There is always something stirring beneath the surface.
Regardless of judgement.
Monday, February 25, 2013
Tuesday, January 1, 2013
Video Games (LOA)
The last few weeks have, by common standards, been uneventful.
I've been playing more video games (specifically, Pokemon) in the last few weeks than I have probably in the last year combined (although my play time isn't quite at pre-college levels). That's not necessarily a negative thing though. It's rejuvenating in many ways, but also (maybe surprisingly to most) empowering.
I've come to realize that, growing up, video games were my moral education of sorts. For reasons related to both my history (which I will not go into here) and my "biology", I've always been a quiet person, even in my very early years. I have spent a lot (if not most) of my in life time by myself, either physically or mentally.
A lot of that time was spent playing video games.
The kinds of games I was and am drawn to, I've found upon closer inspection, are a very interesting category. I loved (and still love) to play games driven by either grand adventures, engaging stories, or both (typically role-playing games, though I am also an avid Mario and Nintendo fan in general). These stories were filled with heroism and themes of kindness and compassion , though there were also giant challenges to overcome.
The characters in the games are almost always extremely eager to help each other. Imagine living in a world where everyone you approached talked openly with you, giving you tips, advice, and even cool things from time to time. It was also not that difficult to encounter someone who was so inspired by your journey that they agreed to drop everything and join you, even if it meant consuming all their time and possibly meaning death. That's commitment.
The journeys also always required an immense amount of growth (leveling up, getting better equipment, surrounding yourself with more powerful allies) and learning (new moves, spells, information that will help you reach your goals), often beginning very modestly with young people leaving home for the first time and with no special expertise or strength going on to do amazing and usually legendary things.
I started thinking about this idea of games as my moral education for a few reasons. First is the sharp contrast between my preferred genre and today's most popular gaming culture of Call of Duty style shooters involving sport-like deathmatches and super cinematic violence using powerful graphics engines. This isn't an argument about which is superior per say, but if I were to choose a genre of game for some of my younger family members to play, it's clear in my mind which one might be more constructive. Exploring some of the reason's why I would choose that gave me some of the insights I've been talking about.
Second is the fact that, when I think about what was missing this last year and a half or so, video games is definitely on that list. I didn't think of that much at all; I paid more attention to things like lack of resolve, motivation, energy, and ability to live happily in the present as bigger issues to tackle on that list of things that were missing. It also seemed to make sense that the busier I get in life the less time I'd have to dedicate to games (interestingly, during my freshmen year of college, by far my favorite year so far all around, I did take the time to turn on my DS from time to time, not only during breaks but during the regular school year). And it's no mystery that "outgrowing" video games is a perfectly socially acceptable transition.
But those few times that I allowed myself to power on my DS again recently and take a trip back to the days when I could play games all day with no guilt, I realized that what I was really doing was going home. I went back to what was really a huge source of my idealism, my optimism, my relentless effort to be better. I was transported to a world where I could face a huge challenge not with hopelessness but with an eager, though nerve-racking, anticipation. I could have my hindquarters handed to me and still go back and take on the challenge over and over, using new tools and strategies and finding new ways to prepare until I ultimately succeeded. But most of all I found myself completely engaged in an activity and actually enjoying it again.
I have decided to allow myself into that part of me again. These past few weeks I went back to the latest Pokemon game I had and actually "finished" it, setting out to meet the toughest challenges of the game. I failed over and over again in the process, but I love playing, and eventually succeeded after hours upon hours of continued effort.
This may not mean much to most people, but it brought up the question of where video games fall into my time away from school. I have my incomplete courses to complete, as well as medical issues to attend to. On top of that I have a list of books I want to read, people I want to talk to/ shadow, places I want to volunteer at, and even jobs want to pursue. I haven't gone into detail in this blog about some of the concrete things I will be pursuing; that's coming soon. All I know right now is that I'm not abandoning my favorite hobby.
Yesterday I invested in a Nintendo 3DS (for a few different reasons), but clearly I would not have made such a purchase if I didn't plan to make good use of it. Obviously, like most things in life, a balance needs to be kept. My schedule for the past few weeks can't go on forever. But a good life is an enjoyable life, and I know now that I have to rethink what's important in my life, give myself permission to live it, and, in true Pokemon fashion, keep it lighthearted when I can.
Happy new year. :)
I've been playing more video games (specifically, Pokemon) in the last few weeks than I have probably in the last year combined (although my play time isn't quite at pre-college levels). That's not necessarily a negative thing though. It's rejuvenating in many ways, but also (maybe surprisingly to most) empowering.
