3 Things I Love About the Nintendo Switch Lite

Some of my fondest gaming experiences have been portable.

From exploring Hoenn in Pokemon Sapphire when I was twelve, to the fast-paced fantasy action of Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy in my early twenties, I’ve long appreciated handheld video games. I’m not alone there. As smartphones grow ever more powerful, the mobile gaming market has become a very big deal in Asia, while still being looked down upon in the West.

Amidst Sony and Microsoft trying to outdo each other, Nintendo stands apart. What the company lacks in technical prowess, they make up for with innovation. They also have a long history of dominating handheld gaming. Thus in 2017, the Nintendo Switch was released: a hybrid console that you could connect to a TV for HD graphics, and then carry around to continue right where you left off on a smaller screen. It’s the kind of thing that future generations are sure to take for granted, but was absolutely mind-blowing for its time.

And then Nintendo did something surprising: they backtracked. Their newest offering, the Switch Lite, belies its own name. It’s a Switch that can’t switch. The Lite is a smaller, cheaper device which is meant for handheld play only.

Because you see, the data shows that a lot of people out there don’t switch, preferring to play in handheld mode. These are the people who either don’t have a TV or rarely play on one. They’re interested in premium portability: a handheld that plays console-quality games.

I am one of these people.

Today I’m talking about the Nintendo Switch Lite.

First, a disclaimer: I am late to the party. Much of what I’m about to say applies just as much to the original Switch. That said, I admire the system far more for its handheld capabilities. Docked to a TV it’s merely an underpowered console. Much of the discussion surrounding the Lite was about why it even exists, but this is exactly why. The Lite is the embodiment of the former.

So yes, I am most definitely in the target demographic.

Likewise, I won’t be dealing with the actual tech and design of the Lite in detail. There are plenty of reviews out there that examine these aspects. If that’s what you’re looking for, go read those1. What I am talking about is why I find the Lite appealing.

First, because unlike the most successful smartphone games, Switch titles use traditional pricing.

Let’s digress into the dominant mobile business model: free-to-play.

You Buy, You Own  

Mobile games are relatively cheap to produce compared to the millions in money and man-hours that go into AAA games. They are often free-to-play. But as the late Satoru Iwata, president of Nintendo once said, the term is misleading. These games are not truly free. They make money from plentiful microtransactions once you’ve played enough to be invested. And what they don’t cost in money, they cost in attention.

I know, I know. Last year I was singing the praises of mobile gaming. By now, however, I’ve gotten jaded. The free-to-play model makes more money than traditional single-purchase games, which is why so many developers have jumped on the bandwagon. The problem is that the success of these games is not measured in units sold, but in keeping players engaged for as long as possible in order to maximize the chance of them spending money.

It’s turned video games into the business of addiction. 

I just spent a year playing PUBG Mobile. I have fond memories of playing with friends and family, of thrilling shootouts and glorious victories. But I also grew frustrated with this ‘free’ game’s methods of seeking out profit. Cosmetic rewards squirreled away in loot boxes, which have been compared to gambling. The recurring Seasons which set you back every two months, making sure you’re constantly grinding for the next tier or shiny new outfit. 

The scarcity principle, the sunk cost fallacy. The usual suspects. I found myself feeling compelled to play, and I resented it. 

I was also playing Kingdom Hearts III on and off this year. Though the game has nostalgia and production values in spades, it dawned on me that I did not feel compelled to play KH3. (I still haven’t finished it, which kind of proves my point.) Certainly not in the same capacity as PUBG Mobile. There was a difference. One was a choice; the other had become an obligation. I realized I had to quit. 

None of that changes what’s great about PUBG Mobile. It’s a fun game! The actual gunplay is still awesome as ever. But it’s also a game that never ends, that’s designed to keep you playing into eternity, preferably spending some money while you’re at it. This is a product you can never truly own. It’s a game as a service. 

Some people say this is the future of gaming. Perhaps they’re right. Addiction is a two-way street, and I’m not saying these issues are solely the responsibility of the companies involved. I’ve been down this road before. We ourselves must be responsible consumers.

But forgive me for being cynical. I’m tired of being addicted.

Which brings me back to the Switch Lite: most Switch games follow the traditional pricing model2. You buy, you own. It’s that simple. No need for marketing and psychological hacks to keep you coming back for more; you’ve already paid the price of entry. It’s both nostalgic and refreshing.

