So Far So Good

Hello, I’m finally on break from design school for two weeks. Now for an update.

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I would have written this post sooner except on Sunday my window, goaded by wind gusts, decided to fall out & shatter onto the street. Now my window is cardboarded up & I’m waiting for it to be replaced; no idea when.

But I digress – this post is actually about how making friends became absurdly excruciating.

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Returning to polytech has been a godsend to me. I am very much enjoying communication design & feel like I’ve found my element:

• I storyboarded an idea I had floating around for a long time (I’ll make a post about this later).
• Been learning about various design movements, like Art Nouveau & Russian Constructivism.
• Been introduced to drawing tablets & currently have an animation assignment I’ll do over the next two weeks based on an old dream (again, this will be its own post).
• I’ve been (more) properly introduced to photography. Didn’t realize how much there was to portraits & how experimental you can be (got really into collage & cut-outs).

Perhaps the most significant aspect is that I seem to actually be making friends. I realize that probably sounds banal but, given my reclusive nature & the way my life has been going, its just… very nice to have this happen, even though I feel my behaviour just made things more difficult.

Before Study

Hello, I just felt like doing a random update since my course is starting next week:

• Still chipping away at a scanned image of my mythic bird design. The scanner doesn’t do a great job of digitizing my sketches, & I thought setting it to max contrast would be enough to give me a cleanish sketch, but instead I was left with fuzzy outlines. Since then I’ve been meticulously cleaning the lines so I can colour it. I guess this is why artists ink their lines first.

• Passed my car onto my brother so he may regularly get his daughter to childcare. I seem to be doing fine with non-car life so far.

• I’ve actually been using Twine to do some writing. I’ve even been plotting out some of my game ideas in it, since you can have stories function like games. I don’t have anything worth releasing at this time & I won’t promise that I will in the future. At present, this is just something for myself.

• I also felt like updating my About page.

Saharasha Scan WIP

Otherwise not much else. I’ve honestly been struggling to keep myself occupied until now, but doing art has helped. I’m just waiting for my course to start but I’m also feeling trepidation.

When I studied IT I didn’t try to make friends & I was in a more negative place about myself. I’ve improved since then but I wonder if history will repeat itself. Admittedly, one of the reasons for returning to study was so I could figure out where I want to go & the kind of people I belong with. If its just the same results again I’m not sure how I’d handle it now that I’m flatting (I at least had my parents last time). I guess I’m used to it at this point in life, but a change would be nice.

I’ll see how next week goes. I’m not sure how posting will go from now on, but if this course is as intensive as IT was you may not hear from me in a long while. Future posts will most likely be about whatever projects I do for design school.

Farewell.

Existential Recurrence & Purpose

This is a post I’ve rewritten over and over again. I’ve thought about making this shorter but I feel the length is necessary for understanding this.

This post serves two purposes for me:

1. As a complete record of the process, thus this is going to be a long & thorough post (perhaps the longest single post I’ve written).
2. As a self reminder for reasons I’ll explain at the end.

In keeping with this theme I’ll be referencing things I’ve written about before, so I can understand if you want to skip this. I’m sick of this recurring as well.

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First off, something I forgot to add to an earlier post which also applies here.

The wish for death can be exacerbated by a long accumulation of painful moments, memories & associations where all viable alternatives have failed. This tiring slog can be made more hopeless when you are unable to properly communicate the suffering to another caring soul. Even when you can, no amount of understanding with the wrong people can truly solve such predicaments. The process may even lead to self alienation.

It can be caused by their inability to find a compelling solution to their existential horror, or their own cyclic frame of thinking. Sometimes it’s both. It’s hard to consolidate the later when you’re stuck with the first.

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My life has lost clarity.

I’ve become too painfully aware of my own recurring actions & results, all of which have seemingly lead to stagnation. I don’t know what alternative action to take, & to continue as I have is just insanity. It’s broken me.

I stopped because there was no point to it – only to dive deep into a marginally different recurrence.

See, I know that being disciplined about my wishes & balancing my needs are key to living a good life, but why should I? Why should I affirm my life & continue through guaranteed suffering? To what point & purpose am I living for?

Suicide

Good, the title didn’t scare you off. I guess this is what my last post was meant to touch on.

This post is both an outside account of my flatmate’s attempted suicide & my thoughts on the topic. If you want his own perspective on the experience he has written a post about it.

I feel I’ve left this post too late as the suicide attempt seems like just an uneasy memory now; even the guy himself seems “meh” about it. Also I’ve somehow perked myself back into taking some action over the past week rather then being mopey. Odd since (spoiler alert) I still don’t have a “real reason” for living & I keep getting signs I’m not just suddenly better, if my mentally restless evenings are anything to go by. This I’ll talk about later.

