Back in the days we...

Seriously, gamers need to realized they've grown the fuck up.

How often do you see people judging new games arguing that it isn't like the original, which they played for years and never stopped loving? How often is a sequel compared to the original in a fair way? Had the original and the sequel been released at the same time, the sequel would undoubtedly have been superior considering graphics and technology, but lets say we focus on the feel of the game and the visual appearance it projects, rather than the mechanics and how realistic it looks. And lets say you're 15. Yep, that's right, you probably were 15 back in the days of the original game, and you probably didn't have much else going on in your life, so it was pretty much your sole purpose back then. Did you consider that when you dropped bombs on the sequel ten years later? Don't think you did, no.

The thing is, the game isn't worse than the original because you're unable to devote your entire life to it today, it's rather you that today are unable to devote your entire life to a game, because you're ten years older. Life has changed you, made you aware of what you like and what you spend time on. You have standards based on your past experiences, and you expect new entries in your life to at least live up to said standards, and preferably surpass them. The ability to keep you enticed for weeks or years is not even remotely relevant for new games, because it's quite simply impossible. The new games aren't worse than the originals, they're actually loads better in most cases. Perfection is the new standard. Perfect gameplay, perfect visual appearance, perfect characters and perfect storyline. Not always successfully perfect, but the aspiration is at least present during development.

If you find something, anything, at the age of 20 or older, that continually impresses you and keeps you entertained and delighted for several hours, or even days or weeks, you should be in awe. You should seriously be in freakin' awe of this product that continues to meet your expectations and further on surpasses them. This is a simple product that is shifting your standards to a new best and making it harder for following entries to even please you, so enjoy it while you can and give the creators due respect. You simply cannot rate a game down, saying that it was superb for two weeks, and then lost you. The game was superb for two weeks. End of story. You loved it. For two entire weeks! Maybe you didn't end up playing it for years and years, but several might, and some definitely will. You've just grown up, and so you have to face the fact that you're gonna have to buy a new game every other week if you want to keep on being amazed. Besides, it's not like any of the old favorites kept on amazing you throughout the years. It was simply you who didn't expect, nor required it to. You were content with what you had. Then you desired more. And now, more still. And a top quality new release only has about two weeks full of amazement. After that, only the content will keep at it for years.

We don't like being content, we like being amazed. But it's about time we realize we can't be forever amazed by one single phenomenon or product. Be grateful of what you can get and give due recognition and respect.

10/10 for being amazing. And that's that.

Uneducation fosters misled dedication and mass frustration

Shackle Me Not - Jeff Soto

Delving further into how life is laid down on paths to follow, a central topic is how it is natural for society to shape the general outcome of available paths for each and every individual. Your path might be unique in it's entirety, but it will most often lead you in the same general direction as everyone else. You'll wobble through life, clinging to your own perception of reality, shaped and molded by your upbringing and inherent ability to apprehend the complexities of life, and you'll bear with you this truth about life until you die. Your general and specific ideas and convictions about life and the processes therein will define how you perceive yourself, as you measure yourself by these standards. The problem with this is the fact that your self-evaluation is based on your self-insight, and your self-insight is based on your ability to compare yourself to your perception of reality, and this perception is often flawed, to put it gently.

The truth is, many children get raised to believe dangerous misconceptions. The societies they're brought up in have been shaped by past generations' lack of knowledge combined with an innate lust for explanations, thus resulting in improvised truths that befit their reality as they perceive it. This should be a natural ongoing procedure that continues to evolve as you continue to live, making you hungrier for knowledge the more of it you get. Alas, most do not have the time nor the luxury to reflect upon everything or anything they know, and so they accept that the truth they know is as good as any, and so they pass these misconceptions on to the next generation, and so on. A vicious circle has been established, and people suffer and die, caught up in it, every day.

Conrad Bizjak

Life is a riddle, sure. I just wish more people would get at solving it their own way instead of following the bad advice of their society. The thing is, a misconceived reality will lead you nowhere safe. Thinking you have to obey certain nonexistent rules to obtain certain goals that you find important because society makes them seem like worthy achievements in life, wont necessarily get you there. Obtaining said goals would probably make you happy, because happiness is a feeling based on your perception, and so you would likely feel proud and joyful for accomplishing these achievements. The problem however lies in the misconceptions of getting there. Not all goals are attainable by the means that seem most obvious. You cannot become a famous rapper simply by playing at being a gangster and hope to survive the shootouts, and you cannot win a marathon simply by starving yourself skinny. Looks can be deceiving, and lack of knowledge can be dangerous. There is never a simple answer, everything is complex. The main reason people give up their dreams is the sudden realisation that getting there will require work. Actual work. You have to educate yourself on the topic of the dream, in order to obtain it. Misinformation will lead you astray on a misdirected path that will probably lead you nowhere good. Uneducation fosters misled dedication and mass frustration. And the problem is that being too bad at something denies you the ability to accurately judge your abilities in relevance to the norm. You simply have too narrow a perception of the issue to be able to comprehend the fact that you simply suck at it. You judge yourself to be average or often a bit above average, yet you're truthfully in the bottom 15 percentage.

Apply this to anything. Driving. You think yourself good, probably as good, or even better than most other drivers out there.  Fair enough, maybe you are. Cooking. You think yourself good, or even better than most other people out there, because you know that one special recipe and them secrets your mom told you. Fair enough, maybe you are and maybe you do. The problem is, if you're thinking "yes, I probably am as good or better", but you lack the reasons as to why you are, then you are, get this, not very good at all. Embrace the fact and educate yourself. If you could be better at something, anything, why not aim for that? Why accept mediocrity, inexperience and ignorance? Why not be the best you've ever been at everything you've ever done and ever will do? We are the pinacle of evolution and still have unheard of potential. We shouldn't all reach for the stars, but we should all start looking up and out, out of our enclosed tunnels. The more you learn, the more you realize you've got left to learn, but don't let it dishearten you. Your perception of the complete amount of knowledge you comprehend is a relative number derived from your perception of knowledge left unknown. And so, the more you learn, the less you will know. Relatively. It's a god damned paradox, but it's one we'll have to live with, because ignorance might be bliss, but it sure as hell is dull and dangerous as well.

