K 3 3 G

Rot and Notebooks

Posted on February 6th, 2007 by Zarathustra.
Categories: everything else, philosophy, games.

I live!

Coincidentally, my ‘living’ comes at the point where I’ve read enough webcomics and books to last me the next 3 years (aka, I am quite bored with the intarweb). Productivity is so-so, life is as happy as I can make it…

Thus I have decided to be a little more surreal about things. Unfortunately for you people it also means exposure to a slightly immature yet impossibly wise vision of things as they are, and as they are becoming.

All hail the coming of the anti-nerd.

DOTA. Yes yes yes. If you are Filipino, Singaporean, Malaysian, or American, it is relatively impossible to not have heard this term somewhere. Some people hate it (refer to the phenomenon “Girlfriends against DOTA”), some have no idea of what it is, and others practically live by it. DOTA is a game, yet in some way or another it represents the massive shift of the gaming market into the realm of the casual player. Before, you’d have the gamers (hardcore or soft), the indifferent people who play games, and the rest of the world. But with the advent of cheap electronics, lightning-fast innovations in technology, and some savvy marketing (I do admit though that disillusionment is a big contributor to the gaming spirit), games have finally broken through the wall and entered the life of “everyman and woman.”

I like to think of myself as a quasi-pioneer, a brave explorer who paved the way for the current crop of cafe players around the country. As with all adventures, a price had to be paid for progress, and I lost quite a bit: grades, potential friends, allowance, parental trust, and most importantly time. Time I could have spent righting wrongs, honing my mind, fighting for justice, and dating.

I have absolutely no regrets. As things were, I doubt I’d have done those things even if games didn’t exist. Better the good “what could have been” excuses than the “relatively same stupid activities.”

DOTA is the proof that I did not waste my time. The people who started playing PC games because of DOTA are the same people I had assumed to have led significant, responsible, and overall disciplined lives. DOTA razes all pretensions of the intellectual elite, the snobbish socialites, the people who I thought lived and “seized the day.” DOTA is the window through which all men and women are created (spawned) equal.

DOTA has made food of us all.

Pudge Build: Hook, Rot, Hook, Rot, Hook, Dismember, Hook, Flesh Heap, Flesh Heap, Flesh heap, Dismember, Rot, Flesh Heap, Rot, Stats, Dismember, stats till 25.

Mix and match Vanguard, Linken’s Sphere, Boots of Travel, Aegis of the Immortal, Guinsoo’s Scythe of Vyse.

TO WHIT:

If you had a notebook that enabled you to kill people by simply writing down their names and thinking of their faces (you can also control the manner of their death), would you use it?

On a related note, would you support a movement towards world domination with my sexy self leading the way?

15 comments.

Blood, bonds, and bartered sisters

Posted on November 24th, 2006 by Zarathustra.
Categories: philosophy, opinions, art & music, ideas.

Where to begin?

I’ve never fancied myself a very good writer - maybe a halfway-decent one at most. Yet I can’t figure out why I get so livid when given advice on how to write (usually by those who are far more experienced than I am at writing).
“Just write down whatever pops in your head first.”
“Think about the interesting things that happened during the day.”
“Write about what you feel most passionate about.”

As much as the above helps a writer, I can’t help but believe that it represses the need of every writer to first struggle with him/herself. I’ve always thought the path to good writing, whether it be intended to sell books, to establish a solid career, or even to revolutionize a genre is always a path that cannot, should not be seen in its entirety right away - or even at all. Writing is an art, yes, and at times it can be a business… but it it also a way of seeing the world, of looking at it and applying our unique understanding into all its aspects. This is not to say that a writer must be an intellectual, but that a writer must have an intelligible grasp of how words, ideas, concepts, and language can effectively change the world.

Some of my philosophy teachers would probably wring my neck if they read this, but I cannot see how there can be “purity” in knowing with a knower that is defined, redefined, and created in some way every single second by the world around. Existence and experience are inherently linked, and however we understand either of these terms depends on how either of these terms affect our understanding - a true circle, but one we cannot go beyond.

In theory it seems sound.
But it fails to take into account one aspect of human living - and there have been so many discussions of this kind before - that I don’t think falls into the existence we believe to be all-encompassing: imagination. Imagination is what allows us to “transcend” our own existence. Imagination is what allows us to dream of impossibilities. Imagination is what brings forth that indefinable aspect of the human being that pushes and nudges and breaks free of all accepted truths. If Magellan had no imagination, would he have gone on that remarkable journey to the “edge of the world”? If scientists had no imagination, would they really accomplish anything more than what is already established? And in the context of this blog, would we be free to write down whatever we wanted, whatever “pops in our head first” or whatever “interesting thing happened during the day” or whatever we “feel most passionate about”?

NO. And in that emphatic negative is a strength that is built upon this conviction: writing is a struggle against, to. Whether you write to struggle against yourself, an institution, and idea, or struggle to be heard, to go beyond norms, to feel good, to inform… the essence of writing is this effort to unleash your imagination upon all creation. Writing is a will to struggle internally and to the external.
So the next time some one sees me spending three agonizing hours to simply write the first sentence of a story/essay/case/file/article, realize that I’m going through the best part of writing and do not wished to be interrupted. Life is not life without its joyful agonies.

And that is where I will begin. Man, that took some effort to type out, coherent or not. Such a chore, such a chore…
Random thoughts (hence the title): Admittedly I was only convinced to blog by my sister (yes, she is up for bartering if anyone’s interested) who believes that by giving me an outlet to vent my thoughts, she is saving herself the trouble of having to listen to my strangeness day by day. Unfortunately for her there is more than enough “junk” in this “trunk” to satisfy the younger sibling’s daily urge to pester, irritate, annoy, and exasperate the elder. No bond is stronger than that which has been built upon a lifetime of suffering. Glad to see you’re still around after 20 sis, here’s to hoping you never decide to apply for a gun license. I don’t know who you’d shoot first: you or me.

EDIT1: Agh forgot the stupid tags.

9 comments.