Two Thousand and Fourteen

A slightly rambling and self-focused post incoming:

I'm not really one for New Year's Resolutions, but I wanted to have a quick run through my plans for the year. I didn't exactly come out and announce it, but I always intended for 2013 to be a year of change for me. Specifically I intended for it to be a year where I focused on self-improvement, and I honestly think I made some real progress. It was my year of things I wanted to stop doing, for example:

• Early in the year I stopped drinking soft drink, specifically Coke, but I included all soft drink to avoid moving my vice over to an alternative. Which I would have done. Because I have no willpower to resist a loophole.
• I became vegan, I'm no longer eating any animal products, and as my other products wear out (such as my shoes, shampoo, dish washing liquid, etc.) I'm making sure they're replaced with cruelty free variants, if they weren't already.
• Aside from those specifics, I'm trying to eat better in general. So I've stopped eating as much bad food.
• I stopped referring to myself as a gamer. Or at very least I'm trying to, unfortunately it's still a useful label, I do play a lot of video games, but it's not a label I'm particularly fond of any more. To be clear, I'm not ashamed of my hobbies, but I am ashamed of some of the frankly awful human beings who also identify as gamers. Homophobia, misogyny, racism, close-mindedness and wilful ignorance run rampant through the whole culture and I'm sick to death of it. I have an entire post dedicated to this bubbling away, which may or may not appear at some point in the future.
• I tried to stop letting my social anxieties steer my actions. I stopped putting it off and caught up with some old friends. I didn't let my fears stop me from making some new ones. I spent as much time as I felt comfortable socialising; when I'd had enough, I let people know, returned home and recharged. Embracing my introversion has ironically let me push my social limits a bit, since I know those limits are there, and knowing is half the battle. I'm sure my social skills could still do with some work, but I've improved a lot.

So I've got a huge list of things I'm no longer doing. And that's great! But as anyone who knows me is aware, I'm the master of not doing things. So I intend for 2014 to be a year of self-improvement as well, specifically this year, I'm going to focus on the things I should be doing. 2013 was about clearing the slate, 2014 will be about building myself back up again. More examples:

• Learning to cook, or at least the basics. I've never enjoyed cooking much, but learning the basics could be useful and I do enjoy it occasionally when I'm creating something a little bit left-of-centre (like my world-famous chocolate cake in a mug).
• Getting fit - Exercise! - I've already started this, I'm going to try for at least half an hour each day, and that's on top of the 40 minutes I walk already per day to get to and from work. I've already spoken about this on Facebook, specifically I need to be in shape by November this year to play the part of Dante at PAX. Which is going to be embarrassing...
• I'm going to do things that embarrass me! More than anything else I fear failure and embarrassment, and it needs to end. Experience comes from failure, so logically I can't experience much if I'm too afraid of failing to even try things. 
• I'm going to keep socialising. I recognise my limits, and I'm happy to let people know when I need alone time, but when I feel like spending time with other people, I will pick up the phone and make plans.
• Try to find my creative side again. I love art. I love reading and writing. I love movies, cinema and theatre. Besides watching entirely too many TV shows, I don't really engage in activities related to any of the above with any real frequency. I occasionally scratch away at the painting I've been working on for months or catch a movie in cinema, but that's about it. This is going to be one I'll struggle with a bit, but I've found it's best to be flexible. If I don't feel like doing art, I'll write something, if I don't feel like that, I'll watch a movie or read a book. My current plan is to start watching some classic cinema that I've missed out on over the years (I started with Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds, it was a great movie!)

And so on and so forth, I'm sure some other things will occur to me as the year goes on. I've already made some progress on all the above, much of it started last year in reality - I'm trying to stick to my themes here - but I plan on focusing on those points this year. That's it really, just wanted it down in writing. Wish me luck!

Pokemon and Veganism

   I recently grabbed a shiny new 3DS XL and a copy of Pokemon Y (I chose Y because I have a Y chromosome and I'm part of Generation Y, which seemed like good enough reasons at the time. Plus Pokemon X sounds like the title of a bad horror film). It's the first Pokemon title I've ever played, and I'm a bit glad that I've held off playing any Pokemon games until now, it means that I'm coming at the game with a fresh perspective that's currently running through the filter of a newly minted vegan.

   Before I started experimenting with veganism, even way back in my early teen years when Pokemon was first becoming a big deal, it always gave me a creepy sort of animal fighting vibe. Which isn't a problem itself, I have no problem with games featuring morally reprehensible elements, for the purposes of artistic merit, or just because taboo subjects can be fun. I'm extremely good at separating fantasy from reality, and a person who's familiar with how ethical a person I am might be surprised at the almost paradoxical way I love games that feature questionable content. I'm currently playing Grand Theft Auto V (that's a Roman 5, not the letter V; thanks for muddying that particular water Pokemon), it's as morally reprehensible as a game can be. It's also a crap load of fun. The only thing I feel when I accidentally run down a pedestrian in the game is the slight rumble of my Dual Shock controller. It's a silly game, and it encourages the (adult) player to act and feel equally silly. Some games with adult content take a different tack and challenge the player with some very pointed moral questions, such as the incredible Spec Ops: The Line. But these are adult games with adult ratings, they certainly aren't for children. Pokemon is a PG rated game, marketed at and sold in huge quantities to children. Honestly, I'm not sure how I feel about that just yet, and I might have more on that later...

   For now, I'm enjoying Pokemon Y in a way that was probably not intended by the designers. I'm getting a delightfully perverse sense of entertainment out of completely misinterpreting the light and joyful atmosphere of the Pokemon world as the saccharine shell over a morally corrupt dystopia. I'm role-playing a complete bastard! An entitled little brat who wants to "Catch 'em all" at any cost, the only way to earn a modicum of respect in the Pokemon world. I'm viewing the NPCs as desperate people surviving in an economy entirely focused on the utility of the monsters they share their world with. Deluding themselves into thinking that the creatures they enslave are their "Friends", when the beasts would like nothing more than to tear the throats out of their captors and escape, if only the compulsive powers of that most nightmarish of devices, the Pokeball, would let them. The usual RPG idiosyncrasies, such as people parroting the same thing over and over only support the image of a mad world on the brink of collapse. The strange children who I've seen a few of now, who all walk around a small area in a square pattern for seemingly hours at a time are clearly the victims of a terrible illness of the mind, perhaps driven mad by the dark realities of the hell they live in.

   Okay, so I might have a bit of a dark sense of humour! I might be observing and enjoying satire where none is intended, but I think it's valuable to examine the media we consume from many different angles. The Pokemon brand has been around long enough that a fresh perspective is probably hard to come by. Especially when the person providing the perspective is experimenting with an ideology that finds the concept of animal slavery as a great unexamined evil of modern times.

  I might have more on this subject later. This was a bit rambly and aimless, but I'm finding the whole endeavour pretty interesting, so I expect I'll have some more focused thoughts later.

Bloggin'

Blog stuff may or may not appear here in the future. It's basically here to catch any spill-off that doesn't fit into my Facebook posts. Time will tell if any of that actually reaches here.