I've come to realize that, growing up, video games were my moral education of sorts. For reasons related to both my history (which I will not go into here) and my "biology", I've always been a quiet person, even in my very early years. I have spent a lot (if not most) of my in life time by myself, either physically or mentally.
A lot of that time was spent playing video games.
The kinds of games I was and am drawn to, I've found upon closer inspection, are a very interesting category. I loved (and still love) to play games driven by either grand adventures, engaging stories, or both (typically role-playing games, though I am also an avid Mario and Nintendo fan in general). These stories were filled with heroism and themes of kindness and compassion , though there were also giant challenges to overcome.
The characters in the games are almost always extremely eager to help each other. Imagine living in a world where everyone you approached talked openly with you, giving you tips, advice, and even cool things from time to time. It was also not that difficult to encounter someone who was so inspired by your journey that they agreed to drop everything and join you, even if it meant consuming all their time and possibly meaning death. That's commitment.
The journeys also always required an immense amount of growth (leveling up, getting better equipment, surrounding yourself with more powerful allies) and learning (new moves, spells, information that will help you reach your goals), often beginning very modestly with young people leaving home for the first time and with no special expertise or strength going on to do amazing and usually legendary things.
I started thinking about this idea of games as my moral education for a few reasons. First is the sharp contrast between my preferred genre and today's most popular gaming culture of Call of Duty style shooters involving sport-like deathmatches and super cinematic violence using powerful graphics engines. This isn't an argument about which is superior per say, but if I were to choose a genre of game for some of my younger family members to play, it's clear in my mind which one might be more constructive. Exploring some of the reason's why I would choose that gave me some of the insights I've been talking about.
Second is the fact that, when I think about what was missing this last year and a half or so, video games is definitely on that list. I didn't think of that much at all; I paid more attention to things like lack of resolve, motivation, energy, and ability to live happily in the present as bigger issues to tackle on that list of things that were missing. It also seemed to make sense that the busier I get in life the less time I'd have to dedicate to games (interestingly, during my freshmen year of college, by far my favorite year so far all around, I did take the time to turn on my DS from time to time, not only during breaks but during the regular school year). And it's no mystery that "outgrowing" video games is a perfectly socially acceptable transition.
But those few times that I allowed myself to power on my DS again recently and take a trip back to the days when I could play games all day with no guilt, I realized that what I was really doing was going home. I went back to what was really a huge source of my idealism, my optimism, my relentless effort to be better. I was transported to a world where I could face a huge challenge not with hopelessness but with an eager, though nerve-racking, anticipation. I could have my hindquarters handed to me and still go back and take on the challenge over and over, using new tools and strategies and finding new ways to prepare until I ultimately succeeded. But most of all I found myself completely engaged in an activity and actually enjoying it again.
I have decided to allow myself into that part of me again. These past few weeks I went back to the latest Pokemon game I had and actually "finished" it, setting out to meet the toughest challenges of the game. I failed over and over again in the process, but I love playing, and eventually succeeded after hours upon hours of continued effort.
This may not mean much to most people, but it brought up the question of where video games fall into my time away from school. I have my incomplete courses to complete, as well as medical issues to attend to. On top of that I have a list of books I want to read, people I want to talk to/ shadow, places I want to volunteer at, and even jobs want to pursue. I haven't gone into detail in this blog about some of the concrete things I will be pursuing; that's coming soon. All I know right now is that I'm not abandoning my favorite hobby.
Yesterday I invested in a Nintendo 3DS (for a few different reasons), but clearly I would not have made such a purchase if I didn't plan to make good use of it. Obviously, like most things in life, a balance needs to be kept. My schedule for the past few weeks can't go on forever. But a good life is an enjoyable life, and I know now that I have to rethink what's important in my life, give myself permission to live it, and, in true Pokemon fashion, keep it lighthearted when I can.
Happy new year. :)
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
Taking a Break (LOA)
I am officially back home and unpacked.
I spent the last few days in NYC with my cousins, aunt, and grandmother who I hadn't seen in way too long. It was a good start to winter break not only because I got to spend time with people I love, but because it was actually a break.
My days were largely spent watching movies and TV shows on the couch and eating delicious food (both home-cooked and otherwise). It's been a very long time since I actually sat on a couch all day. It's not something I could do for an extended period of time anymore, or something I would choose to do if given the chance, but I think it definitely did me some good.
Part of what I aim to do in centering myself again is take care of myself better than I have been. So much has been going on that I've largely neglected healthy eating, exercise, proper sleep, etc. So isn't that what I should be focusing on?
