2025, dec 17 - dante's paradise

[droqen]

it's well past midnight, but anyway, this is about a memory of something that happened today (the 17th) and not today (the 18th). i have the strangest feeling that i want to remember. i was reading a couple of subreddits -- r/enfp and r/infp -- and i was getting kind of annoyed at both of them! when i read the subreddit that correponds to my partner i feel a lot of love and familiarity. but at both of these i felt an overwhelming sense of irritation. contempt, even.

who am i if i can't accept myself? what, after all, is "kill gameplay"? i have been playing angeline era and while i feel that ancient contempt i also think it's kind of nice to settle in to a screen and shoot some bugs. there is some room for one thing -- what is it, that noisy self-expression -- and that other, mindless thing. i don't have names for any of this, of course.

i forget the word that goes with "ludonarrative" at the moment but i'll say ludonarrative juxtaposition. it isn't that the people on these subreddits being themselves and sharing their thoughts are expressing a "narrative", but i became a little irate at something about this overwhelming flood of what i can only call expression. expression of emotions. expression of opinions. expression of desires. it all became too much and i thought what would i like to fill this void?

there must be some beauty in this world.

[droqen]

recently i posted this image on bluesky (you will have to click here to see it) and i have found myself looking back at it, because it also just so happens to be sitting on my computer desktop for some reason. the blue gears on the yellow background, that strange headstone-like shape, it entices me, it feels like the calm quiet ocean for which my "shut up, xnfps" brain yearns.

when i read the r/infp posts i thought, what self-absorbed pricks!

when i read the r/enfp posts i thought, what needy annoying babies!

that's me. they're both me, right? i'm a self-absorbed needy annoying baby. i think it's well and good to be a self-absorbed needy annoying baby now and then. i also like it when the people in my life allow themselves to be their strange bad selves. it's honesty, it's beautiful, it makes room for real acceptance. but who else am i? not just that.

i thought, i like to make people happy.

i also like to make people have other kinds of reactions but my favourite is when people are happy. that's life. moving through a series of... emotions... that old terrible definition of games, to say that games are a series of interesting decisions... interesting decisions but to what end?

when you make a decision, it marries prediction with action. we feel good when we predict well. and we feel good when we take action. we see the world, we change the world.

emotion. a life well-lived is comprised of a rich banquet of emotional experiences. the ones we like, the ones we don't. suppose that i like to make people happy, but i also believe that richness is important. all play and no work makes jack a dull boy. then, what?

i like having a loose grip on reality. i like these happy little accidents that occur. i like not taking too much responsibility over others. taken together, i feel like i could come back to you, creating you, handing you off to a player. you will be unkind to the players, and we will make them happy together. i'd like to make something like that.

[droqen]

beauty, honesty, freedom.
beauty, honesty, acceptance.

[droqen]

paradise and inferno.