Bring Me to Delilah

I haven't been the happiest guy for the past few years. Those who are closest to me, know that I've been toying with, pleading to, pinning over, the idea of just grabbing a bag (.. sack? ... bindlestiff?) and removing myself from the stimuli that seems to be weighing me down. There's something about the roar in a city that slowly drives you insane. There's a reason why people take vacations, or resort back to the "good ol' days" before houses, and pitch tents. It's nice to be away from it all.

Not only have I struggled to be creative at times, but I've even struggled to feel human here and there.

There should be FIRE!

I'm my favorite version of me when lit aflame. 

At times, the stale moronic vibrations that reverberate through the streets of large cities, puts out the fires we need. As creators, as lovers, as sane and loving people. 

As an over-thinker, a narcissist, and cynic, I'm already excluded from the most acceptable gatherings (most of the time by choice), but that doesn't make what I can achieve unacceptable (kind of the opposite actually). This is why creators disappear. Not forever. At first. But in smaller doses. Maybe for good, eventually. 

Like a recovering alcoholic, the tastes of insanity bring forth the closure of your throat. How then, does someone who is fueled by the insanity of it all, find the flavors of their fire without crashing into desolation and vanishing?

I grew up without walls--which is both blessing, and curse.

Which makes it hard to feel like I'm surrounded, all the time. My brother and I were affording the luxury of having many chances to disappear for the day. We'd create reasons why we needed stick weapons, or why we desired to discover an abandoned fort beyond the commercial train tracks that ran through the woods on the outskirts of the Caribou town we lived in. Half of the places we set up shop while we were young could've been (and probably still could be) considered "small". It brought both a fresh adoration of "big cities" but also gave us growth in immagination, and the smallest tastes of freedom. Oh did we run. 

One Stray Match

Firewatch is a story-driven adventure game set in the Wyoming national parks where the protagonist goes to escape a fate he never asked for, and is sincere in his struggle to cope with. It's a brilliant experience. 

The vision of Campo Santo was the exact game I needed, at the precise moment I needed it most of all. It reminded me of the connection I need to have with myself. The haunting memory of a freedom I once felt as a wilderness explorer. 

I, adoringly, related to the main character as we both show a trend of distancing ourselves from things when problems arise. Our emotional distancing bonded us from the very start. As I traveled with Henry through Shoshone National Park, we became one person. I could easily choose dialog options that were honest to how I (the human) felt about the situation. Something about the vessel of this story allowed me, the emotionally struggling, to dump all of my problems into Henry's Problems pot, and we let go of them together. 

This masterwork of artistic slight-obscurity, and thrilling mystery, is one of my favorite games of all time. It connected with me, pulled me in with phenomenal atmosphere, intense scores, and an enthralling narrative. 

Considering I know how much of a labor of love this project was, I'm let down by an industry that has seen this type of outing become a rarity. But then again, maybe Henry and I's jaunt through a mystery of struggle wouldn't have been so sharply outstanding if we got to experience these types of rides on a steadier basis. 

I began writing this partially self-destructive love letter to this beautiful game shortly after it came out, and I completed the adventure, but have only just realized some of the finer things about how it impacted me as a person. I've stared at the game's icon on my Playstation home page for months on end, continuously attempting to convince myself that I have to play through it again. Maybe even try and take a different path through the story-telling. 

- wf.