Oops, I'm a week late again, which means I gotta do another makeup. Though the reason this time isn't necessarily due to bad screen addiction habbits (though that is still part of the problem), but mainly it's been due to my struggle with my math classes this semester. Don't get me wrong, the stuff taught in those classes are really cool and I hope I'll be able to use the material for future cool stuff. However, the homework is brutal, and the concepts are hard to wrap my head around. The concepts in Linear Algebra actually aren't all that hard to understand, just the homework is tedious, but Number Theory is a struggle, at least for me. It's my first proof based math course other than discrete math (which was more about writing the proof than worrying about the substance of the proof), which is probably why I'm having such a hard time with it. So many of the things we have to prove on the homework seem obvious, but then when you try to prove it, you realize you actually understand NOTHING. You are a small feable and weak human being who has no actual understanding of the world you live in. You never actually evolved past the neanderthal who thought fighting that bear was a good idea.

That's how I feel anyway, but it's working out for now. Thought I have realized that I need to change my lifestyle up a bit to keep up with all the work I'll be getting this semester. I will always have this website here as something to work on, but I can't guarantee I'll make actual progress on it for a verrry long time. I'm just too busy. So sadly I won't be able to fully fix that one animation thing on the front page of this website any time soon, which is a shame cus I think it will be quite cool when it's finished. I will say I underestimated how long it would take to make that thang, and there were so many edge cases I didn't account for. Tho hey, you live you learn.

Well I'm back to school. My first class is in an hour and a half. Honestly while I can't say I'm brimming with excitement, I am looking forward to all my classes. Regarding how my break went overall, I'd say it went pretty well. I got some quality time with my girlfriend, started some new habits that should help me in the long run, and got wayyyy too many games. I'm now laughing at a version of my past self who would complain often that there were no games he liked. Man I'm having the opposite problem now. There are TOO MANY games that I like and its causing indecision. Not only that but I have several games I'm really excited about releasing this year, and I swear cool updates are happening every month for games I already own.

I typically play video games as a completionist but omg there's just no way for me to beat any of these games, which is funny because I usually have the unhealthy mindset of wanting to 100% a game I like when I play it. This is just straight up impossible now for almost all of my games, but hey maybe that's a good thing. The only game where I'm close to 100% now is Terraria of which I have two achievements left that would take me probably 3 real life days to complete (for nerds those achievements are purifying the world and 200 angler's quests).

In summary, havin a good time.

While I do wanna make a continuation of my liminal space rant and talk about the new year, there's something bothering me to the point that I can't sleep and I really need to get it off my chest.

I've been watching the show "Stranger Things" ever since season 2 came out and I love each and every season that I've seen. Now I saw the final episode of the show on New Year's day which is one day after the episode came out. Prior to seeing the final episode, I saw a lot of people online saying they were extremely disappointed with their viewing. I saw many comments saying "there were no stakes to this episode!", "they were too afraid to kill any of the characters!", "the overall conclusion was extremely unsatisfying!", "they spent too much time on closure for each character!", "the dialogue was lazy!".

I'm typically not the kind of person to immediately go against majority opinion. This is why I went into my viewing of the final episode with a feeling of dread, thinking that I'd see most if not all of those complaints on screen. Then I actually watched the episode, and in my opinion, it was fucking amazing. Not perfect, but really well done.

I know that not everyone will enjoy a particular show, even if it is extremely popular. I know people that just find Stranger Things boring and would prefer to watch something else. This is fine. But oh my god why do so many people on the internet just have to complain about NOTHING! I know internet beef has always been stupid and petty, but man I've either become much more aware of the scale of it, or it has gotten so much worse in recent years. Now I'm not gonna defend every complaint against the final episode of Stranger Things. Yes, the dialogue is very weird and mechanical in some scenes. Yes, Vecna could have used more backstory and closure. Though there were also so many lines of dialogue that felt extremely meaningful and made for great character interaction and plot development. Like dude multiple scenes made me cry because of how impactful they were.

