Perception

 Perception. As an individual, there is no greater tool in your arsenal than perception. The Stoics spoke about it - "Our life is what our thoughts make it". The spiritual masters in the east have created centuries worth of practices based off of perception: Yoga, meditation. These are beliefs, ideas, foundations, fundamentals formed in the B.C times of human existence. Throughout even the earliest parts of civilization, philosophy, and education there has been this understanding that our reality and our perception of reality are intertwined so tightly they are indistinguishable from one another. They are one and the same.

The things we find sexual or attractive, a direct result of culture and shared perception; beauty standards. The objects of desirability result from what you've been told is desirable and whether you've allowed that perception to attach to your own personal perception - making your desire towards this thing a reality.

CBT, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, the most extensively used and effective tool in psychology. This is a psychotherapeutic process that forces you to identify thought patterns, recognize them the negative ones as unwanted, and then dismantle and replace or overcome them. It uses exposure therapy, a form of rewriting trauma and impulse reactions through overloading them with positive or neutral perceptions on the same subject. A brute force reconfiguration of your perceptions that completely reshapes you reality. CBT calls upon you to look at that which hurts you and then reclaims its ability to do so. Its a tried and true formula. This is one of the most basic forms of psychotherpy but is undeniably one of its most effective.

A person who can achieve great things is one who believes that they can achieve great things. Self efficacy and your belief in how much you control and your propensity towards positive outcomes go hand in hand. The Locus of Control. A person who believes they are in control of their outcomes tends to also have high self esteem and self security. They are able to withstand negative life events with more resilience. All because of perception. The difference between "Things happen to me" and "I make things happen" is enough to make you a stronger person, measurably so.

This doesn't exactly mean you can just think your way into happiness and success. Concepts like that are also crafted in the mind and aren't even understood by those who spend their lifetime quantifying it. Contentment isn't a goal that is reached. Contentment doesn't result as a matter of simple accumulation. Contentment is a long never ending process of evaluation and reconstruction. Contentment is forever spontaneous and fleeting - you must always keep it in reconsideration. Unfortunately most people don't reshape their conception of contentment until those moments where they are at the end of their ropes.

Maybe there's a sense of shame that people feel in reaching towards contentment. The higher functions of our intellectual brain equate being fine with "good enough" as tantamount with just giving up on your passions and dreams. To be fine with what you have is to kowtow to a mediocre existence.

Stoicism and Buddhism answer this by asking you to "Just Exist". They get to that conclusion in very similar ways but their definitions of just existing are very different. Regardless there is this understanding that we are the masters of our own universe. That feeling and being are one. That experience is a matter of curation, not simple passive observation. But observation is the very thing that gets you to be able to curate your existence.

Communication

The greatest human skill is communication. We are such empathetic creatures that we can draw out of someone delightful joy or crushing sadness trough images alone. This ability to convey and connect is the most human aspect of the human being, To not engage in such is a waste. Whether that is through debate, literature, art, music, comedy, or sex - I believe to be fully human is to communicate as often and as effectively through your preferred means.

You don't have to have the gift of gab or be an excellent painter, but you must find your medium of communication - regardless. Some do it by thanklessly laboring for another - showing their care through physically exhausting themselves and devoting precious time for the benefit of another. That is a form of communication I find to be truly remarkable within the framework of my personal philosophy. But that is just one of many approaches available to the individual. Regardless of the approach you choose, make use
of it.

There's an enrichment that comes from communicating. There's a breaking of barriers and a hailstorm of love that crashes upon you when you are able to accurately and effectively show your emotions and intentions to another. But that us where the difficultly lies: showing your emotions. As a human being - to be fully human - is to be quite vulnerable and embarrassing. The most powerful of emotions are usually the ones we deem immature, adolescent, or primitive.

This may seem quite reductive, but a lot of feelings and lengthy diatribes on one's ethics can be boiled down to: Boo [This Thing] or Yay [This Thing]. You may try and add depth to it by extrapolating just how deeply it effects you or by adding flowery language, but ultimately a lot of feelings boil down to whether you like something. How it just kinda makes you feel when you get down to it.

In that way you might be able to argue that the person who can write eloquently, compose brilliantly, or paint vividly would have the upper hand in obfuscating the overall embarrassing aspects of these feelings, but they honestly do not. You see, in every medium of communication there is an immature or adolescent way of going about things.

