Year to Year: A Journal Through Time #21 – Aging is Not Decaying (11/6/19)

Recent headlines

World: Tory Leadership Contest feed (I still don’t agree with the idea of a new Tory leader becoming PM by default without a public vote)

Gaming: E3 2019: full games list, schedule and press conference recap (My highlights: Animal Crossing New Horizons, LEGO Star Wars, and Elden Ring)

I’ve been playing: Apex Legends, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey (I am addicted), Various PSVR Titles (more on that below).

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My generation have this terrible habit of aging themselves up for the sake of existential dread. I recall myself and countless others un-ironically lamenting the fact that we were old on our 21st birthdays. More commonly, it’s heard from people who are approaching thirty, and while that’s perhaps more understandable it is still, I think, overblown in relation to the ultimate timescale of our lives. But then, we’ll see how I feel about that statement six years from now.

I turned 24 the other day, and for the first few months of this year I was miserable about it. 24 sounds like a solid age for an adult to have their shit together, and I absolutely do not have my shit together. There’s many things I wanted to have done in my life by this point, and with each passing birthday I’ve been feeling more disheartened with the things I haven’t done. And no, this isn’t the blog post where I talk about an epiphany I’ve had which has changed my ability to sort my life out. But if you’ve been following this journal at all, hopefully you’ve had some idea as to the process of my mind these last few months. I’m in a healthier place, I think. I’m giving myself less shit and opening my mind to new ideas. I’m rediscovering my identity as a writer. And most relevant to this post, I no longer resent growing older.

In fact, one of the very triggers which sparked this renewed approach to life was a tweet, which I’ve since lost. It said something along the lines of the importance of embracing aging, as not everyone gets that choice. And that’s not a philosophy which is new to me; I had an English teacher who told us that he looked forward to greying, that he couldn’t wait to look in the mirror and realise he had crow’s feet. But something about this tweet, maybe the wording, maybe just the fact that I read it at the right time, it resonated with me. It forced me to look at myself and how much I was punishing myself for having wasted my life. It reminded me that I was 23. Not 83. Not 53. 23. And I’d grown so scared of becoming a bitter and resentful old man that I was risking becoming a bitter and resentful young man instead.

I was looking at my life on a scale of year dot to year eighty, and I was maximising the window of opportunity in previous years whilst minimising the entire scale of living in years to come. It sounds absurd, but looking back almost seemed like a further journey than looking forwards. And that is incredibly damaging to the human mind.

In an entirely different topic of conversation, I’ve got myself a VR headset and it’s only ruddy fantastic. I am overjoyed, and I am going to spend much of my week off exploring this new medium of gameplay and other experiences. So far I’ve faced down massive demons in DOOM VFR, begun my training as rhythmic Jedi in Beat Saber, explored my favourite single-player game of all time in Skyrim VR, and more. The future is awesome.

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Further reading

The Weekly Deathmatch #59 – DOOM VFR – Mother of Gore

Year to Year: A Journal Through Time #13 – Goodness Me (15/4/19)

Recent headlines

World: Notre-Dame Cathedral: Firefighters tackle blaze in Paris (This is happening as I type, and it’s a damn shame. I hope nobody gets hurt.)

Gaming: Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order – Release Date and Everything We Know (This should be out by the time this publishes, but with the gaming industry the way it is, a delay might be a blessing)

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(Skip this first paragraph if you’re still avoiding Game of Thrones Season 8 spoilers.)

I’m at my family reunion, and it’s safe to say that would should have been a long-awaited pleasant homecoming is instead fraught with tension. My sister keeps disappearing without a trace, nobody knows how to talk to act around my brother with his new disability, and my eldest brother and sister have fallen out over his new girlfriend, who’s also come over to stay. It doesn’t help that she’s brought her fully-grown dragons with her. And- wait a minute, I’m not a Stark. I’m just so incredibly invested in this show that I’ve forgotten what reality is.

That’s right, Game of Thrones is back, and I spent hours upon hours last night watching fan theory videos and deep dives into the lore of the World of Ice and Fire. The show is on its eighth and final season, and while future Kristian and possibly you, reader, know how it ends, the Kristian who is writing this does not, and is uncertain as to what a post-Thrones life even looks like. Hell, I’m listening to the soundtrack while writing this and Mother of Dragons from the second season just came on; the hairs on the back of my neck just stood up. This show has done a better job of exploring a living world of people and families and politics and war than any other piece of fiction that I’ve ever explored. Sometimes it’s easy to forget that it’s also home to dragons and zombies and wolfboys and giants.

