Sometimes, it is good to waste some time on endless video games.
They can be a stress-free comfort zone, a place to escape far away from reality.
The game I’ve been playing recently is called “Soul knight.” it is a Run-and-Gun shooter game, and it allows multiple players under the same wifi connection to play together.
It takes up 10-30 minutes to finish one single game. Each game has 3 levels of the dungeon, each level has 5 small sub levels, and the deeper of the dungeon means more difficult to complete. By the end of each level, there is a boss which is a more powerful and aggressive monster you need to beat.
This is the game you have always wanted in your subconscious. Explore the dungeon, collect crazy weapons, dodge bullets and shoot ‘em all up! Extremely easy and intuitive control; super smooth and enjoyable gameplay, mixed with rogue-like elements.
I like space and planets and the stars. It amazes me and it’s its nice to know that there are some things that no one understands. I think it’s humbling in a way.
I get caught up in my own life; my problems seem so big and overwhelming. When I’m trapped focusing on my life, I forget that I am one person out of eight billion. I forget how small I really am.
It bothers me so much seeing people who think they are better than everyone: better than other people, better than animals, better than everything. People destroy nature, kill animals, and hurt others all because they think they can. They think that they’re above everything.
I wish I could tell them. I wish they could just understand that they are just one letter in a thousand page essay, one raindrop in a ten hour storm, one frame in a five hour documentary, one out of 8 billion tiny insignificant people.
The stars are a good reminder. As big as you think you are, as big as you think your problems are, there is always something bigger.
it’s a sad kind of happy when i’m with you. i love being around you, you make me smile and laugh. you make me happy.
in all honesty, i think i love you. i really think i do.
we’re friends, we talk, we hang out sometimes. i like that.
photo credit: pinning.com
sometimes you confuse me, though. sometimes i’ll think you feel the same way about me, but then you’ll ignore me the next day.
in all honesty, you’re confusing, so confusing.
but, that’s part of who you are.
i try to understand you, because there’s so much to understand. you’re talented in so many things, but you doubt yourself. you are loved by so many people, but you deny it. you say no one likes you, but you know that i’m here.
i’m here sitting by you right now. you’re looking out the window. we’re listening to music on your phone. i have the left ear bud, you have the right.
i’m happy right now, i’m with you, but it’s a sad kind of happy
we’re listening to love songs. sometimes, i pretend that the songs are a message. i pretend the songs are you telling me you love me…. but we both know that’s not true.
When I was around six years old, I remember my parents slowly walking up to me in the morning and giving me a hug. They kneeled down beside me and said in a soft, slow, sad, and apologetic voice: “I’m sorry, honey. The raccoons got Mrs. Frizzel last night.”
I sobbed for hours. I was sad for days. I made my parents have a funeral. My tears fell to the ground as we buried my dead chicken. My parents bought a chick that I raised and loved, but I still missed Mrs. Frizzel.
When I was eight, Fluffy and Ginger passed away. My parents broke the news to me in the same way. I cried the same way as I had before. I got two more chicks.
When I was twelve, my parents again approached me with the same sad tone and told me that that a couple of our chickens died in their sleep. I didn’t cry as much when they died, partially because I was old enough to understand that everything dies of old age at some point. It was much more bearable. I would be sad, but not sobbing like I had done in the past.
Today, I came home and asked if he bought food at the store. He said no. Something happened, so he had to come home. “What I happened?” I asked.
“The neighbors dog got into our yard and into the chicken coop,” he said with a flat tone.
“You stopped right, the chickens are okay?”
Photo Credit: Pinterest
“No,” he said. “They are dead, all but three are dead.” He said it with the same flat tone.
He just told me straight up, assuming I wouldn’t be sad. No soft, slow, sad, or apologetic voice. He patted my back and walked away.
I went outside. The corpses were gone. All that remained was feathers.
Eight year old me popped in to my mind. The funeral for Mrs. Frizzel. My parents stroking my back and telling me everything was going to be okay.
There would be no funeral, my dad had put their limp bodies in the trash before I came home. There would be no comfort from my parents. Fifteen year olds don’t cry when their chickens die.
I’m shouldn’t be sad. I’m too old to be sad. But, I’m sad.
I remembered holding the chickens when they were less than a week old. Moving them to the big coop when they were old enough. Hand-feeding them mealworms and celebrating the day that they laid their first egg.
I raised them. They are dead now.
If I was a child I would be sobbing in my parents arms. Now, I’m sobbing alone.
