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The Follies of Recognition



This may be a weird to bring up a kinda serious topic late at night on Christmas, but some things have been rolling around in my head and I kinda want to talk about it. But first, for a moment, let's assume what most of you probably assume. That behind the mask of a cute fairy, there is actually a normal human who just likes to roleplay. If so, what I am about to say is going to 'break character' and talk from the perspective of a human talking to other humans. Because sometimes the outsider perspective of a creature like a fairy is helpful to talk about human issues, sometimes it is not.


I am not going to tell you if that assumption is correct. Maybe I really am a magical fairy and I am just roleplaying a human sometimes. I want to be able to preserve the magic if I can. The magical idea that maybe, just maybe, crazy things like fairies do exist. Or maybe I could be some kind of radical otherkin who completely submerged my human identity and may end up like Tingle, or come up with some kind of coy argument about how my real identity is a construct and that 'human' and 'fairy' are just roles that can be used regardless of my real body or some other possibly vaguely SJW thing. I could talk about the subject of personal identity for pages and pages.


But talking about personal identity is not really what this blog post is supposed to be about. Though it is tangentially related. What I really want to talk about is more about the way people perceive and communicate with each other. Let me paint a picture for you. Imagine if you will, that I was human. That I am even now laying in the bed of the guest room of my parent's house somewhere in North Carolina (and no, this isn't about the bathroom thing either). That right now I am on vacation, and most of my family is here. That means I would naturally want to, or at least be expected to, interact with them.


Now in this possible fictional account we are all originally from the most liberal of liberal towns in New York state (and I still live there) so this isn't going to be a tale involving an icy awkward dinner where no one talks because we have vastly different political views or anything like that. We would naturally agree on many things. But I think it's pretty clear by a lot of the things that I have said in the past, that I would have a radical streak. I have big ideas and tend to talk in overblown ways and do tend to argue a lot. Naturally I would would find it frustrating when most of my family would be totally uninterested in engaging in that type of talk most of the time, and they would find it frustrating that I often refuse to drop arguments. I also am probably impatient and clumsy about it, budding in at the wrong time, not being able to handle more then a one on one conversation very well, being very controlling and selfish, and ultimately liking too much the sound of my own voice.


I would wonder why I bother communicating my ideas to them in the first place sometimes. I would wonder if I really wanted to have a real conversation or if I rather have a soapbox like this blog to shout out my opinions into the aether. Maybe I would more just want an audience. But I don't think I really want that either. I have been thinking for a while about the odd obsession people have with fame. Why do they want it so much? Doesn't it just make everything more complicated? Plus today I found myself watching some videos relevant to the topic. For example, anyone remember Phil Fish? Not to drag up old wounds, but watching

recount how he self destructed under the spot light made me wonder why people seek fame in the first place. Also there was that game, The Beginner's Guide. And watching
about it also made me think about if we should really need validation or try and share a message. And then there is
about gamergate (and oddly applicable to a lot of today's political issues I feel).


I am not saying all those videos are necessarily unbiased or accurate about the people and things they are about, nor am I trying to make some sort of stupid comment on human nature or the dangers of technology. I am just saying, it's kinda the same thing as well I talk to my family. Most people aren't interested in what I have to say, and it makes me wonder if it's worth it to try and get my ideas out there. And honestly? I have to wonder why I want to. Because again, I am not really good at it, and I often feel I just want a mindless audience. That's not how this works though. I either say almost nothing or I become an asshole to someone.


And honestly? I can deal with that. I don't think I really need validation one way or another. I am not sure if I really am interested in having conversations with people or if I just rather self-aggrandize myself and hear my own voice and I just enjoy writing things. In some ways I feel like Coda in The Beginner's Guide in that way. Like I am writing these blogs for me, not anyone else. But it's nice when others read them too, I am just not sure if I would be happy if I suddenly got famous. I would probably end up as either disengaging with the public or being an ass if that happened. Or both at once.


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People need validation of some kind. ItÂ´s psychologically hard wired into us for survival reasons. So, thereÂ´s nothing really wrong with it. That said, some people can take it too far when they overly sacrifice their own happiness or intelligence to please others or vice versa.


Anyways, if you ever get famous, just always sell yourself short, and be fully content that only 1 or 2 people will ever know how good you think you really are.

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I am not sure a need for validation is as much psychologically hard wired into people as much as it is a result of enormous social pressures, but that is kind of hard to tell sometimes. The idea that everything that exists is constantly trying to instate their own existence is something I thought about a good deal though, but that's slightly different. The way I see it, it becomes kind of a balancing act between trying to instate one's self as part of the world while at the same time trying to maintain one's own independence from it.


This sort of balance between becoming part of something bigger while also maintaining independence from it seemed to me at one point like a basic truth of existence, explaining not only the way people join to form a society while also fighting that same society, but also why even bits of mater join together to form complex things like living things but yet also why things never really last forever and end up decaying and falling apart. The basic forces of accretion forming higher structures and entropy that breaks them down into their individual parts both seem to serve the same over all purpose, for things to confirm their own existence. For that they need to be able to both have others to observe them but also to make sure they are not lost in the higher structures they form.


But nowadays it seems more and more like an empty justification. It's an interesting metaphysical idea I suppose, but like most metaphysical ideas it really doesn't prove much and doesn't mean much.

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Me saying validation is psychologically hardwired into us, is another way of saying people have an innate desire to impress, be accepted by, and be a part of a pack. There's nothing wrong with validation in and of itself.


Sometimes people seek validation not from others, but from themselves. Artists are notorious for this, and reading what you typed, I can see you think like an artist. Perhaps you just need to work on your art. Don't express yourself here, express yourself through your work. Let your game become your blog, and your players the readers.


Or in other words... GET BACK TO WORK! *cracks whip*

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