“Shtay awhile and lishten“

Hell can take a number, I guess.

As I struggle to maintain a mood in what feels like a particularly bleak week by personal standards, not even a release of a solid new title or the flurry of Gamescom is enough to elevate my mood. This strangulated sense of whimsy leaves me barren creatively, though the posting schedule waits impatiently in the lurch as the clock ticks without the same sense of aimless trepidation that seems to haunt me.

My gut tells me The Rogue Prince of Persia will likely be a title I finish, which more often than not, doesn’t necessarily happen these days, and this historical relativity is certainly independent of game quality, as I’ve enjoyed a myriad of titles this year, but few credit sequences have courted me warmly within the pretext of welcomed company. There is probably as many good reasons to game as there are people, so I’m left seriously dubious that a singular approach is the winning formula to how one is to enjoy the medium, though the times that change perhaps dictate a sense of transformative operational standard within the realm of reflective endeavor. Whether this boils down to a quaint sense of inspiration, or a constant search for the ideal vibe I’m not entirely sure, though the sense of accomplishment of pushing myself through every title to the bitter end does not seem like the immaculate logic once internally dictated in terms of cultural accreditation in justifying my minutes invested vs the contentment discovered.

I’ve recently made a push into a greater realm of philosophical inquiry involved with my gaming, as a way to better frame my own investigations, which, I’m not entirely sure how people interpret when they read the articles. Playing for me seems beyond compulsive ingestion of media content, and it lies well outside the impulse of enjoyment, as I have contended in the past I don’t even measure, in some really queer sense of qualitative justice, how interesting a game is by the metric of how much “fun” can be mined from it. This relentless acquirement of what I consider a shallow act o desire is not truly what I seek. I’ve even detailed before about deeper notions of interaction with my virtual experiences, likening my back and forth within the medium as more of a “becoming” in a sense, then a general reckless abandonment one might more readily associate with the mindless aspirations of some consumerist punk hellbent on mainlining escapism amidst his world weary days. This lurid hue of self-reflective shimmer blinds any further sentiment contingent upon what would otherwise be mindless entertainment, and continues to underline this curious sense of personal investigation at the front and center of everytime I pick up a controller, a knee-jerk reactionism bursting through the metaphysical walls of definition attempting to contain what others may see as a stunning lack of eccentuated essence defining what most would refer to as a discount video gaming experience.

Though, where else is one to look for self if not in the mirrors of reality that reflect back at us who we are in the moments of the everyday? One needs some sense of “The other” to even understand self, where one is always relative to where one is not, a curious northern intent defined by a notionality of a southern resentment, for example, an idea somehow both immediately absent but ever present in its relative standard. The contrasts and juxtapositions of what we aren’t part and parcel to in the understanding process, what we may not be aware of helping to define us even more than what we know from intimate experience…though many within the framework of the everyday are too heavy handed in their extreme “othering” with which I haphazardly reference. In a playful, fictional sense, one is surrounded by the idea of combat, a conceptual battlefield traps us all in both great and small affairs, waiting at a red light or the impatience of a loading screen confronting us with a sense of odd turmoil begotten by morbid tension, knowing every minute wasted isn’t one spent on absolute definition of personal discovery, and this lust for belonging that one never quite fathoms is not the actual desire, though a sense of unrequited fulfillment manifested in repressed frustrations, which is most easily defined by the same sense of putrid horror the human race idlely defines itself by.

All of this is perhaps why we learn more about how to authentically “become” through cooperative entanglement than competitive struggle, in some sense, as we start to see other forms of us in the other, in ways that don’t cheapen the sense of humanity that propels the aggressive energy to define the rambunctious trappings of societal dictation. The authenticity befitting of form and function rings truer within a simulated tribalism, perhaps within a healthier emotional spectrum than the rat racing anonymity of murderous intent, with the present and accounted for human element finding more worth in redefining the everyday by the humanity shared then the humanity lost as a result of bitter resentment. The simulated musings one may find within the realm of video games makes these kinds of investigations safely navigable, in a greater sense of reward for the human spirit involved, while minimizing the consequence of loss and despair humanity overdoses on in their everyday, which is why the fuel for the fire of play continues to rage within so many, and keeps us compelled to continue to engage with the medium at large.

These kinds of thoughts are what bloat my game time so heavily, as any moment I have a chance to self-reflect in the equivalent of the warming glow of a bonfire, or have earned a brief moment of respite as I vibe at a save point; these reflections are the reason.

-Pashford