Also it just made me mad when people complained about not enough people dying and each main character having too much plot armor. Like, have any of ya'll consumed a piece of fiction other than Game of Thrones before?? Did any of you guys consider that Stranger Things is literally rated TV-14??? This ain't gonna be you're extremely dark horror flick, and stop pretending like it ever was. Stranger Things was always fantastical and unrealistic. I swear people just like to pretend every thing is constantly getting worse so they can feel better waddling in their depression. I get that so many things are going wrong in the world right now, but Stranger Things just isn't one of them.

Of course people are allowed to have their own opinion about the final episode, but I do wonder if all these complaints are actually people's opinions. This is just conjecture, but I think this is a classic case of "people like to hate on popular thing." While some of their reasons may be valid, I doubt a lot of people hate on Stranger Things because they actually didn't like watching the final episode, but just because they wanted to join in on a hate train. I get it, it's fun to collectively dunk on things. This is why I watch too many monotone video essays. Though I think it's much healthier to dunk on actual real world problems than a show that's supposed to make you feel happier.

The reason I'm writing all of this now and not just holding it in like a real man is because I just had the same problem with the show "Pluribus." Granted I have not yet finished the show, I am in the middle of episode 4. However, I have really enjoyed what I have watched until now, and just as a little break from watching I took to the internet to see what people thought about it.

For a little context, the creator of Pluribus is Vince Gilligan who also created both "Breaking Bad" and its spin-off "Better Call Saul". I loved both of these shows and so did many others. I know many people who loved Better Call Saul specifically for its slow burn nature. That, while slow, the show needed that pace to tell the amazing story it wanted to tell. Of course there are many people who don't like watching slow burns, and so what did these people do? Did they complain? Some did, but most just didn't watch it.

When I looked online to see what people thought about Pluribus, the first thing I saw was a popular article critizing the show for being too slow and "a drag". Honestly I was confused. Sure some scenes take a minute to develop, but the show overall is MUCH faster than Better Call Saul. From my brief scrolling, I found that the main complaint about Pluribus is that it has a slow pace for no reason. In other words, it wastes your time. I found these comments absurd because I personally felt meaning in every scene that was performed. I saw no dead space, I didn't even know there was a slow pace. I was gripped by my anticipation and interest every second of the show. Yes, the main character does spend like over a minute opening a box, and it does sound boring when you put it that way. Now consider that the main character is miserable because everyone she knows and loves is gone including her partner which have all been functionally replaced by a god super entity hivemind thing. The main character while arriving home in a continued despair finds that there is mail addressed to her from before the god hivemind replacement took place. While opening the package addressed to her she is thinking many things. "Is this real?" "Is this from someone I knew?" "If so is this the last time I'll ever be able to interact with them?" "Is this another lie to make be complacent by the god hivemind thing?" It's somewhat slow, but it's a very powerful moment.

I'm starting to lose steam, which is probably a good thing, so I'll end with this. Don't just hate something because a lot of other people do. Experience the thing for yourself, make your own conclusions using that big head of yours and find something that you actually enjoy. Because the internet sometimes convinces you that there is nothing to like in this world.

While I did say in my previous post that nothing crazy happened during my holiday ventures as of yet, there was a quote I heard that really resonated with me that I just feel I have to share. During my family trip, we went to the Houston Space Center which displayed a short movie advertising the Artemis program and the mission back to the moon. The movie was very well made and did a good job with conveying its themes of hope, courage, and excitement. Much of the movie was an overview of the Apollo program, and how important and inspirational it was and still is. I was very disappointed that nowhere in the movie is it mentioned that the Apollo program was heavily motivated by competition with the Soviets. I feel leaving out a big part of the story diminishes the effect of your overall message but maybe that's my cynical reddit athiest ass talking.

Anyways, in the middle of the Apollo program overview they included an excerpt from JFK's speech, "We choose to go to the moon" which I really enjoyed. This is the quote:

"But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas? We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too."

