally just bother me. I mean, how can any sane human throw that amount of themselves into something that is so.. futile? I perfectly understand wasting time in games. I do that frequently. But people treat their game of choice as though it were a life or death situation. They construct their entire self worth and existence through this virtual reality. What happens when they get unplugged? If your self worth is based entirely on your favorite shirt, what happens when it rips?

I don't have any answers. I can only say that it bothers me, and maybe speculate as to why. I wish I knew, because that would let me really pin it down. I suspect it would also help me uncover some remaining bits of dissatisfaction I find myself grappling with in the wee hours of the night, laying in my pitch black room alone with my thoughts.

Thoughts about the Future

I'm alive, albeit barely some days. I'm slowly massaging myself, I think, into a fair routine in regards to it. I come in, I do my job.. I do the immediate work they ask for, and trawl about for other work to keep myself busy with the rest of the day. Hopefully, it'll be enough to get myself through school. I've been thinking, as I tend to, and I've decided I do want to pursue a degree in English. Resources willing, I'd even like to continue on to get a BA in Philosophy. This weekend, phase one of my room will be completed. It's remarkably clean right now, and we're buying basic supplies for a new desk sometime this weekend. We'll get that assembled and, hopefully, I'll have my workspace ready.

Y'see, I've realized that it's hard to do any honest work in a cluttered atmosphere. At least, for me it is.. I don't know why. So, I now have a goal.. a plan, of sorts. I've got a budget flowing, reasonably well. I'm not doing the best that I could to stick to it, but I enjoy my creature comforts. Oh well. I'm not real sure, necessarily, what I want to do after I manage to get through school, but I do know that it entails something in the publishing sphere. A couple possibilities I've been entertaining are doing something Mike wants to do.. teaching English. In Japan. Yeah. A BA in English is pretty much the exact credential one could possibly want to do that. I want to write, and maybe, if I'm luckily, I'll manage to pull something publishable out of my arse in the next few years. Flexing my social network has made me realize something astounding. All of my contacts, all of my friends, all of my connections.. they're all creatives. There is very little by way of truly technical.. force, I guess, in my network. This amuses greatly.

Finally, for those that are curious about how I might really reconcile my passions, well.. I figured that out today. I'll do what I've always done.. write for games. See, I've always loved writing story, missions, quests, whatnot for games. Ideally, then, I might get a job as a writer in the game industry. Just a thought. Anywho, it's bedtime, so yeah.

Passion, Life and the Neverending Struggle

This Post was backdated due to my laziness. It was written early morning on the 16th.

Tonight, I'm going to chat about Passion in a somewhat more rational way. For those of you that describe my writing as though I was "raping your mind". You see, Passion is this incredible thing. It will drive people to the ends of the world. It will drive explorers to go places that no man has gone before, simply for the passion inside of them that refuses to let them stay in one place. Passion is what has built this world from long before the industrial revolution into the world it is now, a scant 200 years later.

I spoke with one of my closest friends about passion, and he told me that Passion can burn you out. That passion is hard to find. I can't just disagree with him, because they're both good points. But the way Passion burns you out is unique, I think. Passion forms a feedback cycle with you.. mind, body and whole. It will eat every spare thought in your mind when you're caught in its fiery throes, but every ounce of energy it saps, its restores two ounces. For every moment it consumes you, it gives you two more. Passion can make life fulfilling, and a life that is fulfilled is a life that is truly lived.

You know, Passion is hard to find. But I don't think it's hard to find because we're unaware of it. I think it's hard to find because it's difficult to find the strength of soul to really evaluate it. We are all passionate about things. Our passions, even when uncultured and unexplored, drive our hobbies. They drive our existence, our relationships, our social frameworks. People, it seems, just have an innate problem with believing that they can truly pursue these passions. They refuse to believe that if they actually grasp it, and embrace what they love, that they may actually succeed and exist successfully. Many people think to themselves, "Gee. Wouldn't it be great to do this all the time?" or "I wish I could do that. It would make me so happy.", and they always tell themselves that it's foolish to actually try. That if they were to do this, they would sacrifice everything they've achieved so far. They would risk stability, financial wellbeing, and their relationships. And I won't lie, anyone can tell you that honesty is extremely important to me. It is one of my deepest values. But trying to embrace your passion can truthfully be extremely difficult. It does require careful planning, and it is difficult to first get into. The money doesn't just appear overnight, there is a struggle there. But with the famous parable of the Caterpillar and the Butterfly, struggle truly forces you to grow. And once you've breached that important goal, once you spread your wings, you really can live a life that many people can only dream of. If you don't believe me, just look around you. There are countless, and I do mean countless, people that do this exact thing on a daily basis. Every single day of the year, someone is breaking from their stability to do something they honestly love, and they will succeed.

