Table of contents
- Why 'Otaking?'
- Politics doesn't age well.
- Me, Myself And Die
- Is this Gonzo Journalism?
- Arguably:
- God From The Machine
- British Stationary Sucks
- Re-reading Kokoro by Natsume Soseki
- George Orwell and Honda Toru were normal guys
- No Sympathy for "the Working Class Man"
- No Longer Seeking Understanding.
18/04/2022
Why 'Otaking?' [toc]
I have been asked on several occasions what the meaning of
"Otaking" is, and why I have chosen it as the name of this site
and as my username. The latest to ask me was Purinsu.
By the content
of his channel I can guess from the "otaku self-improvement"
slant of his channel. We are both doing Otaku lifestyle blogging
but his idea of self-development may not be the same as mine.
I am not saying his way of thinking is wrong, he basically
wants to be a /fit/ mangaka and cosplayer.
In fact I don't even think I have any alternative but I am
trying to be satisfied the way I am right now rather than change
out of self-loathing. It is not that I am against change, but
change in what direction?
Those who accuse you of staying still in life often mean that
you haven't changed in the direction they they want you to, so
even their love shows that they don't have any respect for you
or your ways. They see you as a repository for their overbearing
pity and failed ambitions which weakens you. Once someone is
weak enough they'll perform the task of disparaging themselves
without the need for anyone to do it to them.
Of course I am aware that I am not the only one calling
himself Otaking. We are all copying Toshio Okada.
I tried to explain the significance of this to some people but
no matter how the nose I got they could not get it. I wondered
whether it was their unwillingness to understand it. Let me try
again here anyway.
Toshio Okada despite having not much talent (allegedly) as an
artist was able to get involved with the formation of Studio
Gainax up until the early 90s. He was involved as a writer
in the making of the influential Otaku no Video but then left
the company before Evangelion was released.
Subsequently he was able to use his involvement with Gainax as
a springboard for his career as an essayist but he was never
again able to get involved in the anime industry as a creator.
Nowadays he has a youtube
channel where he does anime analysis. I have heard that
Okada even cried on a livestream about not being relevant
anymore because he cannot create anime.
I hate to be so on the nose but people don't get subtlety or
understatements anymore so on this occasion I will sink down to
their level to get my point across.
Okada lived the dream of getting involved in the anime industry
but then fell back to the plane of us mere mortals who are only
analysing other people's creations rather than making our own.
Many film critics end up as critics because they can't create
the films they love. Okada and I are no exceptions.
To be honest these similarities occurred to me only after choosing
Otaking. My initial choice was probably just due to Otaking
sounding cool and affirmative which still is but Okada's story
adds a welcome tragic tinge without detracting from its
affirmative aspect.
Re-subscribing to Digibro
Digi's video on
Mushoko Tensei was actually alright. He might be regaining
his footing or maybe I am imagining it. His videos stopped being
popular because he stopped giving his opinion on shows but
rather turned his videos into wikis where he would go over the
factoids that he had gathered through his research. He
even did the mistake of retelling the whole plot in his videos
(which is a give-away that one doesn't care enough to actually
have an opinion on any of it).
I think by just providing the facts he was trying to avoid
people contradicting him. I think he walked back too much from
his disagreeable persona to the point that some
of the content was too bland, conciliatory, and lukewarm
to actually be considered analysis. It felt too much like
archiving, like listing facts in a database. It's not exciting
to read someone's anime list.
Kanojo, Okarishimasu Chapter 231
I caught up with the Rent a Girlfriend manga and I suddenly
don't hate the main characters that much. I still skill most of
the text because there is too much of it for the amount of story
being told. Well, you could also say that about my posts.
Anyhow it was the "confession," when Chizuru said she saw
Kazuya's kindness I felt like we were back firmly in the realm
of fantasy. There was something too real about money being
exchanged for a simulacra of love that felt like reality
infringing on fantasy. It left a bitter taste in my mouth, as
did the fact that the heroine went on dates with other men off
screen. In fact that hasn't changed.
15/04/2022
Politics doesn't age well.
I have signed out of politics because it is a fool's game. It
is also very trend based so most political commentary loses its
value over time, people change their minds all the time,
yesterday's orthodoxy becomes today's heresy and so on.
Whereas I can read an anime review from ten or twenty years ago
and it will not be out of date, art is evergreen content and
politics ages like milk. Even as I say this, I do enjoy reading
writers like George Orwell and Christopher
Hitchens, writers who are both out of date of today's political
meta both on the right and the left.
Anyhow it's not for their politics that I read them but because
I like their style of writing, but would I still read them if
they were diametrically opposed to my views? Probably not. At
some level, maybe not superficially, I must agree with their
sense of life.
It also helps that they're both dead since I end up being
disappointed by people if I speak to them. Their writing speaks
better than they could for themselves. Or maybe that's just what
I wish for myself.
To care about politics is to put your mood in the hands of
others, outside of your own hands, or maybe that's just what it
was to me.
Gundam X Review
I wrote a review
of Gundam X today. It's the only writing that I had time and
energy to do today. I really need to get rid of this habit of
sleeping in the afternoon even if I am tired. As for the review
I had to force it out of myself but I am glad I did since it
came out well.
One thing I paid particular attention to was to connect every
sentence to the next, and every paragraph to the previous one.
It is tempting to break up a review into sections: Music, Plot,
Characters, Themes, and so on but a review is not just a list,
there needs to be some idea flowing throughout it. You can pass
around this idea through the elements of music, plot, characters
etc... but I think it should come back to that point you are
trying to make, otherwise it'll get very fragmented.
I have gotten into the bad habit of not connecting every
paragraph to the previous one. I think that's fine for a very
short review. I still do like those GR
Arkada reviews, and in a way I feel like they have aged
better because they serve a kind of "anime archiving" purpose.
Poltical Infighting on the Left
So Zarathustra's Serpent released a video predicting or rather
declaring The
Disintegration of the Woke, I tried listening to the video
a couple of times but I don't think I followed his argument. Now
as he says at the start of the video he is no longer making
"anti-sjw" content but is mostly a philosophical channel which
is why I watch him.
He argues that the "woke" crowd is filled with factions and
infighting which will eat each other. He also believes that the
British and Israeli left have collapsed. Maybe he is right about
the Isreali left but I wouldn't declare the British left dead
yet. They'll probably "officially" get back into power once the
British conservative party has messed up enough. It doesn't
really matter.
Honestly as I have said I fail to see the point in keeping up
with these trends so I can neither confirm nor deny whether
anything he says is true. It's probably a generational thing
too. What I can say however is that the "dissident right" or
whatever you want to call it is as divided into small factions
and gets even less new blood, and really just spends its time
spinning its wheels in one place, in the name of "intellectual
discussion" or something.