I think I enjoyed this quote so much because it articulated a feeling I have regarding some of my motivations that I wasn't able to articulate prior. Of course, the quote is a bit too grandiose for my liking (though needed for its time). Like, I'm not gonna stake my entire life on winning anything particular. However, that specific quote that we choose to do some things—"not because they are easy, but because they are hard," really put some of motivations into perspective regarding things like my educational goals and honestly how I play video games. I mean honestly it's a simple concept, but the wording really makes it stick in my head and I've been enjoying the ponderings that have resulted from it.

I just got back from a Christmas vacation trip with my immediate family and I'm feeling pretty great mentally right now. Physically I feel awful because I got some kind of illness, though I'm the most optimistic right now than I've been for a while. I've come to a lot of realizations about myself and some of my actual motivations recently, and while I've also had horrid moments of extreme existential dread, overall I'm much more optimistic and much less delusional than I was a year ago. It's progress, and that's all that matters.

So far the holiday season has been enjoyable. Like I said in a previous entry, I love the Christmas atmosphere, and I've had a pretty good time soaking it up. Nothing crazy good or bad has happened, which I'd say is pretty nice. I think the most enjoyable times for a human being are found in times of uneventfulness. A lot of people have probably been saying this for a really long time, but especially recently I've heard a lot of people saying to "enjoy the little things" which I do agree with. However, you can only do this if you're experiencing no extreme highs or lows in your life. Enjoying the little things from what I've seen is a privileged experience, but I'm very glad I get to experience it now.

Experiencing this has really helped with developing my optimism and my mind hasn't felt this clear since I was like 5. My cynical reddit atheist ass has been fading and I've found myself enjoying hobbies like gaming and programming more and more. I'll never have a perfect relationship with either, but I definitely feel healthier regarding my partaking in them.

A weird hobby I've begun to practice recently is collecting odd images that evoke a strong emotional response within me. These images are specficially images of empty settings/environments, and normally they are referred to as liminal spaces. Liminal spaces have been pretty popular online, and I've seen many an online thread discussing them, along with a bucket full of youtube videos. In many of the online groups and videos I've seen discussing liminal spaces, they often try to attach a strict definition to them. This is in effort to analyze them more scientifically to really ascertain why these images incite these strong feelings within us. I've often found myself disappointed by these definitions. Not necessarily because I find them to be wrong (although I do disagree with many of the definitions), but I feel a definition misses the point.

When I look at a liminal space that resonates with me, my mind is flooded with a ton of different possibilities. I'm thinking of all the past environments I've seen that are similar, I'm thinking about the environment around the image that is excluded, and above all I'm thinking about how I would interact with the image if I was in it. My mind gamifies what I see and I take pleasure in playing out different scenarios regarding what properties objects in the image might have. For example, if I'm provided an image of a liminal fancy restaurant, I'm often imagining myself performing some series of tasks in order to have food appear in front me despite there being no one else present. The actions don't even have to be paranormal or mystical. Sometimes I just imagine myself sitting within a liminal space while looking out and appreciating the view.

Sure I do get a lot of nostalgia from a lot of the images I've saved, though the strongest emotions I get are from adding my own content to them. I feel this is a big reason why the backroom's wikis blew up in the way they did. Being able to gamify these weird spaces that are in great need of context is a wonderful feeling. It's a great mental excercise that allows you to ponder all your previous experiences with the details of a space and really explore your creativity. The one thing I personally don't like with a lot of the backroom's interpretations are their focus on horror and monsters. Of course that's how the backrooms originated, but I've always felt the backroom's were much more interesting as a tool for environment building and gamification rather than survival horror. Not to say the horror elements of the backrooms aren't fun and cool, but I personally believe the backrooms would be much more interesting if it focused on horror way less. Horror as a recurring motif? Sure! Horror as a constant focus? No!! In my opinion, the backrooms are so much cooler if you removed 99% of the monsters. Some are still neat tho.

(Also sidenote but I also think formatting the wikis as SCP styled research documents is extremely lame and boring. If you want to read really cool lore about monsters and secret organizations, just read SCP. I think a big reason why I don't like the backrooms wikis as much as I want to is because they try too hard to be like SCP, when the backrooms is a fundamentally different idea.)

