Many years ago, I used to borderline self-annihilate with discipline. My mind would adhere to a set of goals in my head, a singular, cohesive vision of the way that I wanted things to be. Profusely and with obsessive fervor I would read multitudes of blog posts and books about productivity and discipline, believing that this would help me. I was one piece of information away from undergoing a complete transformation - or so it felt. I just had to keep digging deeper and deeper into this topic and continuously trying to live out what I had uncovered, and I would finally reach the happiness and fulfillment and control over myself that I so desired. With the clearest delineations possible, I’d finally be the ultimate force that I envisioned in my head.

((Have I mentioned that I’m a 3? If you know anything about the enneagram, it should be clear by now.))

There was a fantastical, mythical terminus point in my psyche that I could almost taste with each new concept that went through my sight, my hearing, my deadened heart.

A fool’s errand which, besides helping me out some in my career early on, brought me no closer to contentment. I was incredibly depressed when I wasn’t busy being unable to feel any human emotions besides stress, irritation, disappointment, and discontent.

There used to be a clear separation between the internet and non-digital-reality. It’s difficult to tell exactly when the convergence took place, but real life and the internet have been fused together in people’s consciousness.

There was a time when what was on the screen was “out there” and had nothing to do with you. Toxicity and opinions have always existed, but there was once more of a separation between this compartmentalized aspect of existence and one’s own life. There was a time when the masses as a whole seemed to shrug off the insanity they would see on a screen as a byproduct of the medium. But now, it’s a direct extension of people’s worlds and they are so tightly enmeshed in it they can’t escape. It has become their community and a replacement for social instinct. They’ve become fused.

Reading some of the ways that people react in forums and social media, I can’t help but feel that it’s an extension of their own physical space. It’s as if someone has barged into their house and is threatening them with violence when someone else states an opinion that differs from the imaginary boundaries of normality people are attaching to. I imagine them sitting there at their computer screen, adrenaline pumping through their veins as they stare at pixels. The pixels are stimulating chemicals in their brain; the brain cannot tell it’s fake. It’s a simulated catastrophe. It explains why people’s first reaction to anything out of the ordinary is to begin recording it with an item that’s now an extension of their own body as they dissociate from what’s really in front of them. They hide in a more familiar and comfortable medium.

People are asleep when they aren’t inhabiting their digital space. I see this as I drive by people eveyday who seem to be completely disconnected from reality, staring into the distance, almost drooling as they passively drive a multi-ton death machine.

I’m not entirely sure how this is going to come out given that I hardly remember the last time I wrote a review. There came a point where I no longer wanted to expose what was inside to the outside, including my own perception of whatever I was experiencing. Why bother? Finishing Requiem gave me reason to write a review again; it’s not very often I manage to finish a video game these days. Most of them are bland and I feel no desire to, I simply uninstall. Depression can’t be the sole cause of everything.

I remember when I played the first Plague Tale. It must’ve been back in October or November of 2019. I certainly remember that it was fall, at the very least. The game was so good that I’d think about it all day at work and then make my way home through the colorful leaves and crisp cool air to play it. I was enthralled, and I even noted on my last review that a game hasn’t captured me like that since I was a kid.

It is now October of 2023. Writing this, the feeling is coming up again. That there is no point to this. That I have nothing to say. Nothing substantive. The inclination comes up as I remember my past and how I felt at one point writing, and then before my finger even hits the first key, it collapses into nothingness. I become devoid of all desire to share my thoughts. Things are not what I thought they were. The inside cannot be exposed to the outside.

Noise cancelling headphones are not enough to block this world out. They are designed for low-frequency background noise, such as that of an airplane or a lawn mower. I’ve yet to own a pair that can cancel out the rancid cackling of voices. Or the sonorous landfill of modern music blasting at full volume while I sit at a cafe.