2025, dec 8 - beyond moral valence, what is kill gameplay?

[droqen]

when i was asked what i meant by kill gameplay i eventually defaulted to moral arguments.

i now think that i was wrong to do so. discussions of morality do have a place but in my notebook i can see that i have written, "can a murder be a work of art? // of course it can." the idea of defining and understanding art and what makes it--or anything--have a place in my heart has nothing to do with its morality.

but, it was easier to defend my position that way, than to say what i was really feeling at a deeper level. setting aside the weapon of moral judgement, what's my beef with, as i call it, "gameplay"? i think that answering this question will be very important to me, and the key word will be "interesting."

[droqen]

beyond moral valence, that is, beyond good and evil ((2003)), resides a plain and simple disinterest--a lack of engagement or desire to engage. it does not mean very much to say that there is a negative cost associated with playing games; there is a negative cost associated with doing anything at all! so my arguments along those lines can be thrown right out. of course there is a cost!!!

in this bleet i wrote, "[the initial statement] is straightforwardly and objectively false and all further statements built upon its foundation (either agreeing or disagreeing)  can therefore be instantly discarded . . ."

the important part is that all subsequent responses to a false statement cannot (necessarily) be retro-fitted to apply to reality if the initial statement must be revised. then, a torrent of noise can be quickly reduced to silence. i find this idea to be very peaceful.

i would like to refocus my energies on finding what interests me, what i want in my life. i apologize to myself and to all those who made subsidiary claims based on the idea that the 'cost' of gameplay is so high as to render it killable.

the cost is high. so what? a murder can be a work of art. that is not to say that artistic expression is more important than a human life. by that extreme claim i mean to remind myself that cost and benefit are not opposite sides of a scale.

i can love something and abhor it and recognize both.

the problem, the more interesting problem, is:

what is interesting?

how can i find what is most interesting?

i will pay the cost.

i am willing.

[droqen]

technically it is december 9th, now. but, i haven't slept yet. it is still today. that is how i define 'today'. am i still the same person as i was before midnight? yes, because we have not dreamt yet.

something that is still frightening to admit is that a lot of games lose my interest--they bore me. i feel a lot of guilt about this. why should i? but, i do. and my response to that guilt--that guilt that prevents me from saying straightforwardly "i'm bored of this"--has somehow been to bury it under what i have been calling the moral valence. good and evil. how ridiculous! how absurd that i would find it more frightening to say "this is boring" than to say "this is evil." and yet i do. or, at the time when i relied upon the moral valence, i did.

now, having understood the type of response that an argument of morality provokes, having tasted of the harvest of fighting for a moral valence, i think it is clearly worse than saying plainly, "i am not interested." i wonder, did i ever believe that gameplay was evil?

beyond moral valence, what is kill gameplay? gameplay is boring! or to release myself further from objective claims and submerge myself more deeply into my own subjectivity--honestly, how terrifying--

i'm bored of gameplay.

i'm bored of playing games.

i'm going to bed soon. that's it. no more of this. there are uncounted tomorrows to examine the findings of today. good night.

[droqen]

no.. no!! i'm still awake, let me make some revisions. "bored" doesn't capture it. i'm not interested in it. i'm compelled by gameplay for a short period of time, but quickly enough there is another mental process that catches up to what i'm doing, one that asks, am i... getting anything out of this? am i discovering something interesting? is there a sense of wonder? is there beauty? this process, or these processes, they all look at the gameplay and they go, eh. not really. not really!

beneath the moral valence there is some other process of rejection. or, as i say, possibly multiple processes?

i'm not used to having a process of rejection. it is new. (process in this case as in a psychic daemon, not a conscious procedure.)