Zarathustra argues that the New Atheist movement has made a
comeback and become less juveline. The only Atheist youtuber
from the "skeptic" days who is still active that I know of is Logicked, he
still makes those reaction videos against low hanging fruit
religious channels. It is obvious that he chooses his targets
based more on comedic value than intellectual value, which is
fine honestly, in fact in some ways because he is more of a
stand-up comedian than a scholar that means he has a better
intuitive understanding honed by public speaking and personal
experience. This down-to-earth gut-instinct-understanding of
issues cannot be replaced by the stuff in books, in fact reading
books might hinder it.
In particular Zarathustra points to an atheist channel which I
had never heard of called Genetically
Modified Skeptic. To be fair he has more than 400k
subscribers, only about half of those subs watch his videos but
that's still impressive. Genetically Modified Skeptic is a
mouthful of a name, Logicked is a better name, people had a
better sense of internet handles/names back then - I know that
The Good Student is too long too but now it's much too late (Or
is it?). Anyhow GMS seems to bring professors and other learned
people to talk about topics and to "debate," but more like to
exchange ideas with.
It may be more thoughtful but honestly it is also more boring
and self-important. Its tone is so deliberate and non-combative
that it seems to convey a sense of uncertainty, a lack of belief
in their lack of belief. I suppose this is the fate of all
political movements which have become irrelevant.
The bullish, often mocked attitude of the "debate me - I am an
atheist" crowd showed more confidence in their own position, it
was more aggresive than passive aggresive because it had
momentum.
Zarathustra also points to a bunch of painfully unfunny
ex-muslim atheists/Christian-converts making fun of Islam with
3rd grade toilet humour like "piss be upon him." The Spagetti
monster fedora-tipping nonsense was funnier but maybe I have
gotten older - then again ZS is older than I am. I don't care
about Islam but it is true that there hasn't been a terrorist
attack in a while, it feels like the western muslims, at least,
have cooled down and become more secular, maybe even leftwing.
Anyhow the central thesis of the video that the left is on a
path of self-destruction due to infighting seems suspect to me
because the left has always been divided into factions but those
divisions only really mattered to those in those factions. They
will all vote for the same people and support the same
politicies in the end. The right is also the same as the left.
12/04/2022
Me, Myself And Die
I finally caught up to the latest episode of Trevor Dewall's Solo
TTRPG show. Looking back on it now Season 1 was the best.
He should have sticked with that story but now by Season 3 I
feel the story is back on track but still not as good as Season
1. Season 2 was the worst and it put me off getting the
Ironsworn Solo RPG game system. Nevertheless what he has
achieved is quite impressive
I re-watched the anime adaptation of Kokoro from the Aoi
Bungaku series. It was awful and it removed any subtelty from
Soseki's novel and turned into a tawdry tale, just a love
triangle. Also K looked like a thirty year old rather than the
skinny kid I imagined him as.
I began making notes on my own Maid Solo RPG with pen and paper.
I am worried that I'll end up with a bunch of notes on
characters and setting without much story to show for it. I have
too many supplements. I should just focus on using Maid RPG and
the Mythic GM Emulator for now.
A shared grievance will not lead to understanding. If anything
it will lead to disagreement about which is the right answer.
Gundam X and some comments by my co-host
Heraclius
made me realise that "Newtypes" in Gundam are just a
stand-in for extreme ideologues/beliefs, often of a universal
nature and elitist kind, small groups of people who think
they'll lead humanity to the next stage of history by themselves
rather than with everyone.
I can't help but feel that newtypes is also a parallel for
otaku themselves. Because it is not only a negative thing.
I wonder what Nietzche felt like when he worked on his projects
which no one else thought would amount to anything. He was a
strong man, he could have faith in himself when no one had any.
Then again he did have "social proof" of his ability by being
able to become a university professor at such a young age.
I watched a fifteen
minute video about fifteen minute youtube videos by Parz.
He is right that YouTube videos are getting too long and
unfocused, and that frankly it is harder to watch them. Many
essay-type youtube videos are longer than the average anime
episode, that can't be right because the average anime episode
has so much more stuff going on in it. I am guilty of this too
with my multi-hour streams but almost nobody watches them so
it's okay.
I am sorry for Lu who watches
some of them but yeah I need to make them shorter. I also want
to try making 15-20 minute long videos but I don't know how to
do any editing. Come to think of it many of the best youtube
videos I have watched were in the 15-20 minute long. I think
Parz called them the lunchtime videos, or something, which is
right, I would sometimes watch them while eating but now they
are too long to do that. There's a 2 hours and 36 minutes stream
on Edward
Said that I want to watch but I feel like the points made
could be made more shortly in an edited video.
A short video about a specific topic, right, but ThatAnimeSnob's
videos are too short and too numerous to be memorable. Some of
his older stuff is good, I always say. I mean if your video is
just 3 minutes long then maybe you should have just made a short
blog post about it rather than a video or wait until you have
accumulated enough content for a video.
But if I were to make a video what should it be about? I don't
want to make anime reviews because nobody cares. For a while now
I have been tempted to stop writing reviews because there's
already so many reviews out there, even for very obscure anime
on sites like anidb, or maybe the stuff I review and watch just
isn't obscure enough. It doesn't feel like I am bringing
attention to something new, or to something that there wasn't
much attention on before. I guess that leaves the Solo RPG
stuff.
10/04/2022
Is this Gonzo Journalism? [toc]
Digibro used to call himself or rather to call what he did "Otaku Gonzo Journalism," though he clarified that really he was just an Otaku Lifestyle Blogger. This online diary of mine is also basically an otaku lifestyle blog. Am I a Gonzo Journalist?
I tried listening to some Hunter S. Thompson interview
(since he is the guy who came up with "Gonzo" journalism) but it
was incredibly boring so instead I watched a video which
basically read his wikipedia, frankly none of it seemed
particularly interesting. Hunter lived with the Hells Angels
biker gang, got beat up, and published his diary about it. He
also wrote something about his time with drugs and alcohol in
Las Vegas in the 60s or 70s or something.
Anyhow it seemed to me that the difference between Hunter S
Thomspon and me is that he lived an outdoors lifestyle
surrounded by people whereas I live an indoor lifestyle.
I would guess that his lifestyle lends better to gonzo
writing because since he met other people he could write about
them whereas my "lifestyle" consists mostly of media "analysis,"
and media by its nature (unless you create it) is a second hand
experience whereas Gonzo is all about relating your first hand
experience. Then again you could argue that when I tell my
experience of watching an anime, I am telling my first
experience of it...