Interestingly, allowing myself to give in completely to laziness was actually beneficial because it took me out of the hellish in-between of knowing that I should be making "healthier" choices but not having the emotional/mental resources to follow through. It gave me room to just recharge the self-control batteries away from self-imposed guilt. I even became incapable of obsessing over things like classes, self study topics, grad school, careers, or other future plans. As anybody who has spent a decent amount of time around me in the last year and a half or so knows, that's not a small thing.
Doing "nothing" for that time did give me some insight into just how easily the day to day comforts could potentially overshadow any aspirations for growth. I don't mean that life should be an endless race to aspire to and achieve more like many cultural archetypes of "success" would have us believe. When I say day to day comforts, I mean those things (like too much potentially mindless, sedentary entertainment) that can give one the illusion that things are fine all the while slowly sapping energy and vitality from the person. Like many things in life, it seems that some sort of balance is key to making sure that rest and growth (in any domain, whether physical, mental, emotional, etc.) benefit rather than hinder each other.
Now that I'm home and settled in, some of the thoughts about how I will be directing my energy in the coming months have resurfaced, but I need to remind myself to take it easy and to keep it one step at a time. As I'll very likely talk about in a future post, I have a tendency to over commit myself to very lofty and sometimes unrealistic expectations while overlooking some of my limits.
Though I won't neglect lining up some of the pieces for the rest of my time off beyond the winter break, I need to remind myself that my main objective for now is to rest, relax, and enjoy the holidays.
I spent the last few days in NYC with my cousins, aunt, and grandmother who I hadn't seen in way too long. It was a good start to winter break not only because I got to spend time with people I love, but because it was actually a break.
My days were largely spent watching movies and TV shows on the couch and eating delicious food (both home-cooked and otherwise). It's been a very long time since I actually sat on a couch all day. It's not something I could do for an extended period of time anymore, or something I would choose to do if given the chance, but I think it definitely did me some good.
Part of what I aim to do in centering myself again is take care of myself better than I have been. So much has been going on that I've largely neglected healthy eating, exercise, proper sleep, etc. So isn't that what I should be focusing on?
Interestingly, allowing myself to give in completely to laziness was actually beneficial because it took me out of the hellish in-between of knowing that I should be making "healthier" choices but not having the emotional/mental resources to follow through. It gave me room to just recharge the self-control batteries away from self-imposed guilt. I even became incapable of obsessing over things like classes, self study topics, grad school, careers, or other future plans. As anybody who has spent a decent amount of time around me in the last year and a half or so knows, that's not a small thing.
Doing "nothing" for that time did give me some insight into just how easily the day to day comforts could potentially overshadow any aspirations for growth. I don't mean that life should be an endless race to aspire to and achieve more like many cultural archetypes of "success" would have us believe. When I say day to day comforts, I mean those things (like too much potentially mindless, sedentary entertainment) that can give one the illusion that things are fine all the while slowly sapping energy and vitality from the person. Like many things in life, it seems that some sort of balance is key to making sure that rest and growth (in any domain, whether physical, mental, emotional, etc.) benefit rather than hinder each other.
Now that I'm home and settled in, some of the thoughts about how I will be directing my energy in the coming months have resurfaced, but I need to remind myself to take it easy and to keep it one step at a time. As I'll very likely talk about in a future post, I have a tendency to over commit myself to very lofty and sometimes unrealistic expectations while overlooking some of my limits.
Though I won't neglect lining up some of the pieces for the rest of my time off beyond the winter break, I need to remind myself that my main objective for now is to rest, relax, and enjoy the holidays.
Wednesday, December 12, 2012
The Why (LOA)
Well, here it is: my new personal blog.
If you haven't read my latest post on xanga and are wondering what the purpose of this blog is, here's a link to the entry that should serve as a sort of introduction.
My reasons for taking time off of school, like I mention in the xanga post, are varied and complex, but also very heavily dependent on the context. Before I go into more specifics, I think it would be valuable to look into that context a bit more.
The "context" refers to the reasons for my reasons. They're my motivations for doing what I do and what I've done, and they're the decisions I've made and the things I've learned both about the external world and myself. Without defining some of these things, it's very likely that my reasons would either not be understood or be misunderstood.
So then, what is it that I'm looking for?
In essence, I want to live well. I like to think that this isn't unique to just myself, but it's attainment or ideal often takes very different forms for different people. Here's what it means to me.
I want to be healthy; I want to have the energy and strength to engage fully with life. I want to pursue my passions. I want to be comfortable with myself. I want to be my own person, and live without the mental and emotional chains so many of us become entangled in as we grow older. I want to appreciate life in the present and in all its forms. I want to stop looking to the future for better times or looking to the past for the good old days. I want to contribute. I want to create and sustain strong connections with others. I want to pursue my endless curiosities. I want to be a positive force in the world.