Suddenly it’s like writing these posts is the most important thing to do in my life.

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Since late March, the flatmate had brought up thoughts about committing suicide. We have been feeling concerned about him, yet the reality of it didn’t seem to seep in until he did something a month later.

Games & I

This post relates back to my 2016 retrospective. I’d advise reading this first.

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A question that has particular been on my mind is – how do I approach my aspirations in a way that is both fulfilling & ethical, yet realistic? How do I do this whilst holding to my own values?

Like the questions I had before, I don’t have a clear answer for this. To be fair, this post isn’t about looking for an answer but rather the affect this question had on me in regards to a major aspiration of mine.

You see, in 2016 a part of me gave up on my dream of making games. These are my reasons:

• Having knowledge that the world is more screwed then I thought, my wish to make games, & the kind of games I wanted to make, feel comparatively trivial & unimportant (that was a truly sad thought for me). A part of me feels obliged to help the world get truly better in some way. I’m still not sure how I can help but I don’t think providing another form of escapism is the way.

• I had reached a point where just thinking about making games brought about feelings of frustration, self-disappointment, & apathy. I’d tried many approaches that all lead to similar results, each one not able to account for my own shortcomings.

• I have an awful habit of stating I’ll do something & not actually doing it for whatever reason. I’ve become really sick of being that kind of guy. I’ve become hesitant to say I’ll do anything, unless I seem to be already doing it.

• I’ve known for a long time that its difficult to get into the games industry, & that surviving or even making a living from it is even more difficult. Hell, I know how difficult it can be just to try & make one game, I’ve been trying to do it alone since graduating in 2013. I admit the task has only become more daunting over time.

• I like games, but I’ve become disgusted with the mainstream games industry. Cultural toxicity aside, it’s market driven nature has become more apparent to me. Any regard for experimentation, artistic expression, & the effects of the medium is seemingly relegated to indies, small studios, & critics, since everyone else is comfortable with games “just being games”. I feel like this point alone is worthy of it’s own post (I know, more to write about!).

2016 Retrospective

Whelp, this took way too long. This is not a review of world events in 2016; just my own reflection on what I’ve been learning & how that’s affected me.

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2016 has been a year of further complex realizations. Before I’d been musing on how my own thoughts & actions can effect myself & others. Since moving to my current flat, my thoughts have broadened to systems & ideologies that may affect us all.

I’ve been learning concepts related to socio-politics & philosophy, as well as figures & movements within these topics. I’ve gained some familiarity with concepts like Post-Modernism, Socialism, Neoliberalism, Subjectivity, Cultural Hegemony, & Hyperrealism; even Veganism. I’ve gained some familiarity with names like Marx, Nietzsche, Sartre, Focault, Kierkegaard, Camus, & Hegel; plus some modern names like Chomsky & Zizek. These topics & names have provided a lot of insight & new ideas that I would love to see more media & stories explore (I’ve gained a new found appreciation for the ones that do). It helps that over half my flatmates study &/or have an avid interest in these topics & are quite happy to talk about them.

Side note: a flatmate actually compared my thinking to Hegel’s philosophies. It’s weird having your personal philosophy supposedly match a philosopher you were completely unaware of just months ago.

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Yet, I’m still quite clueless as ever. I’ve been introduced to these terms & given a basic idea of what most of them are about, yet I feel I don’t have a true understanding of them.

If anything, what I’ve learned has a tendency to throw me off. About every month or two I seem to learn something that makes me question my assumptions & “what I should do”; all in the backdrop of a wider world & global system that I’ve known to be messed up, yet I keep discovering new perspectives that make it apparently bleaker then I thought. I’ve come to learn that the best information may very well be the knowledge & questions that deconstruct & challenge your foundations.

Window Questions

Hello, this post stems from a random thought I had yesterday. I felt the need to put up a series of questions in front of my house. I haven’t put them up yet, but this is the list I have so far:

What is your story?

What does your life say about you & what you value?

What decides your life?

If you died now, how would you feel about your life?

Should shame, fear, hatred, & sadness be standards you live your life by?

What defines truth?

What is reality beyond your senses & the messages you have been told?

What meaning is there to find in a world where none is given?

What defines morality?

What insight can the worst of us offer that the best cannot?

What makes the outsider evil? Why must they be that way?

What perspectives have you not considered?

To what point & purpose do your thoughts & beliefs serve?

What are you ignorant of?

What purpose does ignorance serve?

Why obey rather than question?