So maybe the difference is not in whether it is a first hand or
second hand experience as much as whether it was a unique or
novel experience.. True my take on an anime won't be exactly as
yours... but I do sometimes wonder what's the point of writing
yet another review of an anime of an anime which has already
been reviewed. It's not like I am bringing attention to
something new, or more exactly it's not like I am experiencing
something new. Then again maybe Hunter S. Thompson's experiences
were not unique to that era, he just got them on paper first.
But even if they were not unique experiences, at least they were
his own experiences. Maybe that's the difference, so we
go back to the "is it a first hand or a second hand experience"
point.
Maybe it's not about "first hand" or "second hand" but about
participation. Hunter S. Thompson said he was not a reporter, by
which I believe he meant that he was a participant in the
stories he wrote.
I may try to make it sound like I am a "participant" by
interjecting details about what I was doing when consuming media
but really you could separate my personal details from my media
analysis. After all that was my dissatisfaction with my ordinary
articles and why I started this diary, even if it wasn't a good
idea in terms of search engine optimisation - I wanted to bridge
the gap between my media consumption and my life through
analysis of both in one place. I could never say this or
many other things with a straight face on a livestream with
multiple people on, in fact I end up sounding more snarky and
contrarian than I am and regret it afterwards. For example on my
stream
with Parz
I criticised the Tokimeki
Memorial video for doing very much what I am trying to do
here.
I suppose it is possible to use the media reviewing to get an
audience, and then put an emphasis on yourself, the is latter is
what Digibro did through his now deleted Digibro After Dark
vlogs, in particular his insomnia
analysis videos.
What this all means in plain language, is that my lifestyle is
a bit too boring to be the subject of writing in it self. I feel
like Digibro felt that too because once you have already seen an
otaku and his room, what else is there to see? And yet I find
this much more interesting than the travelling "lifestyle"
blogger who looks more like a travelling peddler in a daze going
on railroaded "adventures" from one tourist location to another,
from one empty novelty to another. It doesn't feel like their
content builds on itself.
Then why don't I just write about other people? Of course I
already do write about other people but what I mean by that
question is why don't I write about other people that I meet
around in me in real life rather Hunter S. Thomson or Digibro or
other people who I haven't actually met. The first reason of
course is that it will lead to drama but even so I think the
bigger problem is that I don't find them particularly
interesting enough to write about them.
Kokoro - A desire for others to confide in me
I am slowly going through the Kokoro by Natsume Soseki
audiobook and there is one section where the protagonist
complains that once a friendship has been estabilished on an
intellectual footing then it becomes very hard to talk about
personal matters with them. This bothered me very much when I
was younger and first read this book but now that I have no
desire to awkwardly get personal with my friends, I find that it
doesn't really bother me.
I remember when I was younger I very much desired that at least
one friend of mine would "let me in" on their deepest desires
and self, because I believed that true friendship meant showing
that level of trust. I was dissapointed when revealing part of
my desires led to teasing, it felt like I was not taken
seriously. No doubt I was affected by the portrayal of
friendship in anime, manga and novels and fooled into thinking
that people were a lot more interesting than they actually are.
I suppose I have become more self-centred since then, since now
I have no desire of hearing the deepest held secrets of my
friends, in fact now I struggle to feign interest when people
try to tell me about their lives.
I also don't talk about my life to others except on this site
where I don't have to worry about whether the other person is
interested or not. I still find that most talk is banal but it
doesn't really bother me since my interest has shifted from
people to things and from things to myself. So when I speak to
others, it is usally about things rather than about them.
Speaking is more a means to stimulate my thinking than to "get
to know them."
I used to think that media such as novels and anime were a
means to get a glimpse into other people, but now I realise they
are an end in themselves.
It turns out I wasn't interested in these things because I was
interested in people. I was interested in these things because I
was interested in these things.
Or if they are a glimpse into anyone then it is just a glimpse
into the author and the subculture which produced him. My
expectations for people are very low and yet people still
dissapoint me, and so I don't really want to meet any of these
authors and creators because I think I would dislike them and
they would dislike me. Or even worse, I might feel bored by
them. Their works are plenty of communication enough.
In a sense I believe that the self which they present through
their works is the truer one whereas the way they actually act
in person is almost a misunderstanding because it is out of
their control. They can't go back and edit what they have done,
it is an in the moment thing, not deliberate. Some might see the
deliberate as fake but then I would say that in its deliberate
effort to be real, it is more genuine than the real thing.
I suppose I could never be a gonzo journalist or any kind of
reporter, since that would require being interested in other
people's dealings. I imagine Hunter S. Thompson must have found
Hell's Angel biker gang people interesting. It has occured to me
that maybe it's the people around me that are not interesting
but there's little I can do about that. It is impossible to
change people and I have moved around a lot and met a lot of
people to no avail.
Dream Diary
I slept for a couple of hours hoping that it would reduce my tiredness but it only gave a headache. In my dreams I mostly see the people around me rather than fictional characters or unknown people. I won't talk about my dreams. There are people on neocities who do have dream diaries and honestly I find them extremely boring. I will only say that my dreams have a certain movie-like quality.
Okay back to reading Kokoro by Natsume Soseki.
Kokoro: Final Impressions
Okay I just finished re-reading Kokoro but it is too early for
me to have an opinion of it. In some ways I must admit I am less
impressed by it than I first read it. I had misremembered the
phrase "Buried alive among books," as "buried alive under books"
which sounds better. Soseki sounds like a very modern writer, I
don't know why I can relate so much more to these mid-twentieth
century Japanese writers, more than writers these days.
It is not that Sensei's conclusions are wrong in the book but
since they are nothing new to me now because I have experienced
them first hand, they do not seem as revelatory to me now. I can
sort of understand Sensei's comments about being a man from
another era, as I reach thirty, I too feel like I can't relate
as much to the new trends. Then again I do not get along much
better with people from my own era either. "Like a sick man who
thinks, "I alone am staying still."" I probably relate to those
words more than I did the first time I read this book.
What more did I watch? Well a video by Zarathustra's Serpent
about Nietzche on marriage
and children. Maybe because Nietzche was a lonely man, he
didn't seem particularly about either of those things, or in
other words it seemed a bit abtract. More insightful perhaps
were The Amazing
Atheist's comments about how relationships are
transactional and conditional and so why we must kick out of our
lives the little demagogues who leech off of us.
I guess it made me ask what it is I do for others. Yes, The
Amazing Atheist, is probably a man of my era as well.
I get that Zarathustra's Serpent is saying that we should
always transform to keep up with the times ourselves but isn't
he also looking back at the past? Maybe we should remain in our
era, not kill ourselves, like Sensei, but not fool ourselves
that we can totally remake ourselves and abandon our influences.
This is also a warning to reactionaries who think they can shed
the influences of their real upbringing in modernity and
absorb the influences of the distant past which did not make
them who they are. Not that they would listen to me of course.