Cringe, that's the word we use most nowadays to describe these portrayals of communication that fills us with embarrassment after being expressed. Every form of communication has aspects within it that can be identified as "cringe" when wielded in a certain way. So regardless of the form of communication and your proficiency in it there is always a worry of coming across as cringe, as embarrassing. This worry is destroying you, it is holding you back.

Communication is the greatest human skill, it is our most important skill, use it. Many - if not all - interpersonal problems are a result of a lack of communication or miscommunication. If you want to know someone's thoughts or intentions, ask them and then observe their actions (and how they reflect in respect to the spoken thoughts and intentions). So many people build a vile portrait of others in their brains. Not because of what that person has done or said but because of person hasn't done or hasn't said.

These "hasn't"s fester in the brain and within their mindscape morphs this human into a vindictive creature, a selfish creature; when in reality this person was just busy or such at communicating. Or they are afraid of expressing themselves. Afraid to express themselves because they the other person would find them gross or weird if they expressed all the things they want to express to this other person. And those nevers become a list of regrets that tether themselves to us. Weighing us down.

A lifetime of feelings never expressed. Thoughts never shared, another piece of you repressed. A part of you hidden away. More and more of yourself that you won't allow to live. It makes you blank, numb. All of what you feel, all that you experience. It is all interconnected. When you push one emotion down, you push them all down. Your body, your soul, it gets one message and it's not "don't feel this thing" it's "don't feel". When you choose to not express specific aspects of yourself around other you are not telling yourself "I don't want to express this part of myself" you are telling yourself "Stop expressing"

In order to be human you need to be embarrassing. You need to be vulnerable. You need to be cringe. To be cringe is to be free. When you allow yourself to feel the full spectrum of emotions then you get to experience life with the full spectrum of emotions. You get everything out of this life rather that what you've allowed yourself to get out of life.

 

Life Goes On.

Life goes on. It is inevitable, it is constant. There is only one absolute guarantee and that is: Time moves forward. With time many great things may happen, many tragic things may happen - regardless, you cannot change the fact that things will happen. Randomly. Chaotically. Sometimes as expected. Sometimes suddenly. No matter what, they will happen.

So it seems the best way to take it all as a healthy functioning human being is consistently and peacefully. Have your daily tasks, your to-dos, and fulfill them with passion and earnestness. Have your hobbies and let them enrich you, take time for the things that you smile and make you whole. Love those that love you back. Take the world as it comes, don't panic - just do what you need to do and take solace in the fact that you are making an effort.

All that can be asked is that you care and that you try. Regardless of whether you approach it with anxiety and dread or with tranquility and a steady hand - the results, materially, are often very similar. The primary thing that determines the quality of your work and your effort is a combination of knowledge and experience, something that comes with time.

So if the results may largely be the same materially, you have to take it from the perspective of yourself and your mental landscape. If the quality of work is not something you can conjure up spontaneously, then you are best inclined to not add that extra stress and worry.

I think a lot of our anxiety is a result of perception. We worry largely for reasons outside of ourselves. Maybe we worry about coming off as apathetic, or lacking urgency. You cannot force earnestness, especially not in bouts of panic. Because panic, anxiety, it doesn't stem from what's best, it stems from consequence. Imagined punishment. Why live under the tyranny of your brain's delusions?

Even when you do well under the pressure of anxiety you never feel content - you just feel relief. The task is done and all it did was bring you back to a place without fear. It's miserable. This is why you can't let your primary motivator be the avoidance of hurt, the avoidance of imagined consequence. Let your motivator be enrichment.

Intellectual enrichment, the enrichment of your relationships, personal enrichment. When you fail under those circumstances, you'll probably do better next time. When you fail while under a state of anxiety and fear you just become avoidant - the last thing you need is to be avoidant. This life is for living, not fearing. Do not create a life of fear. Create a life of acceptance and forward motion.

You can only apply what you know. You've only done what you have done. What you know, what you've tried, what you can do in the future, all come from living. So let yourself live.