Of course I probably don't see liminal spaces the same way other people do. We all value different things in different ways and so I don't expect anyone reading this to agree with my take. I feel this especially because I showed a liminal space video essay to my dad (specifically the one by Solar Sands) and he was confused and bored the entire time because he didn't feel anything looking at the images. All in all, this is why I've started to build up a collection and maybe at some point I'll display them somewhere here!

Oops I already failed my once a week rule. My excuse is that it was the week before finals week and I got really stressed and procrastinated waaayyy too much. Though excuses are excuses, so I'll be writing an extra entry either later today or tomorrow to make up for it.

To change up the mood with how draining my last entry is to read, I wanna talk about what I'm currently hopeful for. Currently it is almost four in the morning, and around 7 hours ago I submitted my final stupid ass assignment for my fall semester. This means I have almost a month break until the next semester starts up, and I'm actually really excited for my classes in the spring. One of them is linear algebra, meaning I'll hopefully be able to get shit working in 3d properly with vectors and all that. My main win for the spring semester is that there will be no bad intro classes for my major, meaning there will be no dumb essays or god awful group projects where everyone just wanted to use AI. I mean if I'm talking about things I'm REALLY hopeful for, it's that the AI bubble explodes into sunshine and rainbows. Though thats a rant for a different day, and probably one I will never get into here.

Since I now have a month off from bullshittery, I'm really excited to start working on my REAL hobbies again that aren't just fake gaming and consuming content. I've started learning the basics of OpenGL which has been really eye opening and actually extremely fun to learn about. It's definitely a much easier experience than trying to learn Vulkan which I attempted last semester. To be clear, OpenGL and Vulkan are both graphics APIs, though Vulkan gives the programmer much more access and control over what the GPU does, and lower abstraction means I have no idea what the fuck is going on. I might learn Vulkan one day if I get really into using OpenGL and want more GPU control, but for now I'm having a blast with just OpenGL.

Besides programming and school, there is something not known to be boring that I'm so so so excited about which is CHRISTMAS!! Call me basic and unoriginal but for me it's by far the best holiday. I love darker and colder days. I love creative lighting. I love interacting with family and friends (that I like) that aren't as stressed as they usually are. I love jazzy older songs. I love how everything seems like it has a soul again. And oh my god I love sitting on a couch with several blankets in front of a crackling fire with a full mug of hot chocolate listening to Jingle Bell Rock. Christmas just has the exact kind of atmosphere that I live for. It's not even necessarily that I feel like a kid again, I just feel so at peace... with everything. All the anxiety, worry, stress, and hate just all seem to fade away. With my overwhelming urge to keep praising Christmas, suffice it to say that I'm going to have a good time this next month.

And if you're reading this I hope you will have a wonderful time too!!

Before I talk about the subject in the header I want to talk about why I am creating this blog. It's simply because I've heard that it's healthy to journal about things in your life, and I've been wanting to make some lifestyle changes. I started this website as both a milestone and a promise for further self improvement. This blog is basically a kind of next step in that journey. I'm not sure yet whether this will be a daily thing, but I definitely want to add an entry weekly. Whether it's about something big I'm struggling with or simply something I found interesting.

Now about today's topic, addiction. When I talk about addiction, I'm not referring to how it's talked about normally. Typically when someone goes on about their struggles with addiction, it's in the context of drugs, alcohol, gambling, and/or sex. I'm very lucky in the sense that I haven't yet had to deal with any of these. I was raised by my family to treat alcohol as a delightful poison, so I've never had a desire to drink more than I can handle. I have shit luck, so I've never gotten that big first payout from gambling. I'm also just straight up not the kinda person to get addicted to unloving sex. However, what does scare me is drug use. I have no desire to use drugs, but I'm extremely afraid of them. This is because of my entertainment addiction.

I'm not sure exactly what to call it because "entertainment addiction" feels like a misnomer. I've mainly heard it referred to as a tech addiction, but I don't like that title because I feel the kings of old could have had the same problem. Though it's definitely due to the rise in tech that almost anyone is susceptible to entertainment addiction. I will define what I mean by entertainment addiction soon, but first I want to describe my experience with it.