In a few years when trends change they are going to look at
themselves in embarassment or forget the whole thing ever
happened.
Did Sensei have anything to say about marriage? Well, nothing
that I didn't already know. His wife was innocent and unwordly
but a bit callous especially as a young girl. I wonder if such
women still exist. They might do.
I feel like comparing Yozo from No Longer Human and Sensei.
Yozo feared human beings and Sensei hated them. Yozo hated
himself for not being properly human. Sensei hated himself for
being human. Did K also hate himself for being human? My
impression of K has changed a lot. He seemed a lot more
passionate and human and therefore less of a saint than I
remembered him.
Fortunately I probably have too much ambition in me to succumb
to the despair and loneliness that K and Sensei befell to. Or
maybe it's just that it doesn't bother as much that I am not a
good person or that people can turn bad so easily. They were too
pure, maybe not as pure as Yozo for this world but I intend to
live as impure as I am and as impure as this world is because I
take a certain amount of pleasure in it, especially in art, like
Natsume Soseki's Kokoro which beautify this ugly
beautiful world.
I kind of miss the characters in the novel already now that the
story is over. I realise now that I was fond of the characters.
Honda Toru, Nietzche, Capitalism
The following are just a bunch of messages I sent someone over
a messaging software:
- I was surprised to hear that you bought merch. Maybe I have
been spoiled by the internet giving me stuff for free that I
haven't really spent much of anything on my hobbies. I guess
this sucks for the creators of stuff I am into. Say whatever
you like about Japanese otaku like Honda Toru but at least
they put their money where their mouth is.... whereas the
people who often complain about modern anime being shit just
aren't willing to pay for the projects that they want to see.
Basically they want Otaku to foot the bill for non-otaku
shows. You could say the one good thing about capitalism and
the one bad thing about capitalism, is that you get what you
pay for.
- I remember you said that Honda Toru reminded you more of Diogenes even if Honda seemed to go for Nietzsche. This kind of reminds of an observation I made myself that asceticism can be pretty self-indulgent, I mean you could say that someone like Diogenes is eschewing his worldly responsibilities (his responsibilities to others) to pursue his own path. In a similar sense otaku are accused of doing the same. Certain kinds of self-indulgence when taken to an extreme may come out at the other end being or at least appearing to be ascetic.
09/04/2022
Arguably: [toc]
takeapiece left a few more comments on my neocities page. Read
the previous diary
entry to make sense of it. Here is the exchange:
takeapiece: I wouldn't neccassily call it feeble but
then again, I don't how I'll truly react when put in a cruel
situation. People always bring up the book of Job and how Job
suffered greatly. The world is cruel but it has purpose and
meaning behind it, even Jesus Christ couldn't escape it and had
to endure. It is comforting to place your hope into concepts
but, people don't truly learn until they're in a rough spot.
I think the purpose of our life here is to test the spirit. Go through tribulations. Choose the right way rather than being forced. This post explains it a lot better than me if you want to give a try.
I'll try to post a better response at some point!
otaking: Maybe feeble was too harsh but what I meant was
that I understand the feeling that the answer to something
hasn't materialised yet but it is out there. I do agree that one
purpose of life is to test the spirit, or at any rate that is a
way to cope and I don't mean that in a bad way, life is harsh
and we all need to cope with it and it may also make us
stronger.
You know the whole "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger"
point that Nietzsche likes to talk about. Of course this too has
its limits. I do prefer it however to no answer at all. The
Greeks may have tried to justify human tragedy by beautifying it
with art too, I like that too.
I like the website layout of the site you shared. Based.
However I do not think that "sin" and "temptation" justify the
level of suffering in this world. I am not that misanthropic. I
accept that there may be something we don't know but until we
know it, that is all it is. "Tips Fedora." No, but more
seriously, I hope you have a nice day fren!
takeapiece:I'm with you. I don't know how something like
pedophilia or child sacrifice is justified but, we are given
free choice. They'll be held accountable at the end. What's more
important is how we handle it and possible prevent it. Take care
fren!
I view abortion as child sacrifice. The same people who view
bacteria on mars as a sign of life are the same people who view
a fetus as a clump of cells. Are we not all clump of cells?
Makes no sense to me. It's just them justifying their actions.
End of exchange.
I haven't made up my mind on abortion. I did write a piece on
it a while ago trying to make up my mind about it but I won't
link it because it is sort of a contrarian mess even by my
standards. I have decided to abstain from having a view about
abortion until I have had children myself.
I don't want to argue because I don't think anything is
achieved by arguing. I just like to write and read but I can't
write about nothing so that is why it may seem like I am trying
to make a point sometimes. I don't really have any systematic
way of thinking so I don't really care about contradicting
myself every now and then. I write and read for pleasure.
Nothing has been ever achieved by thinking, other than more
thinking.
Rucka vs Sargon
I watched a video
debate by Rucka Rucka Ali and Sargon of Akkad (who goes by
Carl Benjamin these days). I believe they have both declined in
spirit and appearance. This is what philosophical and political
discussion does to you. Don't do it kids, not even once!
Rucka was a lot more attractive when he did something, when he
made music, I hope he hasn't lost this ability entirely, now he
looks pale and sick. He explains how he was sucked into this
world of "online political commentary" through vidcon thinking
that it was going to achieve something. He hasn't realised yet
that it is just a talking shop. Come on, you know it too, at
heart those jokes about philosophers endlessly bickering
excitedly in self-importance are all true.
Same with Sargon, he looks thinner but also hollower and more
confused than ever, a natural result of thinking too much rather
than acting according to your gut feeling of what's right. He
doesn't know what he believes in anymore, he has read too many
books. At least Ruckas simplicity saved him from that. On the
other hand Rucka is unable to think outside of his objectivist
label. I find that political and religious labels often act
as a substitute for a personality.
I don't think I could ever call myself an Objectivist
because in a sense that is like declaring you are some minion to
some thinker, and that her thoughts and feelings take precedence
to yours, even if they are just a flesh and blood human being
like you.
However the biggest problem I think is that most people only
really have a few ideas of their own based on their own
experiences. Many of these youtube channels start out fresh, I
rerember Rucka's commentary was fresh and simple, with Sargon
too I felt like it came from the heart but then at some point it
gets repetitive so what do they do? They go and read philosophy
books, regurgitate what they have read along with pieces of
their own thought. The more they read, the more they forget what
it is that they thought originally.
The final result is a convoluted mess which is simultaneously
extreme (i.e. impractical but also grand sounding) and
cookie-cutter (because no matter how complicated and
contradictory their reasons get, as human beings they can always
be defined by a label or two and in practice are interchangeable
with other people with that same label).
