Sagrado Concepto
2019 June 01A note from current day (October 2024):
Originally written in June 2019, Sagrado Concepto is the quintessential work outlining the meaning/purpose of life I had discovered for myself during 2017~2019. Little did I know this very meaning/purpose of life would be smashed to bits and completely disappear 3 months later. Still, this work is one of the few pieces that survived that era and it gives the best insight into what mindset I had at the time.
Unlike the previous… erm, post? article? None of these words fit the description of “that” thing because all of them spread their labelling specificity. Even something like “post”. That is why I am going to call all these things I write “clusters of words”. For this kind of phrasing avoids any simulacra. At least in my mind.
Anyways, unlike the previous “cluster of words”, this one does not aim to tackle the concept of “enjoyment” in a relatively complete way.
Yes, I do think the previous “cluster of words” reconstructed the answer to the question of why I watch walkthroughs and let’s plays in a reasonably comprehensive way. Yes, a bit messy. Yes, omitting many details. But it captured the essence.
However, this “cluster of words” won’t even make such an attempt because… the concept of “enjoyment” in my system of values is far, far too complex. It is impossible to cover it fully. And therefore it is impossible to reconstruct it. That is why this post is more akin to random words thrown together. Dancing to the tune of the firefly of my mind.
…I’m not sure myself when it happened. But — as I said in one of my New Year’s Posts (I guess the last one?) — it was inevitable. I don’t want to admit that circumstances dictated the result, but the fact is that the outcome, the state of things we have in front of ourselves right now was inevitable.
When I entered University H to study sociology — at exactly that very moment my next four years of life were determined down to the smallest detail. With a few exceptions, which we are not interested in today.
It is easy to get by in my university. I have too much free time. Which I could spend on doing something useful. For example, get a part-time job. Or learn a new skill.
But there is one critical point at play here — I am a bit lazy and more often than not prefer to take the path of least resistance. “More often than not” is probably an understatement. Always, when there is an opportunity. And in the second half of 2016, when I just started university, I realised pretty quickly that the ideal pastime in the train is watching anime and playing video games [editor’s note: the everyday commute to the university was more than one hour one-way]. It was inevitable. Quite soon, this way of passing time entered my other spheres of life, including how I spent my time at home. ...It even begs a silly question. What was I doing in the second half of 2016? I think I was still a Zero Escape fan back then... and had just started an online community called NB (which later bifurcated). Ugh, I don't even want to remember that time, lol. There wasn't much good. As far as I'm concerned.
However, despite all the negative aspects, I cannot help but recognize that 2016 was a fundamental and seminal year. In many ways.
It was followed by 2017. One of the best years of my life so far. In fact, enough has been said about it in both New Year's Posts [editor’s note: 2017 New Year Post and 2018 New Year Post, respectively]. I'll just note that at the end of 2017, I still felt lost. Didn't know where to put myself and such. Not in terms of ‘what to do after university’ (that's still unclear), but in terms of... the meaning of life?
2018 is another one of the best years of my life. And how ironic it is that it's not 2018, but 2017 that was filled with ‘pure enjoyment’. For it wasn't until 2018 that I discovered myself. At what point — I'm not sure myself. Probably somewhere in the middle of the year the sprout started to show itself out of the ground. It was a very long process, taking place purely on a subconscious level.
It was only near the end of the year that I started to understand the situation and ‘what was going on’. Another ironic fact is that in the 2018 New Year's Post the word ‘enjoyment’ was mentioned only three times (and there are more than seven thousand words there). Meaning I couldn't put it into words just yet. There have been attempts, yes. Very close ones at that. But all of them are irrelevant at the moment.
It is only now in 2019 that I can clearly say. Say that I have found the meaning/purpose of my life. It happened back in 2018, but I can only communicate it right here right now.
- I find the meaning/purpose of my life in my own happiness.
- My own happiness is to get pleasure and enjoyment.
- I get those two emotions through watching anime and walkthroughs and playing video games.
That’s it.
The above emotions represent the ‘sufficient conditions’ of my happiness. They do not include ‘necessary conditions.’ The latter include such things as a roof over my head, food for every day, clothes to wear, as well as some more amorphous things like having enough money to live on, socialising and others.
…
………
I’m serious (laughing).
I want to live my whole life this way. Until the day I die.
Yes, there are side factors to consider, like my covers and possible future family. And we can talk about them a little bit.
Covers…
I love making covers. I get enjoyment out of it. From the very process. And from the fact that other people enjoy it too. The process itself is one of the best time-killers for me.
This, by the way, is where the rather high-flown argument that... covers are what will remain after my death can be added. At least, I hope they'll still be relevant. But my contribution to the happiness of others has already been made and it still hasn’t stopped. Yeah, it's a real self-esteem booster. In such an… adequate equivalent. But I don't really think about it, because, once again, I enjoy the process itself.
And, honestly, I'd like to keep making covers for as long as I want to do it myself. Music and performing... have infiltrated my life in such a way that I will constantly seek them out. In all sorts of different ways. And I don't think that's going to change.
Speaking about the family, the answer is very short. I don't want kids. I don't want them at all. I do not like children. But I want to find a life partner (preferably female, and if male, it should be only at the level of ‘best friends’ without the slightest hint of gayness). I want to find one because it's easier when there are two people. My brother is living proof of that. I'm lucky with him that we have quite a few common interests and understand each other well. And… it's his presence, talking to him, joking with him and everything, that kind of unloads my life emotionally. I need someone to be there for me. Fortunately, at the moment, I have enough people who support me in that regard. But without them... I piously believe I would go insane. If I live alone. There is sad proof of this, which I may someday tell you about.
The two points above can be added to the concept of happiness in my life. Some portion to ‘necessary conditions’, some to ‘sufficient’.
…
…………
I don’t even know what else to say.
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Let's talk about types of enjoyment. In one of the paragraphs above, I mentioned such a thing as “pure enjoyment”. What does it mean? In short, zero necessity. It is related to the Cultural Plan, but not in a direct way. In fact, it related to it in the opposite way.
Let me explain. The bigger the reason I play a game because it relates to the Cultural Plan, the higher the necessity. The highest level of necessity is in games that I think every gamer should play through. In this case, enjoyment... takes a very specific form, which is formed by pouring it into the vessel of success.
“Pure enjoyment” implies zero necessity. I get this kind of enjoyment from watching any anime (there are a couple of controversial ones I've watched for my previously teased future game — but they're so few that they can ignored). I've also been enjoying this sort of thing all of 2017. But as the Culture Plan started to take shape, I started getting more than just ‘pure’ enjoyment.
There's an important remark to make, by the way. ‘Pure enjoyment’ implies a very high degree of randomness. That is, when you completely give yourself over to the wave, you start playing one game because you saw beautiful art, but you interrupt it halfway through, start another game because you heard that it has a great story, interrupt this one, start watching some anime for other reasons, and so on and so forth. It all has a reasonable limit and it's quite hard to discuss. What is important is that there has to be randomness. But not intentional one, because in that case it loses its meaning.
Yes... yes, I do mean to say that ideally I would like to get exclusively ‘pure enjoyment’ all my life. But, at the moment, it's very hard for me to go against my ambitions, so I'll just get both.
Let's stop here for now.
I want to talk more about experience devaluation, which is a fairly complex concept that I've been looking for a long, long time and I just recently found it. It goes back beyond 2017. But I'll talk about it next time.
Other than that, I want to say more words about myself - general words about the last three years, and what I'm looking forward to for the future ahead.
I'm not sure yet if the next post will be the last and if it will bring everything together and if it will be posted here at all.... But... yeah.