What gives leaders their power?

What is worth destroying the world?

Why obey a system that brings more suffering then good?

When does profit become more important than anything else?

How many idiots here think?

Are these questions a bit much?

Submit your answers to our letterbox

The questions I came up with are meant to be thought provoking, with the intention of encouraging critical thinking. The last few lines are meant to be more tongue-in-cheek, though part of me would like to receive mail from random people giving their answers.

For that matter, I’d be curious to see how people reading this post would answer these questions as well. I’d also like to hear any other suggestions for thought provoking questions.

If you’re looking for some explanation, read on.

Thoughts on Relationships: Part 3 – Identity

Hello, I said these last two parts wouldn’t be bigger than part 1 – seems I lied.

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A few days ago I felt compelled to ask my cousin a question. The dialogue went something like this:

Me: “Would you say that you are someone who highly values other people?”

Cousin: “Yeah definitely.”

Me: “Why?”

He pondered this for a moment before giving his answer. His reasons were:

1. He’s really ingrained with the people he knows.
2. He uses social interactions as a way of learning about himself.

This last point surprised me; it’s not something I’ve considered. I’m really used to the idea of internally analyzing myself in order to discern ‘who I truly am’ since no one else is capable of giving an accurate holistic picture; only the person living my life can do that.

Yet when I think about it, it makes a lot of sense. We all have our own internal idea of who we are, but until we interact with another person, & have it challenged, that idea is just a fantasy. Other people can make us think about aspects of ourselves we have never considered.

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I guess that ties back into what started this whole train of thought – I don’t like what my interactions with people have told me. The messages I tend to receive are:

• My default instinct is to wall myself off from others.

• People can interact with each other just fine, but they have trouble interacting with me.

• People have a lot to offer me, but I don’t have much to offer them.

• There’s still a lot more I need to learn & experience.

• I’m a good diligent guy, yet I’m no fun to talk to.

Given that context, it seems understandable now why I would prefer to isolation myself sometimes, no matter how bad I may want someone with me. Guess I’m more emotional then I seem to be.

Thoughts on Relationships: Part 2 – Conflict

Hello, I feel compelled to get these out of the way so the next parts are coming sooner then anticipated.

When I looked back at the last part today I realized something – I’m probably using difference as an excuse to not try.

There is truth in what I said, but some people do genuinely try to look past these differences. Like myself, people would rather have good relationships then bad ones, so they tend to tolerate the shortcomings of others if they feel it’s worth it.

Maybe I’m just terrible at making a good impression (if we met in person you’d probably just regard me as some silent closed-off dude who struggles with communication). Maybe I just need to acknowledge a simpler truth; that many others may share my sentiments. Maybe it’s a sign I have less tolerance then I’d like to have.

The point is I have to take some ownership of this. I have to acknowledge that how I act & think affects those around me. After all, I’m the common denominator.

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So if difference is an excuse, what is the real reason then? Well, it’s quite simple – I’m still fundamentally afraid to share myself with others.

I’m still afraid to let people know who I am. I’m still afraid of people disliking true aspects of myself. I’m still afraid to be hurt.

I’m still afraid to voice an honest opinion in front of strangers & people I know will think differently. Perhaps precisely because my thoughts & opinions tend to differ from theirs, no matter how ‘correct’ I may think myself to be.

Thoughts on Relationships: Part 1 – Difference

Hello, I have another internal ramble I need to let out. It got really long so I’m turning it into a mini series of posts.

I realize after my last upbeat post, about charging into creative projects, that this isn’t what you would expect from me so soon, but I’ve been having old thoughts return to me & I need to attend to them. I’m afraid this is one of the cons of following this blog; you get someone who has troubled times.

I guess it started when I went to see my parents in Te Anau a fortnight ago. As much as I enjoyed seeing them (plus the dogs) again, about a day later I found myself feeling troubled. I wanted to try to explain to them what was going on but my mind has a way of locking up when trying to confide in people.

On the surface, I guess I’ve grown to dislike some aspects surrounding their lifestyle (like seeing & being disgusted with TV again. I admit that was when these thoughts were more prevalent), though I want to say it ties into a deeper concern.

I think being around them again made me realize how much I’d changed since living with them. Since moving out I’ve ended up in a flat with people who are more like myself. I’ve learned more about the world & society, which has affected my own ideology. I’ve also made good strides in accepting who I am as a person.

Yet, despite how much I love them, being around them was another reminder of how I’m seemingly ‘too different’ then most people. I realize this is an over generalization, & yes this is to be expected with something as insanely diverse as humanity, but what happens when you get that sense with virtually everyone you meet?