 

Wild Arms: Standard JRPG - Bogged Down By It's Simplicity and The Design Trends of it's Time

Wild Arms is one of those "hidden gems" I've heard of for awhile. Framed as this often looked over JRPG worth the time and consideration of gamers, unfortunately eclipsed by the release of Final Fantasy VII. I am curious of how it got this reputation. I hate to make accusations like: "People are blinded by nostalgia" because those same words have been used to disregard some of my own favorite pieces of media but I earnestly cannot help but feel that way after having experienced Wild Arms and what it had to offer.

During the half way point of my playthrough I had this feeling that my ending thoughts of the game were going to be something along the lines of: simple story, simple combat, but tight and not too difficult - makes for a nice casual playthrough for JRPG veterans or a beginners entry for those new to JRPGs. However three core things come together to make the experience begin to falter and really drained me by the end. These three things being:

1. The Encounter Rate
Wild Arms has an impressively high encounter rate. I am talking every few steps sometimes.

2. The Slowness Pace of Battles
These battles can be painfully slow. The worst example of this happening with enemies who inflict       status ailments, further slowing down the battle with LONG spell animations and wasting your            subsequent turn healing the conditions.

3. The Labyrinthian Dungeon Design
This should be a HUGE positive for me. I love dungeons - they are some of my favorite parts of            RPGs

Wild Arms has some incredibly interesting and fun dungeons. Puzzle focused with each character acquiring a number of tools to provide different layers and types of solutions to the puzzles within each dungeon. On top of these neatly designed puzzles comes these maze like corridors that test the player's awareness and memory - filled with a great amount of treasures that are always helpful and never feel like a waste during your playthrough. Seriously fantastically designed areas that are brain scratching and feel like more than just padding. If only you could explore them without so much struggle. When your dungeons are long and they are sprawling the worst thing you can do is make a player unable to explore them and take note of their environment. I had a reoccurring problem in Wild Arms where I was unable to create a mental map of the area I was exploring because of the amount of time I spent in battles. I would begin exploring an area, only to be hit with a random encounter, this battle would take a minute or two, then I would take a few steps and then be hit with another random encounter, after which I would retrace my steps a bit refamiliarize myself with where I was because my mental map of the area had began to blur after spending so much time in battle. Rinse and Repeat this process until I completed the area. This high encounter rate is further exacerbated by the fact that Wild Arms is simple. The battle system could even be called brain dead. I don't hate this on the surface- sometimes an affair of: Pick your strongest attack --> Heal when needed --> Repeat, is what I want. But for the battles to be this simple yet take so long only serves to bore the player. This boredom became frustration when these battles kept me from progressing and feeling like a master of my environment with the dungeons. 

I wanted to enjoy the game - but the game found it necessary to keep me from experiencing it most interesting aspects.

Wild Arms has ambition. It feels like it has some ideas it wants to show the player. The whole project feels like it comes from this place of excitement and inexperience. The wild west flavoring is inspired but is underutilized - the game largely feels like a standard JRPG fantasy - but with sprinklings of the steam powered machinery. While everyone is using Swords and Sorcery your main character will occasionally pull out a FUCKING ROCKET LAUNCHER. Its charming - but it doesn't go far enough. The designs of enemies are wild. Very little standard JRPG monster fodder - many of these creatures are terrifying or wacky beyond description.

Bird with metal hands and spiked purple shoes

Lizard Plant Maneater thing with tendrils???????

They have a Flatwoods Monster! This is one of my favorite things ever! You have to understand how much I want to like this game.

Even the big bads have these really interesting designs - some of who fall into the realm of ninjas - super off kilter in comparison to the demon dark knights. I feel its obvious that the team had unique ideas and wanted to implement them into their own RPG but the ideas themselves never get to have the proper spotlight they deserve because of the simple combat and the high encounter rate that was typical of older JRPGs. Rebalance and tweak some numbers and this game could work so much better. Truly a shame.

I Want Media To Be Genuine, I Think........

