An Open Letter

I think emotionally powerful pieces always risk being pathetic or cringy for lack of a better word. I was writing things down for the outer wilds review idea that I had, and I ended up getting nostalgic to playing my first video game. To me I was able to capture that memory perfect with my own thoughts, but I fear after that feeling is distilled into words and finally a recording, all of that original feeling will have been lost to translation.

I guess that beautiful art comes from three things: vulnerability, understanding of the artists meaning, and some understandable feeling. The last thing can be met by something people have experienced, or you could go the riskier route of trying to show a novel experience. The second part is satisfied by adequate mastery and understanding of the medium, and the first part comes at virtue of not knowing the other two parts. I think I can get the vulnerability down, but the other two aspects I don’t know about. And so just like everything else I’m somewhat paralyzed by the fear of perfectionsim.

I feel bad that I probably won’t make the review I’ve daydreamed about. It’s yet another project just sitting in the planning stages, without ever going anything past that. I hope I do it this weekend. I should make a plan but part of me is just resigned to it.

I know I don’t like sharing music, but I keep having an urge to share some thoughts about certain songs. The only problem is any medium I could possibly use is with my friends, and then we’re back to square one. I have been blasting the song “My mother wants me dead” – ily, but I don’t know a single person who fucks with that kind of music. I guess I kinda enjoy having this little non-performative portion of me though, because I can enjoy this music without the fear of doing it for someone else to see. I was shooting down the highway on the way home blasting the song on repeat with the windows down. I’m going to be kinda sad when I no longer daily my old shitty Prius. With this car, I can hold down the gas pedal for 30 seconds straight to get to about 90. If I get one of the cars I was planning, that’ll happen way faster and there will be no responsible way to really send it like that. What’s the point of having a powerful car if you can’t use it, and you don’t even earn the speed. When I’m going 90+ I had to work up to that, but if I get a model S or something then that’s just oops I didn’t pay attention and held gas a bit too much. Oh well, no point being preemptively upset.

I think as much as I don’t want to admit it, I do feel kinda shitty that S doesn’t keep me involved in her life. I expected this to happen over the summer with other friends, but I was hoping S wouldn’t really lose contact like this. I find out some things once every few days and I wish that they thought to tell me immediately, rather than as a recap later, like a summary. I know I should do CBT or something, but I do feel like we’ve drifted apart, and it sucks to have to accept that at least for now. I don’t think this is the greatest sign for after next year when we will no longer be in the same physical place. But such is life ig.

I finished it. I want to write a review for the game, and I hope to publish it soon. Please, do yourself a favor and get the game and play it fully blind. Don’t even read the description. Just buy, install, and play. Don’t search up any spoilers or tips, if you get stuck go to something else or sleep on it. You’ll know when the games over, trust me.

Not overwatch this time. I’m at the final stage of the game, and it reminds me of AoT. It is all tying together, and I have figured it all out myself fully blind. I’m proud.

Me, L, and S went crazy today, and we went 9 wins 2 losses. I forcibly stopped playing because I have to fix my sleep schedule, yesterday I heard the birds at 5am before going to bed. That’s not great. Guess I’ll keep this short so I can get some more rest tonight.

40% of games you lose by default, and 40% you win by default – 20% of games you make the difference in. I know this is realistic, but I really don’t like the idea of 40% of situations where I am powerless. I was playing with T earlier today, and we had a random smurf support who hard carried and singlehandedly won the game for us. He had a 80% winrate, with 46 games as Baptiste. For him, it’s 40-40-20. I want more of that agency, I want to be good enough to be able to affect more than 20% of those games. I feel pretty bad if I win a game and it didn’t matter if I was there or not. I want to be useful.

The biggest advice I can give academically is focus on loving your subject. If you tell yourself that God you hate this project or whatever, you will hate it. But also there is a lot of beautiful things about every subject, And if you enjoy it, it's not work at all and life feels better.

In order to help with this, you have to have a good foundation and not be overwhelmed – so go to every lecture and make sure you really UNDERSTAND what they're talking about, not just being able to do the homework with chatgpt and Google. Another benefit to this is you never have to cram for finals, because you already know the information. And the entire quarter is just 100 times easier and more enjoyable.

Take courses that scare you, you will be surprised with what you are actually capable of when push comes to shove. Go to office hours for free tutoring, And also just to see what professors you get along with. Some of them are really not that scary and are happy to just help you or talk to you. Plus this has the added benefit of someone who can help you with letter of recommendations later.

Outside of academics, I honestly think most things are great to struggle with and absolutely crash and burn. For me I always saw people partying, And so I forced myself to go to parties and make party friends, and while I do enjoy it, I also realized that's not exactly my cup of tea. If someone told me “oh don't worry about it parties aren't that fun!” I wouldn't believe it the same way as when I learn from my own experiences.

This applies to almost everything – Go ahead and get in a relationship that has more red flags than a China embassy, make stupid decisions stay up super late doing something questionable, and do super cringy things that when you look back on your face gets red. Not to scare you, but this is pretty much going to be some of the last years you can do this kind of stuff without much consequence. Enjoy that freedom.

Take care of your mental health as much as you can, if you can get therapy I absolutely stand by that, even if you don't think you need it to survive. Therapy really helps you grow and have a nice voice of reason consistently. But also something I really wish I knew way earlier was the advice that people always say and that is backed up by studies is surprisingly true. If you get enough sleep, get consistent exercise, social interaction, and eat well(ish) you will mentally feel better, I started going to the gym 6 days a week for a little bit over a year now, and that has given me so many more benefits than I could have ever imagined. I would really recommend try to get into that habit and stick to it for 21 days without slipping up at all.

But I think most of all, be excited for it. Don't be excited for anything specific, like don't be delusional and think oh I'm going to finally have a super hot girlfriend or whatever; but be excited that you are going to grow and experience things like you never have before. Every single year in college I became a completely different person, and every year I think it was for the better. Get ready for a whole lot of shit in 4 years that will eventually feel like it went by in a blink!

One of life's most valuable things is the willingness to tolerate discomfort. If you can sit through things you don’t want to, and take it on the chin, you can grow – instead of sitting in stagnant comfort. I was coaching T in OW, since he no longer wanted to be the worst out of us. We ended up talking about my reasoning of bruising his ego as little as possible to give him consistent reward from that point onwards. I told him about how when I was worse at games, how I would put my ego aside and get advice and help from random good players who were insufferable. I told him about how I would go into it dropping all ego, and just accept it every time they told me what I thought was wrong. I don’t have to believe it, but in that moment I can either try to defend myself or I can accept it and get more information instead. And I chose the latter. Because of that, I have more information to decide what to do with, and because of that I was able to get way better at things. I think this same tenacity has benefitted me in all other facets of my life. I got better at the gym, because I forced myself to tolerate that discomfort and push myself beyond what my mind or body wants to naturally do. I got mentally healthier because I pushed my mind to face things and utilize therapy to its fullest by facing horribly uncomfortable situations. I got better at games because I fully set aside my ego and pride and got coaching however I could. I got better at academics only when I didn’t have an ego or belief that I was good at it already.

If you can, practice that discomfort. Just sit with it and see how you survive, and over time you will see how you blossom.