Eyes Wide Shut - Luke Chueh

Knowledge can feel like a burden to hold, a duty to share, and a privilege to obtain. You decide what knowledge means to you, and how to approach it. But I beg of you to start thinking along the lines of "What if I'm wrong? Could there be another answer? Could I be better?". You'd be amazed by the amounts of answers the world has to offer, and I guarantee that you'll be left a more tolerating and considerate person.

Put your thinking cap on.

And don't ever take it off.

Determination or Predetermination

Sensual gravity has me spinning. There was a disturbance in The Force, and now I'm reeling out towards The Beyonds. The Beyonds I once found familiar and heartening, uplifting and even fascinating. I have been located at The Center Core for a long time now, sheltered from and unaware of the possibilities of The Beyonds. It's challenging and a bit overwhelming to apprehend the vastness of opportunities, the surreal amount of paths to explore. Spinning towards several directions simultaneously, as if suddenly bestowed upon the gift of inter-dimensional travel as well as a keen sense of exploiting opportune moments. I get a feeling of being in control, yet lost to the will of the world. On edge, yet on track. Or maybe tracks.

Wrap your head around this: From the very second you're born, your life is nothing but a tangle of opportunities. The resulting you that's sitting there is the culmination of chance, the winning streak of random events throughout an eternal chain of eventualities. You just happened to be. The you that is sitting there wouldn't be the same if that one teacher in first grade had been of the opposite sex, because you would've been influenced differently, maybe minimally, though differently still, possibly just enough to affect your perspective on certain matters, later on changing the outcome of your entire life. The point of the theory is, you are who you are because you happen to walk the paths you're set upon. The related questions, however, are boundless: Do you have power over your course or is it already destined by your past experiences? Is it given that you will act a certain way in a certain situation simply because of every single tiny memory you have stored leading up to said situation? Could you react differently than you did, or is it controlled by your nature, your being? Could it be so that we are extremely hard to predict because of our elaborate patterns of behavior, yet actually predictable, once one figures out the connections between past experiences and resulting actions? If so, everything could make sense, anything could be explained, everyone would be interpretable and any sort of behavior could theoretically be abolished.

One side of me craves explanations and understanding. I have this inner drive to observe, interpret and predict behavior, even sometimes to manipulate and construct it. I find it likely for actions to be predictable and influenceable based on the person's character, which again is shaped by his or her past. Different characteristics respond to the same actions differently and even though each individual person has a unique set of memories, most end up within the boundaries of certain archetypical characteristics. By being aware of these and their given pattern of behavior, one can predict or even manipulate their actions by playing out scenarios certain ways, or by enhancing certain aspects of a scenario, such as specific feelings, words and actions. In larger settings with several characteristics involved, the task is graver, requiring one to foretell the behavior of each and every individual as well as how they affect each other. The resulting concoction of chance is immense at the very least, and I daresay most will never even fathom the concept of such trickery, and even fewer will be capable of enabling it. There does, however, seem to be a possibility for lesser minds such as myself, to enable smaller aspects of the theory. Even though I find myself aware of these workings, they still effect me equally to others, and so I presume they're in effect for everyone, no matter how bright they might be. One simply has to take the fact that the subject in question is aware of the matter into consideration, and act accordingly. It would seem there's always a rule to follow and a solution to discover.

The other side of me wants to believe that there are boundless truths being told every second. Everyone has free will and is predisposed to act accordingly. Sometimes there are no reason, there's only chaos. You stay, fate stays, you act, fate changes. Different acts, different results. It seems logic, yet it appears unprovable. The idea is old, the idea of dimensions. A seer, or an oracle if you will, has the ability to see strings through time. They're intertwined and together construct a grand design of infinite possibilities, as one string splits into several new strings every day, dictated by your choice of actions, and thus effecting other strings which again split based on new actions and other individuals' actions. The complexity of the ability should drive a man mad, as he would be able to foretell any eventuality possible for any and every being, yet find himself somewhat helpless in arranging or influencing said eventualities. The trick I reckon, would be to focus on a few given individuals, and grasp the general outlines of their path, as well as the major conjunctions. I believe we're all able to foretell certain outcomes based on actual history or imagined history. Our imagination might be the key to said power, and I like to believe that we're all but ready to enable it.

The competitive side of me likes the idea of free will and alternate dimensions. I'd thus be able to influence my own perceived reality, as I'd be able to control my own actions and life-string in this dimension; making it as I see fit, and hopefully better than the alternate paths. I would beat my other selves and beat life as if it was a game, mastering the eventualities. My goal is keeping an ace up my sleeve at all times, to be one step ahead of current events, foretelling resulting possibilities of given actions and choosing the most favored path towards my desired outcome.

The way I see it, it matters little if it's the one way or the other. I'll probably never know. All I can do is play Life as I see it, with the cards I'm dealt, and hope to be as good at it as the fates will allow me. Whether the decisions I make are mine because of my free will or because of a predetermination of the culminations of my experiences, I will be best served hoping for free will, and warily searching for signs of lack thereof.

I am back out in The Beyonds, and I will bring balance to The Force by creating a new Core Center.

How I fare you'll know next time I zone in.

Or maybe not, who knows?