You’re also paying for better quality games.

Premium Portability

The first game I got for the Switch Lite was The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.

That’s right, Skyrim. One of the biggest and most influential games of all time? This a title I spent over a hundred hours in on the Xbox 360 five years ago, and I still cleared less than a quarter of the content. The fact that such a massive world is now portable is frankly unreal.

Due to technical limitations, handheld games have long been secondary to PC and consoles. Now, at least where Nintendo’s concerned, that gap has closed. The Switch is their flagship system. New entries in beloved franchises like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Pokemon Sword & Shield aren’t inferior in the slightest. These are mainline titles, the best and brightest in gaming. Older masterpieces like The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and Divinity: Original Sin 2 have been ported over as well, providing a more mature balance to Nintendo’s family-friendly fare.

These are console-quality games in the palm of your hand. If this is the future of gaming, I can get behind it. Excuse me while I go play Skyrim in the toilet. You better believe I’m playing again as a dark elf Imperial.

Jokes aside, these massive games are a serious investment. Where do you find the time?

Time of Your Life 

The last big-budget RPG I played was Dragon Age: Inquisition. In the end I’d racked up 120 hours of gameplay. I look back on it fondly, with a fair bit of nostalgia. A few nights per month spent at home on the PS4 that slowly added up. Much like a beloved TV show or series of novels, this game represents almost a year of my life. 

But I could only play at home, at night, on a TV.

From simple portability to the built-in sleep function that means you can turn off games at any point without fear of losing progress, the Switch Lite lets you pick up a game and put it down whenever you want. It's the ultimate level of freedom.

That's the most important thing I love about the Switch Lite: it lets you play on your own time.

When I was a kid, I spent countless hours at home with nothing better to do, getting lost in fantasy worlds. Those days are long gone. I’m an adult now. I have a job, relationships and responsibilities. I have books to read, words to write, that fantasy novel I still haven’t finished. Sorry, Wraithblade. I’ll get to you soon, I promise.

Consoles and PCs still have better graphics and faster processors. TVs have bigger screens. But there’s something special about being able to take a game with you everywhere, be it your workplace during lunch, cafes and commutes, and the comfort of your own home. 

You’re playing on your own time. And as we all know, time is the most important commodity we have. 

While I’ve always loved games, I recognize that this is a passion that must be limited. I’d never get anything done otherwise. 

Those other worlds are still calling, though.



1 - Many have been spooked by the unfortunate hardware failures known as Joy-Con drift, in which the Switch's controllers eventually wear down and go haywire. For the record, my own Lite hasn't had any such problems so far. Fingers crossed.

2 - Not to imply that all mobile games are free-to-play. There are plenty of quality titles out there as well. I never did finish Crashlands, for example. But I know I can go back to it anytime because I own the game, bought and paid for. Thank you, Butterscotch Shenanigans, for choosing traditional pricing.

Of Two Worlds

‘But how could you live and have no story to tell?’

- Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Someone called me a foreigner the other day.

It was a work misunderstanding, nothing particularly major. The sting faded before long. But I found myself shaken at the reminder that some people will always judge you based on what you look like, where you were born or the colour of your skin. People who think you don’t belong.

Today I’m talking about fitting in - because I never have. 

My parents come from opposite sides of the world.

I was born in the United States of America. I have vague memories of playing in snow, walking through autumn leaves and saying the Pledge of Allegiance in school every morning. As a child, I thought of myself as an American.

We moved to Malaysia when I was eight. I’d been here on holidays, but this was distressingly permanent. I didn’t know the language, then spoke it with an accent once I did. I was homeschooled and too afraid to mix with the local kids anyway. People called me the white kid. It slowly sank in that this was my life now. The United States was a dream of my childhood. And one of the most bittersweet things I can tell you is that dreams rarely line up with reality. 

I didn't always think of this city as home.

For the longest time, I wanted to go back.

Instead I read endless books, watched too much television, lost myself in video games. I dived headfirst into the ocean of the internet. I didn’t know what to think about my life, about myself. So I avoided both.

Then I started working in my twenties. By degrees, I realized that I had to separate myself from the fantasies that had sustained me for so long. I had to start figuring myself out. Some people think of college as the turning point in their lives. For me, it was getting a job.