 I am over media discussion. I am over media journalism. Its almost all this trite circle jerking. A bunch of "informed consumers" fighting over how informed they all are. We are in an age of endless content. An age where all the scratches in your brain can be itched by the most targeted and focused pieces of media. You can be appealed to in ways never seen before. Perfectly crafted algorithmic formulas concocted in the offices of our corporate overlords to be poured into the ever further decomposing  mindscape of the masses of hungry consumers. Should you be appealed to though? Do you know what's good for you? Have you noticed that since we have damn near automated and assembly lined the process of creating art that we just get the smallest variations on the same things? Every video game is the "Dark Soul of X" or is "Like X and Y had a baby" or "A battle royale with influences from X". Its derivative. Everything is derivative, and its all derivative in the worst ways. Not in the way that an adolescent new to creation wears their influences on their sleeves in their first attempts at expression. That's endearing, that's inspiring. This is cold. Calculated. Manufactured. These are small turns of the dial made to see if the end result is more profitable. "They like extended universes, Marvel is real big, so we need to make sure all of our projects relate and connect and converge" "They like crafting stuff. Look at all these survival games, look at Minecraft, they are huge. We need to put in a crafting system." "They like competitive multiplayer where extended play sessions are rewarded, so lets implement a perk system. And we made it so this multiplayer aspect of our game is their primary avenue of social interaction - so if they fall behind we can make it so they can just pay their way into parity with their online friends."

The worst part of this is that it is rewarded. It is greatly rewarded. We love our small iterations on the SAME FUCKING FORMULAS. We have been convinced we need to consume all of these tiny iterations, quickly and obediently. 60 - 80 hour experiences we need to finish this month because the next 60 - 80 hour experience is fast approaching and we can't fall behind. God forbid you fall behind. If you fall behind you might not be a part of the conversation. A pointless, worthless, unfulfilling conversation. Drivel. The same conversation you had on another game just like it a few months back. Just to keep up your "friendships" with filler. Because that's what friendships are, right? Opportunities to talk about media! Not to experience life together. Help one another accomplish life goals or projects - we don't have the time for that anymore. We have to use that free time to CONSUME MORE. 

Video games are bad but anime is the true embodiment of this. The logical extreme. With the isekai genre being a stark showing of this philosophy on making tiny changes to a formula until it brings the bank. A slice of life high school anime with some small change or area of focus. In the late 2000s we had this small "genre" of shows which we called "cute girls doing cute things" where the "cute things" could be literally anything. Driving tanks, Mahjong, Surviving the zombie apocalypse, Band class, Just trying to graduate high school, etc. Its been going on in this medium since its insurgence. The medium is almost entirely defined by this derivative and  iterative nature. Hundreds of mech shows. Hundreds of shonens that tweak that formula Dragon Ball created. Hundreds of high school comedy shows that are similar to Azumanga Daioh. Hundreds of "regular Japanese dude gets transported to another world with amazing powers" isekai shows. Its the nature of the damn medium. Its insular. Anime is influence by other anime. Who's roots all go back to one brand new take within the medium decades ago. This works because of the Japanese Otaku culture and its increasing isolation and lack of families. A path that we in the western world are walking towards all the same. We work more, interact less, and birth rates are falling more and more. Moving towards media to fill those voids. This piece of media made me feel happy for a moment, and this one did the same, so if I found something that was like these two things put together then I'd be twice the more happy! Without ever realizing the profound parts of these things didn't come from the superficial things we identified. 

We like to trick ourselves into believing that there is some easily identifiable to formula to happiness. Its human for us to believe this. We always want an easy answer. Eat this superfood and you'll be healthier and live longer. Stop eating processed grain. Consume less sugar, but avoid artificial sweetener. Take this pill for pain. Just deadlift more and you'll muscles will strengthen and your back won't hurt as much. That's what media has tapped into. Add a little bit of this and a little bit of that with a sprinkle of this and you got a hit. Never understanding that at the root of it all - its the human aspect we value the most. When you play something like Undertale, beyond all the concepts and fun ideas and all the "its like Earthbound meets a shoot-em-up and a visual novel" bullshit, what you have is a cohesive piece of art with a clear vision and emotional impact. There's a clear passion and something being told. Emotions that are genuine being conveyed to you. Passion evident in the lines of dialogue and the scenarios presented. Sometimes it doesn't even need to be upfront, it can be obscured, but the sparks it creates in the consumer's soul causes a fire to erupt. Think of Dark Souls and its lore, communities of people piecing it together into a rich tapestry for the awe of any seeking it out. All because of the aesthetics and odd language used. This VISION, so human, so alluring. It can't help but compel us into taking a dive into it. 