So, I say this to you. Discover what it is that you love. The best advice I've ever received is to think of what you would do even if you wouldn't get paid for it. And then do it. I'm not saying to quit your job and leave your family. That is an extremely difficult decision that depends on so many external variables that I can't say that. But if you do what you love, and you do daily, eventually you will find a way to move that to your primary existence and migrate away from the life that so many people absolutely abhor. But all it takes is that doing. If you perform the action, if you engage your passion, eventually it will take over and you will find yourself the opportunities needed for success. All I'm asking, is that you do it. If your passion is writing, then write. Every day. Put ink to paper, or keys to screen, and write. It doesn't matter what you write, it doesn't matter if there's any quality there. All that matters is that you do it. If people don't like it, ignore them. If people say that what you're doing is horrible in quality, ignore them. Just because you have a passion, doesn't mean you're a master at it. But if you do it, every day, you will become a master. You will become an expert. But if you never take the first step, then you can never take the last step.

It really is that simple.

And tonight, I leave you with another quote. One that applies, perhaps not to starting, but one that does apply to passion.

"The question is not how far. The question is.. do you possess the constitution.. and depth of faith.. to go as far as is needed?"

Ask yourself this, and realize that yes. We all do. Passion grants us the constitution. By doing, we will find the depth of faith. And then we can go as far as is needed.

What's Your Passion?

So, I sit here, and look at these ads I have over here. I actually earned some infinitesimal amount from them yesterday, so that's cool. But, they're all about Myers-Briggs which, frankly, bothers me. Why? Because I don't really want to advertise MBTI -services- on my blog. I want to advertise the existence and use of MBTI. Among many, many other things. Hopefully, that's mostly just due to the state of my blog and the fact that I've been so busy with the Qualifying Course this week. I guess only time will tell, eh?

In other news, I took the qualifying exam today. 78 Correct out of a possible 80. I can now order, administer, and interpret Myers-Briggs Type Indicators. Go me. Maybe I'll figure out some way to use them productively. Honestly, I'd much rather just sit around in conference halls performing research on random masses of flesh. But, hey.

So, my topic du jour, is Passion. Yes, that crazy thing that makes non-crazy people become crazy for crazy reasons about crazy things. Crazy enough? I thought so. Passion intrigues me so because it is truly a game-changing situation. I don't care who you are, what you do, or how your little mind works. If you are passionate about something, you will do that. It's a truly wonderful thing, this passion, because it freely allows a person the carte blanche to do what they feel they are destined to do. It lets one's life become fulfilling. Think about that. There is no genericized meaning to life, the only meaning is the one we assign it. When we are passionate, we correlate our passion to that meaning. We align our very essence with that goal in sight, and we pursue it relentlessly until we are naught but bones scuttling in an old, dusty grave.

I, personally, am still looking for that passion. I have a sort of hemisphere where I'm kind of probing, prodding, trying to find where I really want to be and go. This is another reason for Seattle, mind you. This ties back to that in a large way. The growth available will help me push out on this bubble of potential and figure out what spots just plain feel good. I have ever intention of making a career out of what I find, and I will be sure to let you know when I do find something. And yes, if you are a wily reader, you will realize that this little blog, by this relatively nascent blogger, is one of these pushes. I like it, so far. Writing in enjoyable, and I have a clear enough command of my native tongue that I can effectively transmit my ideas. I can, perhaps, even inspire with my words so long as they are carefully chosen.

If my writing inspires you, then I want you to take heed. Let my writing push you, let my words drag you screaming through the lush fields of your mind. Find your passion, find that small niche where you feel nothing but absolute pleasure in every moment you work, that place where everything is eerily comfortable, where your mind is always perfectly at rest, and where you know you can do your best work. Find this place for me, and then push into it. Force yourself into this place, and make it your home. Make your passion your true drive, and then abandon all else for this drive. We need more impassioned, aroused people in this world pushing for their true passions. Do this, create something, and share your passion with the world around you. I can guarantee you will be adored for the freedom that is granted by passion. You will feel the shackles of society drop from your wrists, and you will experience freedom in a way that only a very small portion of society ever experiences. And remember that when you join this group, you are among an elite that is home to an incredible mass of people. You are among those that have the true strength in any culture, especially our's. When you find your passion, when you remove yourself from the status quo that our society has become, you will join the group of the creators. The innovators. The entrepreneurs. When you strip away all of your fears, all of your worries, and rip your thoughts down to their core, and focus the edge of your mind into your passion, you will find yourself in a truly wondrous group of people.

Push yourself. Expand your mind. Realize that fear is a pointless construct in our modern world. If you can do this, you will find a happiness far more pure than anything else you can ever experience. I can promise this to you. And if you never push yourself past that first step, you will forever regret not taking that first, little, harmless step. Don't fear the slide into passion. Fear the stagnation of the soul.

"And I am reminded, on this holy day, of the sad story of Kitty Genovese. As you all may remember, a long time ago, almost thirty years ago, this poor soul cried out for help time and time again, but no person answered her calls. Though many saw, no one so much as called the police. They all just watched as Kitty was being stabbed to death in broad daylight. They watched as her assailant walked away. Now, we must all fear evil men. But there is another kind of evil which we must fear most, and that is the indifference of good men."

A superb quote. And that is all for tonight. Find your passion, and you will succeed. Farewell, and until tomorrow.