Ultimately I want to find inner peace within myself. I want to find that space where, no matter how chaotic things may be, or how painful life becomes, I know who I am and I know that I am fundamentally happy. That's it. Simple.
But what if the inner voice, the one that simply wants to live, comes into conflict with the external voices claiming to know what's best? What happens when one is told exactly how to act, think, and feel in order to reach some sort of standard set by traditional or societal values without the input of the individual?
I have found that, once I lost confidence in the voice inside me and started putting the opinions of others first, I began to lose myself. The Solomon Asch experiments come to mind. In these experiments, participants were asked to match one line with another line of the same size. This is an extremely easy and trivial task, but when others (a group of "confederates", fake participants) chose the wrong answer on purpose, the real participants also chose the wrong answer over 70% of the time. These and subsequent experiments demonstrate just how powerful the pressure can be to doubt oneself if everyone else seems to be doing something a certain way. It's easier for us to lie ourselves about our discontent than to risk being too different.
The good news is that there is hope. I can't speak for everyone else, but I know that for me these pressures are largely self-inflicted. There's no one out there eager to make me fail to reach my potential and live an unfulfilled life, or telling me that I'm not good enough. I chose to believe that certain things in me were deficient and that I had to search outside myself for the answers. I also held myself to standards that were not only unrealistic, but not my own.
Again not a lot of detail here yet, but in summary this is about taking my life back. This is about moving away from those unconscious choices I made that took me away from where I want to be. It's about breaking the "chains" and overcoming the demons I've set up in my mind.
I'm glad I finally decided to do this, and excited to actually start this blog. Both the leave of absence from Cornell and the blog are ideas I'd been throwing around in my head for a long time, and now it's time to launch.
Thoughts?
If you haven't read my latest post on xanga and are wondering what the purpose of this blog is, here's a link to the entry that should serve as a sort of introduction.
My reasons for taking time off of school, like I mention in the xanga post, are varied and complex, but also very heavily dependent on the context. Before I go into more specifics, I think it would be valuable to look into that context a bit more.
The "context" refers to the reasons for my reasons. They're my motivations for doing what I do and what I've done, and they're the decisions I've made and the things I've learned both about the external world and myself. Without defining some of these things, it's very likely that my reasons would either not be understood or be misunderstood.
So then, what is it that I'm looking for?
In essence, I want to live well. I like to think that this isn't unique to just myself, but it's attainment or ideal often takes very different forms for different people. Here's what it means to me.
I want to be healthy; I want to have the energy and strength to engage fully with life. I want to pursue my passions. I want to be comfortable with myself. I want to be my own person, and live without the mental and emotional chains so many of us become entangled in as we grow older. I want to appreciate life in the present and in all its forms. I want to stop looking to the future for better times or looking to the past for the good old days. I want to contribute. I want to create and sustain strong connections with others. I want to pursue my endless curiosities. I want to be a positive force in the world.
Ultimately I want to find inner peace within myself. I want to find that space where, no matter how chaotic things may be, or how painful life becomes, I know who I am and I know that I am fundamentally happy. That's it. Simple.
But what if the inner voice, the one that simply wants to live, comes into conflict with the external voices claiming to know what's best? What happens when one is told exactly how to act, think, and feel in order to reach some sort of standard set by traditional or societal values without the input of the individual?
I have found that, once I lost confidence in the voice inside me and started putting the opinions of others first, I began to lose myself. The Solomon Asch experiments come to mind. In these experiments, participants were asked to match one line with another line of the same size. This is an extremely easy and trivial task, but when others (a group of "confederates", fake participants) chose the wrong answer on purpose, the real participants also chose the wrong answer over 70% of the time. These and subsequent experiments demonstrate just how powerful the pressure can be to doubt oneself if everyone else seems to be doing something a certain way. It's easier for us to lie ourselves about our discontent than to risk being too different.
The good news is that there is hope. I can't speak for everyone else, but I know that for me these pressures are largely self-inflicted. There's no one out there eager to make me fail to reach my potential and live an unfulfilled life, or telling me that I'm not good enough. I chose to believe that certain things in me were deficient and that I had to search outside myself for the answers. I also held myself to standards that were not only unrealistic, but not my own.
Again not a lot of detail here yet, but in summary this is about taking my life back. This is about moving away from those unconscious choices I made that took me away from where I want to be. It's about breaking the "chains" and overcoming the demons I've set up in my mind.
I'm glad I finally decided to do this, and excited to actually start this blog. Both the leave of absence from Cornell and the blog are ideas I'd been throwing around in my head for a long time, and now it's time to launch.
Thoughts?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)