I'm nowhere near the level of a scholar on the subject, but I'm at least aware of how generation alpha is being generalized online. Extremely short attention spans, can't get off their iPad, and almost completely devoid of empathy for their guardians, teachers, and other adults. This is of course a rash generalization, but there are definitely some kids that have this problem. Why do I know this for sure? Well because I was one of these kids. My parents were very busy and stressed when I was born, and they found that when I was handed an iPad I would turn completely docile and silent unlike how I was without it. The iPad was this great pacifier where I as a young child could do anything or watch anything I desired. I became a master at navigating the youtube recommended page well before I learned how to read, and when I did learn how to read, I became even more immersed in this completely digital world. It was everything to me, I mean, it had anything I ever wanted to do.

So of course when my parents tried to take it away as punishment, I threw one of those huge tantrums that are now commonly associated with generation alpha. I mean this was my whole world that they took away. Without this technology, there was only a school I hated, extracurricular classes I hated, and family that were often too busy to do anything with. Imagine giving someone all the known knowledge of the universe, letting them enjoy some of the tidbits, and then taking it away from them. Not that I shouldn't have been punished for acting like an asshole, but I want it to be understood why I was so distraught. It's as if Prometheus took back humanity's fire.

It's been many years since I was a little shit, but my experience with online entertainment is still rather similar. As I've aged, I've developed a lot more discipline, mostly due to developing better relationships with friends and family and developing actual real life goals I want to pursue. However, I can't deny that the first thing I want to do when I wake up each morning is immediately look at my youtube recommended feed. Through introspection, I've found that the reason I do this is probably due to my inherent nature of wanting to maximize my enjoyment. I feel I can't for any moment be bored, because then I'd be wasting a moment where I could be more happy than I currently am.

I feel this almost all the time. Eating lunch? Might as well watch some TV or anime. Doing homework? Well I should second screen a video essay to keep the negative thoughts at bay. Playing an intensive video game? But that requires so much work! Why not just watch a comedy routine where they make all the fun for you! The urge only gets stronger the more effort something requires. Which is one of the reasons why I've been slow on progress with this website.

Granted, the reason I'm most often not working on this website is that I'm procrastinating on school work (the classes this semester have been sooo annoying). Though this doesn't excuse the fact that in most cases, I would much rather consume media than actively do something for myself. The media being produced is also just so much more palatable these days. I mean when I was a little iPad addicted shit, I would often watch playthroughs of video games where they barely cut out any of the gameplay. This meant it was easy to pick up a game because all you're losing by not watching the youtube series is the commentary. Now though, there are video essays that cover entire video game mythoi within hours. Within a decade, the opportunity cost of consumption per minute in picking playing a game over watching its video essay became so much larger.

Put somewhat simply, if media consumption in the past was a long night of dining out, media consumption is now the equivalent of ordering a Big Mac (if that made any sense).

This is all what I mean when I say I have a problem with entertainment addiction. Everyday, at almost every moment, I crave the hit of eating that Big Mac (I don't know why I used Big Macs as a metaphor I don't really like them that much). I've slowly been finding ways to deal with this addiction, though the process is eternally slow. One extremely hard part of this process is unlike all the addictions I described before, I will never stop consuming online media. There's no good reason to. Despite all the problems it has caused me, I still ultimately get most of my information, entertainment, and communications from online sources. This is why my goal is ultimately just to reduce my amount of media consumption, which is not an easy task.

I have found that the more I value my real life goals, the more I stray away from entertainment addiction. This is part of the reason why I started this website. However, as the job market, economy, and political environment continue to do whatever the fuck they are doing right now, it gets harder for me to stay positive about my goals for the future. Though I must say, out of everything, my girlfriend's existence has been the biggest help in getting me to value my real life goals. In the end I guess a big part of the solution for all addictions is developing healthy relationships.

Well that's the end of my rant for today. Jesus christ I had a lot to say. I did not expect that to take almost two hours. Well anyways don't expect future entries to be this long, but I should hopefully be somewhat frequent. :3