Admittedly, mine is different from most. I work with animals. I’ve played with hornbills, been bitten by pythons, held an orangutan’s hand. Apart from that, my job has taught me so many valuable lessons. About responsibility, time management and social interaction. About how to work as a team. I’ve gained friends, had disagreements, gotten in relationships. I met the person I would later fall in love with.

If my teenage years were a long, lonely limbo, I can safely say my twenties have been some of the best years of my life.

Which leads me to today. Somehow, I’ve grown into a man. Yet I still feel the pull of the child I once was.

***

I saw the musical biopic Rocketman in August without many expectations. (The only Elton John song I knew was from The Lion King.) I was blown away. It's a great movie, and a poignant one. Underneath all the fame and fortune, the drugs and booze and orgies, the man born as Reginald Dwight spent half his life running away from the lonely, unloved little boy he used to be. 

Image credit: Swarovski

I can relate.

I don’t think about the past very much. I don’t see the point. The pains of growing up make us who we are. Sometimes I wonder, though, if I’m simply folding logic over an emotional core. Maybe I don’t like looking back because there are things I don’t want to see. There are pains that haven’t healed, that are with me even now.

So much of my life has been spent waiting for things I have no control over. I can only do my best in the meantime. I have steady work, friends and colleagues, someone to love. But sometimes it all feels like a castle in the air, just waiting to collapse into the yawning void beneath.

That’s when I fall back on old patterns. I lose myself in the mindless pursuit of novelty and pleasure. Over the years I’ve sought to quit my bad habits, but I still struggle with the feelings that cause them. The fear that this is as good as it gets. That what I’m waiting for will never come. That I will never be the man I could have been.

This is when I get depressed.

***

And then I bounce back, because life is short and we’re all going to die.

I’m twenty-eight years old now. If I look back on my life, I can honestly say that I’m proud of how far I’ve come. But there’s so much further to go. I’m still waiting to see what happens next.

The dream of the US has soured over the years. I look at the country and see mass shooters and active shooting drills, guns and racism and soaring inequality. A nation with bitterly divided views of its own future. I see a symbol of liberty and progress struggling under the weight of the American Dream. I hope things will get better, I really do. Only time will tell.

Whereas I’ll have lived in Malaysia for twenty years this December. Though tensions exist, I’m proud of this country’s backbone of tolerance and multiculturalism, where different races and religions live and let live. I’m proud of the place I call home. Yet I worry that I will never truly belong.

But here's the thing: I will always be Eurasian. There will always be two sides to my heritage.

I've long been fascinated by stories of duality. Light and darkness, ice and fire, sanity and madness, life and death. Fantasy and reality, and the boundaries that blur the line between the two. Former heroes, reformed villains. Characters who stand in two worlds.

Light above and dark below.

Sounds familiar, don't you think.

I accept that about myself. Indeed, I embrace it. I will never be purely anything. Diversity is a part of who I am. If some people don’t like that, so be it. 

I talk a lot about growing up on here. About life lessons, mindsets, changing the way we think. But I’ve learned that change is a funny thing. It creeps up on you unawares. Sometimes, change isn’t about becoming someone different.

It’s about embracing who you were all along.

The Noise of Novelty

Noise (technical): irregular fluctuations that accompany a transmitted electrical signal but are not part of it and tend to obscure it.

I spend too much time on the internet.

It bothers me because there are other things I could be doing. Reading a book or playing a story-length game instead of browsing endless articles. Working on my fantasy novel or a blog post instead of checking notifications and writing replies. Especially when I’m tired or depressed, it becomes so easy to sink into the mindless scrolling of feeds and Googling of curiosities. Just one more write-up, one more video, one more meme. Just one more time…

Welcome to the Age of the Smartphone, when everyone is constantly connected. When an endless repository of information is always at our fingertips. When our attention itself has become a commodity, a currency, and we have more ways to spend it than ever before. When it can feel like we’re drowning in data.

When we have to actively choose to disconnect.

Today I’m talking about noise. 

Rick Doble

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: modern technology is incredible. Via the internet, we can find facts within seconds. We can maintain relationships with loved ones a thousand kilometres away. And we have unending sources of entertainment, whether it’s YouTube, video games or social media. This is where the trouble starts. The internet is a supernormal stimulus: something which elicits responses far stronger than the stimuli for which our senses evolved.