Reality, however, persists around me, and as arduous as it is I suppose I’m along for the ride, so let’s focus on that. I’ve been focusing on putting more goodness into the world recently, by way of small favours sprinkled in with the occasional grander gesture. Thing is, this isn’t something I’ve decided to do consciously, it’s just something I noticed myself doing when looking back over the last few weeks. And it’s all a bit wanky to go on about it, so I won’t, but I do want to mention that the feeling of doing something good for another human being is a natural high that is actually quite addictive. When I was sixteen I wanted to save the world, and I often give myself shit for that; it was a dream born of a desire to be seen as someone important, as a hero figure, and therefore my positive outlook on life was forced, false and doomed to fail. This latest bout of good behaviour, for want of a better term, isn’t from a place of wanting to be seen in any particular way, but is simply built on the fact that it makes me feel like my life has that little bit more value. It’s still a selfish motivation when all is said and done, but a less delusional one. I’ll take it.

I think that, when I was younger, I was so obsessed with the idea of being remembered that I lost my way in fears of being forgotten, and of ceasing to exist. Having navigated my way through this existential crisis, however, I’m happier to just make a smaller impact on the here and now. It’s no great change in my lifestyle or some grand epiphany; I think it’s just an indication that I’m in a better place than I was in 2018. (Hoo boy. What a year.)

I was going to talk about Nintendo Labo VR after that but I think that would that tonal shift would give you whiplash, dear reader, but if you are interested in my thoughts, feel free to check out the Weekly Deathmatch episode about it below.

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Further reading

The Weekly Deathmatch #51 – Robot Roller Derby Disco Dodgeball – The Labo VR Ramble

Game of Thrones Season 8 Trailer – Hey, remember this? You probably wish you could go back in time to re-watch it with a blank memory. Meanwhile, I just wish I could watch the entire series at once. Wanna swap?

My Motivation

This is a fairly personal blog post that explores death and grief. Fair warning, it’s a positive message but if you’re not feeling up to these themes, spare yourself the read 🙂

Last year I discovered that for me, peace of mind came in the form of creating. Writing, recording, streaming, editing, anything that results in a digestible form of entertainment or otherwise narrative content gives me a feeling of satisfaction unmatched by all else. So far, I’m yet to accrue much of an outside audience, but that’s almost become secondary to the point by now. Personal project or global phenomenon, what matters is that my ideas, thoughts and feelings exist outside my own mind, and are available in other mediums for anyone to access.

If I’m being honest, this may well be what the other side of an existential crisis looks like. For some time I believed in an afterlife “out of necessity”, but I eventually found myself dedicating too much thought to the matter and discovered a fear of oblivion. Even when I grew to accept it by talking myself into the school of thought that there’s no point fearing something you won’t exist to experience, I’d still grown far too accustomed to the idea of my own mortality. Rarely a day goes by when I don’t consider death, the passage of time or the concept of age and decay, and that’s probably not healthy.

Regarding my creative resurgence, what changed me for the most part… and I hope anyone involved doesn’t mind me discussing this, but after my Nan’s funeral last year I heard lots of things about her earlier life that I never knew, and it inspired me. When I was sixteen I wanted to leave my mark on the world by saving it, and when I grew out of that fantasy I sort of… lost my spark. And while there’s certain aspirations I’ve still not quite recovered, people I’ve lost in life – my Mum, my Nan – have inspired me to make a mark on the world however I can, even if it’s just a small, personal one for those around me.

So I make dumb videos, but they’re about my week, and I know that in a few decades they’ll be worth more to me than they are now, and hopefully they’ll mean something to others. I tweet incessantly, knowing that every throwaway thought is archived – ten years’ worth, so far. But I write, I edit and I create nearly every day now, whittling away at the version of me that will remain when I’ve passed, hopefully a day very far from this one. For myself, for others, in memory of those I’ve lost and in defiance of the force of entropy.

There. That sounded impressive, didn’t it? Ooh, I’m quite pleased.