Dilution of the self-will

[ZeaLitY]

I've been experiencing something unsavory for the last few days and meditating on it. Recently, I decided to move forward with a personal project that I had been deliberating on for over a year. However, I also started my playthrough of Final Fantasy 8. I take these things seriously, since there's a lot of good inspiration to derive from high quality game plots and characters. However, the project's progress has been since halted, and I fear it's from the short-term pleasure the game is granting me.

This is part of a larger issue. Sometimes, I worry that a relatively easy life afforded to me now is preventing me from actualizing and seeking something better. Short-term pleasure seems to cloud the perception and dilute the self-will. Don't read this as an appeal of aesceticism; that's not where I'm going. Rather, I just worry about this. When I suffer a major loss, I experience a redoubling of efforts and sharpening of focus. But when time wears on with little hardship, things run together and the rigidity of finishing projects and creating new ones dissolves into a mesh of simple maintenance. Perhaps this is a common theme, comparable to people "waking up" in quarter or mid-life crises, or for you anime fans, the waking up of COWBOY BEBOP SPOILER Spike to finally resolve the situation with Julia. That waking up is the hard part.

I want to affirm the ability to "wake up" the self-will through self-will, and deny the opposite stance's eventual conclusion that creativity is stunted in the absence of stimulation. Anyway, I hate quasi-philosophical rants like hell, mainly because I come back months later and think "whoa, I was weak", or in the case of ones written by others, they're emo or circularly depressing to begin with. Felt impressed to make this thread, though.

[Burning Zeppelin]

Though most games are short term pleasures, I believe Final Fantasy is something that sticks with you for a long time, especially the PSX ones.

[Legend of the Past]

Well, I'm not sure what you're trying to ask, question or state here. To me it seemed you're worried about your struggle about the stability and way of your life, but otherwise, I'm not quite certain what you were trying to convey with these posts-yes, Video Games are short term pleasures, but those short-term pleasures accumulate-eventually, when you DO look back at your life, you won't have to look back to a life of work, sleep, work more and sleep more. You'll be able to see you spiced up your life with intresting content, like Naruto, FFVII, Cowboy Bebop or Chrono Cross. Your life are a bit richer, even if it is rich with 'shallow' short term pleasures. Eventually, you'll be able to look back at your life on the moment of your death, and think to yourself: 'Boy, what a ride this was', and ponder at the variety of rich things you experienced-books you read, games you played, people you met and achievements you've accomplished. Sure, you can focus your life on bigger, richer things. You certainly could find some rich book to read instead of FF8, or make some incredibly discovery instead of watching that game on TV... But at times, you need to vary your life from the less 'rich' to the more, because I've come to realized that everything, be it book, anime or TV show often try to convey some message, and if you can soak up as much useful information as you can, I think that's one way. Never abandon what matters, but also, don't neglect those things that don't, because they enrich our lives.

Well, at least that's my two cents. Hoping I wasn't totally BSing here.

[Burning Zeppelin]

Yes, there is that. But, you can enrich your life by going outside your comfort zone, and battling your demons. We all know the rush of joy and pride, and quite often exhiliration when we do something we thought we'd never do, like Bungie Jump or feed or shark or something.