Anyhow the point of this rant is this: Read for pleasure and
not in order to learn anything other than some technical
information. Read and write only for pleasure, that way you
might learn what you already know in your bones.
I avoid debating people too, it's pretty useless.
Thoughts on Streaming
The Gundam X stream we were supposed to do today got cancelled
due to scheduling issues. Now it'll be on next Sunday. I feel a
bit burnt out but let's carry on lest I stop.
I also watched a couple of awful streams on Nietzche on the Ayn
Rand Centre UK channel. It was a waste of 2 hours of my life I
could have spent on something actually enjoyable. To be fair I
doubt that my youtube streams are any better. I may have to go
through the hassle of learning to edit youtube videos.
I felt like streaming was next level, above edited youtube
videos because they captured an in the moment experience in the
bottle and so are more sincere because you can't edit
it along the way but it turns out it is the other way around,
because you can't control every moment in a stream to say what
you want to say it is less sincere.
This silly video
was probably more enjoyable than the hours of streams I watched
today. Another factor is that for small youtube channels
anyways, only one person is involved in video making and
recording. When more than one person is involved because they do
not share the same vision, naturally compromises are made,
making it less genuine. Worse yet, when the live-chat affects
the video, then it must be tempting to just cater to them.
Maybe that's why I like writing on my neocities site the most.
It's just me, myself, and I. I have another site
which I went to the trouble setting up and paying for hosting
and a domain name. It has a lot more features and more over it's
a "group site," which I set up for the people on my discord
server to write articles for. And yet despite the trouble I went
to, I prefer posting here.
Anyhow enough complaining for today, I am going to go listen to
the Kokoro by Natsume Soseki audiobook which is what I should
have done anyway. Increasingly I find youtube less and less
enjoyable when compared to other forms of media like novels and
anime.
08/04/2022
God From The Machine
It's always a pleasant surprise as well as a cause for
embarrassment when someone comes across one of my old articles.
Anyhow here is an exchange about an article about God but
really about Christianity which I wrote 2 years ago.
takeapiece: I like some of your posts and I read your
atheism.exe stopped working. I can write my own response if
you're curious on what I think it. Don't worry, I won't be on my
high horse
.
otaking responds: Sure I would like to hear your thoughts
in a response article. Truth be told my opinions have mellowed
since then but if there is one thing that that article shows
which I do stand-by, is that it is easy to ascribe nefarious
motives to your opposition. At least when arguing with someone
you should take them at their word or don't expect to be taken
at your word.
It just pissed me off that Peter Hitchens was ">implying" as
they say in some places that anyone who is an atheist must be so
in order to be a degenerate, just because he was a degenerate
when he was an atheist then everyone else who is an atheist must
be so for that reason. Literal projection.
I wanted to show how easy it is to play the "motive game" by
ascribing the other side nefarious motives. It was tit for tat
as a means to illustrate the point.
As for the argument from evil, or to use a less vague term-
cruelty, that cuts both ways. On the one hand as Peter Hitchens
points out God ensures cosmic justice in the end, on the other
hand as his brother pointed out there's a lot of cruelty so
awful that there's no excuse for Him to allow it happen in the
first place.
Honestly I most likely haven't said anything you haven't heard
before. It is an old argument, but I am willing to have it for
old times' sake.
Funnily enough of all people, one person who might have an
answer against the argument from cruelty, is Nietzsche, because
according to his philosophy cruelty is something good enough to
be sought for yourself and wished upon your friends. Amor fati,
love of fate, is what Nietzsche professed. He did however have
his own problems against Christians which I am sure you are
aware.
takeapiece: I get you. I would consider myself a degenerate still. I'm not better than anyone. I never understood the, I'm much better than you look at my _______ (Circle One, Faith, Money, intelligence, etc). Haha, I'll reply back because why not for old-times sakes? I question why God allowed certain evil still but, I acknowledged that I don't know anything and it's best to leave it to him. I'm sure he'll tell me eventually.
takeapiece: Faith doesn't specifially tie with God.
People have faith in tommorow that they'll have health, money,
or whatever. I'd simply redirect that faith into a somebody
rather than a something/concept.
otaking responds: I guess the reason why people direct
their faith towards concepts rather than somebody is that people
can betray you but concepts/ideas/things cannot betray you or
maybe they can but it still might feel less worse. Looking
forward to your response.
End of exchange.
I could say that was a rather feeble attempt at waving away the
cruelty of the world. It's not that I don't understand that
feeling of intuition that the answer is out there even if I
haven't figured out what exactly it is. For example my views
about pornography
are informed by that feeling. Though I prefer to call it hope
rather than faith, it is very much the same thing. But on the
other hand if you don't already share that feeling, it doesn't
really mean anything.
I also did a stream
and wrote a review for Eve no Jikan. I
also got permission from incelperspective
to use his
music in the visual novel project. On the whole it was not
an unproductive day. The stream was a bit messy probably because
I hadn't streamed with Fahrenheit
in a while. I feel like when I stream with someone multiple
times you can form a shared "current meta," hopefully we'll be
able to catch up to each other's metas in upcoming streams. I
would say the fault is probably mine because my mind never stays
too long in one place, it always wanders off course, on a
different path, maybe it's just the hipster contrarian in me. It
is unreasonable to expect others to keep up with my meta.
As for the review and the stream themselves I won't discuss
their contents other than that say that the review in some ways
became a response to what was said on the stream because I wrote
it after the stream.
07/04/2022
British Stationary Sucks. [toc]
Now that I have added the "table of contents" for this page, I
may no longer need this html table and the little javascript for
the "sort by date" button to work. I wonder why it didn't occur
to me to just make a table of contents.
I'll keep the table and the script because it is something neat
and it would be a waste to get rid of it after I got it to work
but from next month I guess I'll get rid of it.
I didn't get much reading done today, partly because of the
work I had to do and partly because I wasted my time falling
asleep. I get more done when I am at my desk but the desk is
next to my bed and the duvet is so warm... an ordinary story. I
lack the privacy in the rest of the flat to get anything done.
If my laptop's battery was better, I would go outside to write.
Maybe I could go to the library. Sure I would have to walk a bit
but maybe I would be more productive that way because there is
no bed in the library. Something to consider.
I bought a refillable "parker pen." It's just an ordinary ball
point pen other than the fact it is refillable. It looks neat
but it feels a bit cheap to the hand. Honestly I don't think I
got my money worth, that pen was £16.
I also bought a red notebook, with 200 pages and a fake leather
cover. That too felt a bit little £9, but at least it looks
good. It is almost impossible to buy a notebook with more than
200 pages here in the UK. One thing I should do when I go back
to Sri Lanka, is buy some stationary, notebooks in particular
though those "Atlas" pens are neat too and truly do work till
the last drop of ink in the pen.