When these pieces art land they greatly impact the landscape of whatever medium they fall into. A paradigm shift occurs. We think its because of the new mechanics or the new approaches but we never seem to understand where the ability to create those new mechanics or approaches come from. They come from a person or people trying to convey. A person or people trying to communicate something, and in trying to find the way to communicate that something they find that what was before just can't communicate what they hold deep in their heart(s) in the way they want, so they must create an approach all new. We become so deeply impacted by this combination of human expression and approach but put all of the weight in the approach. Shove ideas into that box and come short - missing that human aspect that gave it it's gravity. This is where so many attempts at representation fail. Misguided social critics may have you believe its some sort of conspiracy involving the woke mob or some garbage (where if you follow the breadcrumbs far enough you learn the roots are blatant anti-Semitism) but the issue is that they shoe horn in representation and it rarely comes from these minorities themselves. These aren't minorities creating minority characters to tell the stories of their minority experience. These are calculated business decisions made to save face and create good rapport. Its not genuine, and while the social critics aren't ok with it for that reason (their reasons truly stem from dark places) this is why I am not ok with it.

Affirm Your Convictions, Not Your Distress

Through the lens of the many in your life your issues seem small and simple. They have disregarded these issue's emotional weight or have chosen to detach themselves emotionally from them as to not even have to deal with the emotional baggage in the first place. I know you believe that your ability to exist and thrive is contingent on support. On some level all humans are under that belief, we are social creatures and hate being outcast or othered. Some people go through great trials in what seems to be in spite of disregard - as if the naysayers became fuel to their fire, while others appear to begin to become whole as they find their support group and can truly embrace the ascent up the snowcapped mountains knowing they have some warmth to come back to. Even these however can beget an individual's downfall. The descending opinions of others that a person used to stoke their flames leaves them unable to differentiate worry from malice and that flame that once guided them becomes the flame that consumes and destroys them. The belief that you need constant support becomes a crutch for a foot you kick and scream that is broken without you realizing that in times you weren't even paying attention you had been walking strong on it all along.

The undercurrent beneath all of our progress, all of our triumph - is ultimately ourselves. I believe when we do right, we ought to do right because we believe it to be right. It is the worst part of us that demands recognition, it is the worse part of us that demands compensation. Those that have gotten those things: medals, titles, money; never is it enough that one time. You get on that hedonic treadmill and demand more and more, rather than being okay with well enough. We think that if only we had this or if only we had that - we would be better off. All of those thoughts are just distractions from what really matters: doing the work. You do the work because you believe it is the right thing to do. You do the work because you believe it ought to be done. The work should be well enough. Your reward should come from a contentment of the soul, not of the oohs and aahs of passerby.  Those that want to understand you will put in the effort to understand you, you will not have to explain yourself to them. If they do not want to understand you, do not hold contempt or ill will towards them - that's just you setting yourself back further from the work you ought to do, another distraction. 

You will have to fight this battle everyday. To believe the work is done when it has been done is foolishness. Everyday you must sweep the floor. Everyday a layer of dust accrues upon it. For every day dust is there, it must be swept. The mind is the same. Everyday you will feel helpless, you will feel unheard, you will feel unappreciated, you will feel anger, you will feel that need for revenge, that desire to show them how wrong they are. Those feelings are pointless, what matters is the work. Do the work. The work that you know to be right, the work that gives you peace of mind, the work that builds your character

Disregard the Person, Not the Lessons

 Becoming decent, maybe even exceptional, comes from realizing that you ought to not adopt all the philosophies, lifestyles, and principles of great men or discount them entirely upon finding out the flaws in their character. Rather you take the best, hold it close to your chest, and use that to facilitate your own self actualization. It's only in accepting the potential pitfalls of being human do you allow that greatness to be cultivated within yourself.

No matter the seeming perfection of past figures, dig deep enough and you will find ugliness. As humans are aspiring and transcendent so are they pitiful and disgusting. To ignore the potential ugliness inside you is to ignore all the potential good as well. The only way to have a life of neither is to live a life of stagnation and mediocrity. Can't have the lowest of lows with no highs to compare them to. You can't realize the depth of your accomplishments without seeing the traps you could've fallen into. To walk the path of potential is to walk the path of temptation. Greatness is measured by how much of that potential was realized despite the temptation, regardless of the temptations we fell victim to