I know if I went to them they would comfort me, but there’s an age where you need to accept reality on your own.
Being treated like a child is now nonexistent. Just like my chickens.
When I was little, if I had a lot of homework, my parents would tell me I could do it and tell me I could have a cookie when I finished. Now, when I complain about my homework, they say lots of homework is part of growing up.
When I was little, my parents were by me at every moment to guide me through life. Now, I am old enough where I need to handle things on my own.
When I was younger, my parents could fix everything. They could make everything feel better. In their arms, I was safe.
Yes, the death of my chickens is part of the reason I’m crying. But, there’s more to the tears running down my cheek.
No matter how much I want to believe it, my parents can’t fix everything. As much as I want it to, they can’t hug me and make me not be sad. As desperately as I want to deny it, my parents can’t protect me anymore.
I don’t know why all of this came from a dog breaking into my chicken coop, but it did…
Rest in peace Lucky, Trouble, Darwin, Lemon, Pepper, Oreo, and Henry. I may not be a child anymore, but I still love you and miss you.
A couple days ago, on a camping trip in the Alabama Hills, we all sat in silence in the pitch-black and looked at the stars. Seeing the hundreds of shining dots of light scattered in the sky was breathtaking; yet, some part of me felt a morsel of sadness. In order to see these stars, it was a four-hour drive from the small town I live in and a seven-hour drive from the nearest large city. In Las Vegas, LA, or even just in my backyard, I can look up and see no stars and no moon, just black.
There are 40 billion stars in the Triangular Galaxy, 100 billion stars in the Whirlpool Galaxy, 250 billion stars in the Milky Way, and 1 trillion starts in the Andromeda galaxy. In the universe, there is an estimated 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars; yet, due to human-caused factors, such as light pollution, only 5,000 stars are visible to the human eye across the world.
The average star is 109.1 times larger than Earth and the largest star is 32,730 times larger than the planet we live on. It’s also ten million times brighter than our sun.
These stars are so much larger than our earth; yet, in America alone, over 80% of the population is unable to see them.
You may wonder, so what? Why does this matter?
Here’s why it matters to me:
Every star I see reminds me of how small I am, how small you are, and how small the human population is. Nowadays, so many people view themselves as giant. Humans kill other animals, destroy the wilderness, and essentially destroy our elves with how we treat our planet (climate change, over population, the list goes on).
I should stop saying how we treat our planet; it’s how we treat the planet.Humans don’t own it; it is not something that we can claim as ours or threaten until it gives in. No, Earth is a powerful force of nature being affected by the billions of small, ant-like creatures called humans who live on it. It is not ours; it is not ours to destroy. So, humanity, please stop fucking acting like it is.
Humans are not the biggest force to be reckoned with; we aren’t gods. Our current superiority does not give us the right to kill everything in our path. One day, a meteor will hit; a black hole will swallow the earth; countries will fire nuclear bombs and wipe out all life; the global warming we caused will result in an atmosphere unsustainable for all life; or, just like the dinosaurs, an astroid will hit. Even if all life on Earth just magically disappeared, the planets would keep spinning, the suns would keep burning, and the stars would keep shining.
Whenever you can, look at the sky and stars. Remember we are small, but, even though we are small, we have the power to protect this planet we call Earth.
When I was in elementary school I first encountered Calvin and Hobbes. Since then it has resurfaced in various parts of my life surprisingly more and more topically.
Bill Watterson’s perennial comic often addresses the problems and anxieties of growing up, the pain of reality, and everything in between.
Watterson manages to cleverly address issues that still persist today through the eyes of the constantly adventurous and surprisingly observant six-year-old boy.
To this day, I find myself enjoying the comics in spare moments, pulling out weather-beaten copies with broken binding hoping to find a laugh or something to prove that I’m not just panicking, that growing up is indeed hard.
Watterson manages to perfectly characterize the angsty feelings of growing up and having to face oncoming reality, and sometimes it just makes me laugh and feel happy despite the panic I feel about having to continue to grow into adulthood.
But my personal favorite remains the very last panel Watterson ever drew for Calvin and Hobbes:
The official move in date for my new house is this Thursday and I am in awe at how fast it happened. A year ago that plot of land was just dirt, and now it if skilled with a house. it is like it appeared out of nowhere.
I am slowly moving all of my things into the house and it is taking shape. My bed is in place and the living room and kitchen look amazing
I cannot wait to live in it.
After living in a glorified box for the last year it will be a nice change.
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