The stationary situation in Britain is appaling. It was
slightly better in Italy. I curse those "Pukka pads" notebooks.
No, I do not want to turn my notes into a DIY project by putting
my pages into polythene covers and then into a fat folder.
Stationary is about the only thing which is worth buying in Sri
Lanka.
Anyhow the reason why I went through these expenses and bought
these writing utensils was to make the writing experience for my
solo rpg project a more pleasant one, to motivate me to work on
it. I didn't write a word today. Tomorrow I am planning to buy a
clipboard too which I came across today. It looked cheap and
they charged too much but for personal reasons I cannot order
stuff online so it'll have to do.
The reason I need a clipboard is to store the character sheets
for the maids and other stuff like that. Ideally I would have
everything on paper because when I am on my computer I feel like
doing something else than get started on the solo rpg project.
Online Diaries vs Blogs
Regardless I was able to push out a small and mediocre article
about online
diaries and on how they defer from online articles. I
think I couldn't go enough into how they differ from online
articles but in short I don't think that personal experiences
should be the main focus of blog articles, they can come in
handy but there needs to be another point.
The reason for this is because the focus of the article should
be on the subject of the article and the author is not the
subject of the article, unless it's some kind of interview. Of
course you can blend in the two together with "gonzo
journalism," or the like but I feel like that is a trick and the
subject of the article is the real focus.
Why? For various reasons but mostly a lack of continuity, every
article is a blank slate, and your personal stories are just
vignettes to illustrate the point you are making, that someone
may put together those vignettes into a story about you - is
something that only certain devoted fans are going to bother to
do.
An online diary is more anectodal and more importantly there is
a continuity - it's a series of posts, not one offs. Someone
could read this in a chronological order so maybe I should keep
that little javascript and table.
Anyhow, I don't want to turn this into a diary talking about
writing online diaries so I should stop talking about that topic
from now on. Likewise, I shouldn't write blog posts about
writing blog posts. Why? I don't know, it just feels a little
nauseating and circular, like I don't really have any reason or
thing to write about other than the fact that I want to
write.
That said there's nothing wrong on commenting on what I have
written either, like a sort of director's commentary that is
more interesting than the film itself. Maybe that is the effect
I would like this online diary to have.
06/04/2022
Re-Reading Kokoro by Natsume Soseki [toc]
I have read the first half of Soseki's novel, Kokoro. I would
recommend people to read the older and much better translation
by McClellan, not the Penguin translation.It's out of print but
you can get it off of piratebay, as well as the audible
audiobook too.
Reading this again now that I am much older I feel a lot less
partial towards the protagonist and Sensei.Even though I am a
lot more like Sensei, minus the beautiful wife or some tragic
backstory involving a friend, I guess. Then again Sensei was
pretty self-effacing too.
I wonder what Chiasmo will say about Kokoro on Monday's
stream/podcast because I have less of a precise impression now
that I have re-read it than before I had re-read it.
I remember that the second half of the novel which I have yet
to re-read, Sensei's tragic backstory, didn't leave as much of a
strong impression as the first half.
Maybe perhaps because when I read the first half I was rather
like the protagonist, looking for an older, wiser figure and
friend to guide me. I was never able to find anyone like that,
maybe some writers like Orwell might count, and I have certainly
cooled down on them.
Sensei was right that affection for an older "wiser man" can
and will turn to disgust. I have certainly experienced that with
certain youtubers whom I considered to be "intellectuals."
However that was just a parasocial relationship though I am glad
that I got a direct if negative response by the end.
A better example might be the way Nietzsche soured on the older
Wagner. Maybe that sort of process is unavoidable and not
necessarily a bad thing.
The idea that a man who doesn't work has value, or in other
words that it's okay for certain "wise men" to exist without
working sounds silly. Rather I don't think the should be
supported by the state but if they can live in idleness because
of their personal circumstances, like if they own property or
someone is willing to pay for them voluntarily, then that sort
of person can have value too.
People say that they value labour but honestly they only value
certain kind of labour. Honestly, just ignore people. The book
is very vague about what subject the protagonist was learning in
university. I wonder if it will reveal what Sensei studied
either.
Kokoro feels very modern and it's kind of disappointing that
since the 1940s nothing new has happened. The kind of experience
that the protagonist had has just being replicated and
democratised further but it has also become thinner and more
shallow and individualistic. Now you don't need to meet your
"Sensei" figure because you can just watch him through a digital
screen. The protagonist says that his experience with Sensei was
"spiritual" rather than material but I would say that it is more
"emotional."
Sensei says that the protagonist seeking for friendship with
Sensei was just as a preparation for love with a woman. When I
first read this passage it rang a lot more truer, that
friendship is training for love with a woman. It certainly
seemed that way, and in a sense it is true a bond between a
woman and a man is less transient for the simple reason that you
are stuck with each other once you are married whereas if you
don't feel like meeting a friend you can usually avoid him. Then
again I have heard of married couples virtually becoming room
mates who barely talk to each other.
Now that I am neither interested in friendship with a Mentor
nor in romance, it rings less true. But it is true that the
infatuation that a young "literary" man can feel towards an
older mentor literary figure, even a dead writer, can be rather
like a simulacra of romance in lieu of actual romance.
I wonder what did Sensei want out of the protagonist. With a
lot of "father-figure-intellectual" Youtubers these days, the
answer is simple, money and popularity... But the protagonist
could give neither of these things to Sensei.
The contrast between Sensei and the protagonist's country
bumpkin father was also relate-able to me. Education really
feels like it is designed to drive parents and children apart,
especially when the parent is not educated, it has this effect.
No, it is not simply a matter of looking down on uneducated
parents by ungrateful sons, but rather there is nothing in
common in terms of interests, there is no point in even starting
to explain.
Maybe Sensei wanted understanding, for someone to understand
him. No, that's what the protagonist wanted from Sensei. I do
relate more to Sensei than the protagonist now, including his
misanthropic views. Sensei wanted his money, that much is
certain in the first half of the novel. Maybe when I re-read the
second half I will understand.
At a certain point the Emperor Meiji dies (that's the emperor
before Hirohito, I think) and a general called Nogi kills
himself to atone for losing a banner during a battle many years
ago or something like that. The characters are sad about this.
If the Queen were to die tomorrow, or if any other political
figure anywhere were to die, I wouldn't feel a thing. Maybe
there was a time when I would have felt a thing... But I guess
my misanthropy has extinguished any feeling of patriotism and
identification with any group.
Sensei, and Soseki at least seemed to have felt an attachment
to an era or a place. I guess I am attached to certain
aesthetics, to certain media, and culture - but I seem to regard
these quite separately from the people themselves.
