Context is key in helping to understand reality at large.


Commas are key in helping to understand context

I often have to remind myself of some basics when writing, just as a good rule of thumb in an effort of eternal practice, as I feel as if a lot of people overlook their 123’s and ABC’s of the written word, or assume they have perfected the art of mastering simplicity, and I don’t want to be people. I think like any skill, one never is ever truly “done” refining it, so within that regard, anyone concluded within the realm of their own skill set has probably already shown their ass right then and there with mistake numero uno in their grand quest for broad appeals to fuck wittery abound…whether that damning indictment be arrogance or something far more sinister, I’ll let you be the judge.



I also don’t mind opening up about the process every once in awhile, when the time feels right, now being that kind of moment, as I put myself to task of posting an article everyday, and the day is short, and my streak of exhaustion a long one, so having a scant two hours to conceive of an article, write, edit it, record video content, and do a voice over for it is a fairly tight deadline. Keeping in mind none of this is planned and I’m flying by the seat of my pants, I kind of don’t have time for excessive deliberation on the matter, and certainly no room for perfectionism. There is an old show called M*A*S*H, and in one of his letters to his dad, one of the main characters Hawkeye refers to his work as a frontline surgeon as “meatball surgery”, messy work, where it’s just get in, get out, move on, nothing pretty about it. I feel that about a lot of my work, too, at least metaphorically….meatball writing to re-appropriate the phrase, though I know people don’t see that part of it, they just see the final product. In this regard, where the old saying goes “never see how the sausage is made”, getting a glimpse of what makes the words happen gives insight into how messy and imperfect of a process the whole thing is, and how “good enough” has to become one’s everyday mantra.



I’ll mention gaming at some point I’m sure, but that bit of the process is always the easier part, maybe because the amount of hours I’ve poured into that vs writing is astronomically askew; not that I have’t written a ton in my day, mind you, but if one breaks down the pure rational logistics as to why one has more head space than the other…it is not hard to imagine why. Besides, I can play a game for five minutes and probably get pages of ideas out of it, so I never need much to get myself going on the subject, though that is where both experience and imagination play a big part in filling the pages. Which again, I think is another oversight people make when considering writing. I don’t often get direct feedback, and when I do ask for it, it’s always basic grammatical errors people point out, and I tell them directly that I’m not looking for a spell checker, I was looking for some conversation about the ideas inherent within the words themselves, and then just about everyone goes cross-eyed and starts shitting themselves out of sheer confusion, as if writing literally amounts to just spelling things correctly.



That is probably why I am so drawn to writing, as there is an intense sense of metaphysicality to it. The level of abstraction required to be able to do it right is just so horrifyingly infinite, I can see why most stare into the word void and become paralyzed with fear the instant they sit down with pen in hand or keyboard at the ready. The sheer will of creation involved is one that makes lesser individuals buckle under the pressure. Perhaps in a sense, due to them not knowing themselves, or how to express that unknown persons thoughts and put it into known words. This idea that without the marching orders of the everyday, they are totally and completely adrift at sea, no north star of navigation to go by. A complete lack of an internal sense of self, with no captain steering the ship, and just an empty vessel remaining dead in the water. That’s one possibility at least. I know everyone has different modes of expression, though sometimes….often times, when I speak to others, it always seems like canned responses and pullstring phrases, as if some cheap plastic novelty with only a handful of memorized words to say with no meaning behind them. People can be little more than puppets this way, and in this way, helping to draw a fiercely morose picture of a world inspired by the phrase “all the world is a stage”…what a sad stage indeed.



Which, I suppose in an attempt to wrap this into games, as I will need some kind of soundbite for my video related to video games and not just the mad babbling’s of what could be considered a therapeutically based moment of creative introspection, if you take the metaphysics of writing, and then put it on top of the metaphysics of games, and then involve that with the metaphysics of the self, along with the metaphysics of reality, and for the sake of sane brevity, I will leave it at those four specific mentions, though there is always room for one more with an endless etc attached to the notion, and then put them one on top of another, each layer representing a new context, you get this ridiculous metaphysical lasagna, one that continues to grow with each layer of metaphysics considered; the metaphysical lasagna of infinite context…just metaphysics all the way down, each and every added layer just one more piece of context helping to fill out the infinite grandeur of reality itself. Which is likely why I enjoy taking such complex ideas, and combining them with gems like Mina the Hollower, and appreciating their complexities together in one delicious thoughtful meal of appreciation.



Why else would I write titles like Mina the Hollower: Existential Dread Of Hedonistic Lament, The Metaphysical Field Of Divine Aestheticism, not forgetting Dying For Dialectics, and of course the piece de resistance Getting Off Daddy Ninty’s D (probably my best title ever.)

Time is up, which ends up working out ideally, as I just hit my 1000 word quota, too. As always, appreciate the support, and never forget that you’re doing your best, and it’s not your worst.

~Pashford