Don't Forget to Breathe

I keep telling myself I'm going to post here way more than once every couple days, but I kind of don't want to run the risk of this turning into a less-functional Tumblr analog. I'm also extremely lazy, so, that probably also explains things a bit.

Pulled it together over the last few days enough to really get something out of the time I took off. Wednesday started off bad, but all in all, I was pretty much able to get some time to just disconnect from the bullshit of day to day living and chill out. Kept up my workout routine through too, which is often not the case when I take any length of time off work. I'm feeling pretty good all things considered, though I am already starting to dread going back to work on Monday. I’ve had some time to really digest my feelings about work during this mini-vacation, and I think I'm going to do something that might be pretty risky, and attempt to start talking to people about unionizing. It's a touchy subject in games, and people are often conditioned to put their passion before their well-being, but I've had too many conversations this past nine months or so that have told me that people are burned out, tired, and severely underappreciated. Like the song says, it has to somewhere, has to start sometime. 

I don't know if I really have the rizz to become a labor leader or anything, and I know if I pursue this I'll face retaliation from upstairs, but fuck it, I'm already miserable. Plus, it's not like they can fire me for trying to start a union, since that's protected by the law here. Not that my employer gives a shit about the law. Let's see what happens. Maybe I can't find any allies or anyone willing to put their necks out, maybe people are too indoctrinated by the corporate cult we work under. 

I also beat Nioh 3 and I think it's awesome. By and large, it's not super hard, but that last boss kicked my ass. I think it took me fifty, maybe sixty attempts, but finally beating him felt amazing. I got so close a couple times then choked at around 10%, and I was within probably a half-second of dying on the final attempt, but I got him. Doesn't have to be pretty, it just has to get the result. Maybe that's the lesson.

I had brushed it off for a few months now, but I think I have to admit to myself that I'm going through something of an existential crisis. I've dedicated my life to a specific thing and a specific industry in the goals of achieving some big, getting to do creative work with cool people, and not being miserable doing it. Instead, I found that the games industry - or, at least, my role in it - frankly sucks. My job is a dead end, awful pay, zero opportunity to work creatively, entire focused on live service and milking money from players. And for a while, I could kinda lie to myself, say it'd be fine, eventually something better would come along, but that's clearly not happening.

It's been a year since anyone else was interested in interviewing me, and it broke my heart when, as they put it, I was the "silver medalist". So I’m stuck here, trying to make the best of a shitty situation, but finding it’s only getting worse. Around six months ago the company started pushing us all super hard to use AI in everything we do. I'm totally against it, don't use it, and never will. I had thought most of my coworkers would feel the same, but between my boss trying to force it on me and people across the company gleefully turning it into the Thing That Does All Their Thinking, I've lost what little sense of purpose I still had.

I've started branching out in looking for jobs outside games. I think I'd like to work in environmentalism, or something. Maybe even get into politics a little. I'd love to volunteer with the local green-left, but, as I don't speak the local language very well, I don't know if that's possible. I just feel called to do something meaningful, because clearly, what I'm doing isn't filling the hole in my soul that I wanted it to. I don't know that I can sit around and watch data centers destroying the environment in service of infinite profit and not do something.

I may never have a kid, but I want there to be something for the next generation. We're going extinct, and we've gotta try to stop it. I feel torn between total doomerism and the need to stand and fight for a better future. 

Maybe I should play Final Fantasy VII again.

This week has been such a drain, and it's only Tuesday.

Work sucks, it's so incredibly toxic and stressful, and trying to manage a group of people who all hate each other's guts just leaves me wiped out by the middle of the day. It's really easy to see why the colleague I replaced on this team was so desperate to get out and move to another project; every day these guys are at each other's throats, complaining about everything the others are doing, and in some cases, actively trying to get each other fired. I'm miserable, underpaid, overworked, and desperate for a way out. I don't know where that's gonna come from, though. I took Wednesday-Friday next week off, can't wait for a nice long weekend.

Been distracting myself with Nioh 3. My copy came on Friday, a week before it actually releases, and I've been totally devouring it in my free time. I'm having a great time with it, though I could see it being pretty divisive. It's way too easy for a soulslike, and the nature of it being an open world game means that, if you do really any exploring at all, you're perpetually way overlevelled. I'm around fifteen hours in and just mowing enemies down. My most recent boss fight lasted all of around 15 seconds. You pop your transformation meter, melt the boss to half health, get the stagger, hit your finisher and then rush them down for the rest. In a genre that prides itself on the "git gud" mentality, I think a lot of people will be pretty unhappy. It does feel incredible, though. I've been running a tonfa/spear build and it's so much fun.

As much as I'm loving it though, I think I need to get away from a screen for a few hours tonight. Mind needs a break, I need to de-stress.