Just like Sensei says that there aren't any stereotypically bad
people, I would say that there are no stereo-typically good
people either - and that were I to meet the people creating the
culture that I like, they would just be ordinary people too in
all regards except their ability to produce culture which I
like.
That maybe why Sensei and the protagonist failed to connect
even if they had plenty of "culture" in common.
Also for some reason after having read it the first time I was
under the wrong impression that there was any ambiguity as to
sensei's death but it is quite clear from the first half of the
novel that sensei is dead and that he killed himself.
Because of this misunderstanding I kept on feeling "what if the
protagonist stopped Sensei's suicide?" but no, I now realise
that there wouldn't have been any point in stopping sensei's
suicide. Unless there is something else which I have missed in
the second half of the novel. The audio book is seven hours long
and I have listened to half of it.
In general I could relate more to the protagonist's fears but
now that those fears have come true and I am still alive, it
doesn't really feel as prescient anymore. For example his fear
of slowly rotting away as earth clung to him, referring to his
fate of possibly becoming a farmer in the countryside. Honestly
maybe anywhere is the same for me as long as I have the
internet, then again it could just be that I never had the money
to experience "city life" even though I lived in a city like
London but it is true that I hate the people who live in my
"country-side."
More and more this hatred borne out fear is turning into
indifference because I don't really intend to befriend them so
it doesn't matter that they are not interesting to speak to and
as for their low opinion of me, well so much the better so they
won't ask me for any favours because they won't think they can
get anything out of me.
05/04/2022
George Orwell and Honda Toru were normal
guys [toc]
I am more than two thirds into the 500 page book collection of
"selected letters" (i.e. incomplete) by George Orwell. The
collection is called "George Orwell: A Life in Letters."
From Orwell's essays I got the impression that he was a pretty
lonely guy but I guess when you are writer, especially some kind
of essayist/journalist you have to network to get paid to write,
not that I know anything about getting paid to write. Also when
you review other people's stuff they are going to speak to you
about it. That I have a little experience with.
Anyhow I am finally getting to letters around the time he wrote
1984 and around the time he died. I wouldn't recommend it to
anyone who is not a fan of George Orwell, I think what came
through the letters however was just what an ordinary guy Orwell
was, and how he became popular almost by accident.
I mean I am sure there were many others who made the same
observations he made about Imperialism, Fascism, and Communism.
I guess you could say his writing has "historical value," and
to me it has "emotional value" too but when you try to pin me
down on it and ask me what exactly is special about this guy
that I have spent so much time reading his stuff and enjoying it
- there is nothing but a blank.
It's an embarassing thought but maybe the fact that he is so
ordinary is what makes him appealing to me, as in, I could
be just like him. He doesn't come off as one of those
writers who are so above you in their skill that they make you
wonder why you bother writing at all. Even as I say that, it
can't be just that because he does "speak to me." To a
large degree it also depends on whether you agree and feel his
outlook on life, whether you can buy into it.
I don't think Orwell is the kind of writer you can appreciate
if you fundementally disagree with him - because his frankness
is his appeal but if you frankly disagree with what he has to
say then no bond can be formed through his writing.
Honda Toru Became Popular For Being Unpopular
I did a stream about Honda Toru
with Chiasmo today. I wonder if Honda Toru becomes popular for
being unpopular and then becomes unpopular again. Just like
Orwell spoke to me, and Nietzche/Bowie spoke to Zarathustra's
Serpent, I would say that Honda spoke to Parzifal.
I just did a three hour stream about it so I am not in the mood
to explain who Honda Toru is and stuff. I think Frog-kun's
interview translation covers that neatly. It's a pity that
there isn't any stuff by the man himself (other than a few
interviews) translated into English. I would have read them.
Though to be honest I can't get on board with the Waifuism
stuff. Not because I think there is anything wrong with it but
because although I love anime I can't say that reality and
fantasy are the same for me even if I find fantasy more
interesting. By fantasy I would include things like History and
Politics along with Anime, I mean anything which you can't
really directly take part in and affect. Reality is just
everyday life and the people around you that you can speak to
and touch, not people who you see on television and in the
papers. I would say that people you know through the internet
are less real too. Though I would say anime is a lot more kind,
honest, and true than History or Politics.
Orwell and Honda may have saved themselves through writing but
honestly, as I said on stream, I can't help but feel like they
just got lucky. It's not a path open for everyone. I guess they
would say, it was the only path for them.
It's a very arrogant thought but it goes like this, anyone
can do what they did but not get paid for it. By anyone,
it should be obvious I mean myself lol.
When Honda says that he used to think, If I can't make a
living with a keyboard then I am done for, its not
pathetic because he was able to make a living with a keyboard.
Having said all that Honda has disappeared back into obscurity
and Orwell too is only kept afloat by two okay to mediocre
novels, while the bulk of his writing is only occasionaly
perused by wannabe writers like myself (and Christopher
Hitchens) but atleast Orwell (and Christopher Hitchens) are
dead, they did not live to see the death of their works. Honda
is alive. I think Hitchens knew this was the most popular he was
ever going to be when he died. The world has become a lot more
stupid since then, so I am glad that he died.
Honda Toru is alive but the trends around him are dead, Denpa
is dead and Love (Capitalism) is alive. Is the Otaku dead
too? Did he die like a hippie or become a hipster? Speaking of
Love Capitalism, I don't have much love for Love or Capitalism
and yet I can't help but feel like romantic love was always like
this, but maybe what he was going for was that Romantic Love now
is the centre of life, or maybe more like a final rite of
passage into respectable society.
The fact that Denpa or whatever Honda is about, is dead,
however makes it more appealing to me, because dead things and
dead people can't disagree with you or hate you which makes them
lovable. That's moe.
It's a real pity that Libido
Kamen is not back yet. He could have provided a less
leftwing, and so a less tragic view of Otaku Culture.
Reactionaries are comic. Maybe he died along with moe and denpa
in the early 2000s. Maybe we all died in the early 2000s. Maybe
I did too.
I guess my tragic sensibility must make me leftwing at heart
but then does that make Zarathustra's Serpent a reactionary? No
he is just a liberal, so tragi-comic. That is how he doesn't
believe in a final victory. For a liberal history is more like
an endless sitcom, a never ending battle between good and evil
because there will always be good and there will always be evil.
Where does this leave Honda Toru, the otaku? Not the "newtaku,"
not the western "oldtaku" who grew up on Toonami but the real
classic otaku, the real deal. Then again I guess he too was a
throwback, a LARP if you will (see how tragic modern terminology
like LARP and cope are? Most reactionaries are tragic too these
days or in other words they are leftwing) to the 80s otaku.
Maybe Zarathustra was right, what we need now might be a
"Cinematic Universe," to connect the scattered community in one
place but I for one have given up on community, whether it be
online or offline. Everyone lives in their own bubble and
everyone's vision and interests are different, and so the
relation between one and another is necessarily one subjugating
the other. See? Tragic, and therefore leftwing.
At most what I can gather are the shattered pieces of my heart,
and I don't mean that in a tragic way at all.
Even though they have been forgotten or are dead there is
something heartwarming and beautiful in looking at and reading
the volumes of writing they have written. That is meaningful to
me, I want to know more about them. A connection, maybe that's
moe, though I wouldn't call Orwell or Honda or Hitchens "my
waifu" but is this love?
Maybe that is what I am trying to replicate with this little
site of mine.
With writers of books and novels it is easier to put a human
face on the product, maybe that's why things like the
Marvel Cinematic Universe are hated for now. No maybe that's not
it, I don't really know nor care what the community hates or
likes.
Maybe by putting together a list of the things I like, by
referencing them, I might be able to construct a chimera of a
personality. A contraction in terms, I know, but a unique
Chimera - just like Orwerll. Orwell is nothing special, his
opinion and views and writing are nothing special but I find him
likeable, I find that unique mix of ordinariness likeable, and
maybe that's enough. This is a longwinded way of saying I do
kinda like myself.
04/04/2022
No Sympathy for "the Working Class Man" [toc]
I no longer have any sympathy for "the working class man." Or
for any such group of humans.
I may still have some lingering affection for the "otaku" table
and therefore for the people by go by it, but that is all.
On the whole the negative things that groups say about each
other are all true. Especially the bad things that the classes
say about each other.
The only difference between the economic classes is how much
power they have, in character they are all bad, they act badly
enough that it doesn't matter who acts worse.
In fact on the whole I would say that I have been treated more
badly by the working classes. Then again it might be that most
people I am contact with are working class. The subhuman
middle-class isn't much better and they deserve a place in hell
for their snobbery and fake affectations. They all deserve a
place in hell, including whoever set into motion this farce. I
am feeling a bit angsty tonight.
Anyhow I will seek to be indifferent to the suffering of the
average working man. It doesn't feel nice but pity does no good,
not to me and not to them but the point is that they probably
don't deserve any pity. Nobody deserves my goodwill by default,
it was not a pleasant lesson to learn but now I feel like I have
learned it.
Most people are trash, regardless of class and so do not
deserve my sympathy or partisanship.
This doesn't mean I should hate them because they are not great
enough to be worthy of that either. They are little more than
beasts ruled by instinct, by greed and fear, who only understand
power because they worship power by any other name.
Anyhow enough about them. I should not think of them.
I posted a summary of the tables in the Mythic RPG GM Emulator.
Honestly though those Maid RPG solo rpg sessions are going
nowhere. I should spend more time on it, I have been telling
that to myself a lot but something gets in the way.
Finished watching Gundam X. It was better than the previous
Gundam. Overall I seem to like the newer Gundam over the older
stuff but who cares. I am getting bored with reviews but there's
nothing much else I can make.
The discord server is starting to bore me as well. It feels a
bit repetitive. Anyhow that's why I am trying to solo RPG.
Hopefully I will have more to say about that soon.
01/04/2022
No Longer Seeking Understanding. [toc]
The following is something I wrote in my pen and paper diary on
the 31st of March. It was not meant for public eyes so that is
why it is a bit melodramatic, nonetheless I thought it might be
worth sharing:
I am back to writing in my diary because "now I have readers."
The truth is that I don't have readers, just a couple of people
who may occasionally glance at what I have written if I asked
them.
Even with so few readers, I feel misunderstood.
It was a mistake to seek understanding and goodwill from the
reactionary right just because I understood them and showed
goodwill towards them.
I could go into a critique specifically about the right but
that is irrelevant because the reason that it was a mistake is
because it was a mistake to seek understanding and goodwill from
other human beings in the first place. It was never an option
for me.
Orwell said that it was better to be understood than to be
loved. I would go a step further and say that it is better not
to be loved if you are not going to be understood.
I know that these comments will be met with ridicule if they
will be read at all. Yet these are my thoughts.
Every project I have ever begun has been a compromise between
what I want and what I thought others would want, you could call
it a poorly disguised attempt at fostering some understanding
with other people. Perhaps if I'd found the right people I'd
thought then... but the right people do not exist.
The SOS Brigade project which I had thought up many years ago
while pacing back and forth a public park in Mitcham as the sun
set down next to a hill and muddy pond surrounded by bird crap -
has come to an end. I don't think I wrote any of it down
unfortunately but even if I did it would be "tracing our scars,
by sketching the beauty of our fleeting dream," right Haruhi?
Honestly the me from back then would have been surprised at how
far I have come. And yet I am clearly the one who cares more and
so I lost. Visions, wishes, ambitions just cannot line up with
other people's perfecly for me, and so it all becomes so
tiresome. It sounds silly to say, but that syncronisity you see
in anime is not there. The
ideological warrior, I don't like that "ideological" word
because I have eschewed politics, and I no longer want "to make
the world a better place," only the pursuit of something for
myself, and now I realise, by myself.
Very Randian, I know, but I also know that if I try to approach
the Randian Objectivists I would not be repaid with goodwill and
acceptance either because I wouldn't fit "the best version of
myself" that they have in mind either. Whether in real life or
online I seem to be walking on eggshells.
As for the "warrior" half of it, I don't want to fight others,
nor argue with others, moreover I don't like war and certain
people's politics are nothing but a larp about being tough and
being fighters while never having being in a real battle.
Besides even if they had been, I don't really care. It doesn't
give them any right over me.
Terminology aside, it is the only path left for me, or rather
that there ever was for me, and I would have been spared a lot
of misery if I had gone to it for it from the start. My initial
insticts were right all along, but I just lacked the conviction
in myself. Surely, I thought, "they must know something that I
don't." Well, turns out that they don't. But enough about them,
because they don't matter.
I will always be an heretic, it seems. And so I shouldn't have
sought peace, growth, or even challenge in other people in the
first place. I can't speak for others but by this point I don't
even want to speak "to" others let alone "for" them.
Probably the reason everything I did failed was because I did
to speak to others or to find a group I could speak for, and of
course who could speak for me. That may have been the lie I was
trying to hide when I said I only wanted to speak at others.
Anyhow going into any more detail would only be just playing
word games, if it hasn't already become that. A word game to
impress an imagined reader or audience is what I must avoid.
Anime is Great, and there is no God but Anime. And yet I can't
latch onto something made by others because it will stop growing
once trends change. Only a world created by my clumsy hands for
my heart will do. I hope that I will be able to sketch the
beauty of that dream in these diaries. If not, well it was fun
writing this entry.