Our internal wiring evolved over millions of years to equip us with the tools we needed to survive. In the old days, food was scarce, and so we developed a taste for precious sugar, fats and salt. Life was short and bloody; a sex drive was essential for the survival of the species. Exploring new environments and the opportunities they presented could mean the difference between life and death. So we developed a keen appreciation for novelty.

Human ingenuity has led us far from those hunter-gatherer days. But our brains have yet to catch up.

While modern advances have improved our lives to a remarkable degree, they’ve also opened a Pandora’s box of social issues and addictions which turn our own instincts against us. Junk food fills us with far more calories than we need. Porn sites offer the illusion of sexual intimacy. And the constant streams of information, the pings and clicks and little red dots, have become an accepted background noise in our day to day lives.

I’m writing this because the noise is getting to me.

To quote Mark Manson, smartphones are the new cigarettes. We pull them out whenever we have a spare moment, oblivious to the way they’re slowly eroding our attention. It’s the internet in the palm of your hand. And it’s stealing my time. I’ve gone through multiple iterations of this by now. I used to be posting pictures on Instagram, which turned into posting opinions on Reddit. Then I started following the news via Google feeds. Lately I’ve been watching more YouTube videos. Heck, I’m even checking Habitica more often now that I get the notifications on my phone.

I used to think it was limited to one specific application, but now I see that it’s the internet itself. Part of this is me, I know. I’m covering up the empty spaces in my life with webs of entertainment, filling in the silence with comforting noise.

But then again, it’s not just me. Internet addiction is a recognized phenomenon. And just like cigarettes, it’s all too easy to get a hit. I’m lucky I never started smoking; didn’t see the point. It was a waste of money, a danger to my health. But I can see that I’m simply hooked on different vices. Though I’m not about to throw my phone away, I do need to control the way I use it.

These days I find myself craving peace of mind. When I’m not overthinking things or mindlessly consuming content, tiring myself out with useless bits of information. I need the clarity of focus, instead of the endless roar of static.

And that means choosing what to filter out.

We like to believe we can have it all. But that simply isn’t true. Even before the internet, we could never hear every story, learn every skill, take in the entirety of human knowledge within our lifetime. It’s just not possible. And that’s a scary thought, that our lives are so brief, their meaning so fragile. Who will remember us after we’re gone? Will anyone care? Will we have left anything behind for future generations?

I don’t know. I just know that for our own good, we need limits. We must choose what books to read, what games to play, what work to perform and art to express. We have to decide who (or whether) we’ll marry, where we’ll live and what we’re going to do with the rest of our lives. We have to spend our time on the things that matter and have the strength to cut out anything that doesn’t. In a world filled with endless connections, we have to choose to disconnect. The bonds that remain are the ones that truly matter.

In a world of infinite noise, sometimes the most beautiful sound is silence. 

Book Review: Lord of Light

Right, so that last post was enough gloominess for the time being. I’ve got a brand spanking new laptop, which means no more excuses about abominable hardware. I need to get my writing going again. I’m starting here because in contrast to the sustained efforts of fiction writing, blogging comes easily to me. Who doesn’t want to share their thoughts and opinions with the world?

That’s enough mucking around in the preface. On to the review! 

I just finished reading Roger Zelazny’s Lord of Light, what George R. R. Martin called one of the five best SF novels ever written.  

Now, barring the good old Star Wars Expanded Universe books before Disney froze them in carbonite, I haven’t read a lot of classic sci-fi. Fantasy has always been my thing. But while Lord of Light is a sci-fi story, it’s also layered with fantasy elements and tropes to the point where the boundaries blur. To use the proper term, this is science fantasy.

The premise is this: humans have colonized an alien world completely, having conquered or destroyed the native denizens. They have achieved effective immortality through body-swapping, superhuman abilities born of mutation and enhanced with technology. Their power is, dare I say it, godlike.

Unfortunately, they don’t want to share.

The first colonists have set themselves up as gods and goddesses of Hindu mythology and rule the world through religion. In Heaven they live unending lives of hedonism while the world below churns through ages of feudal peasantry. The one soon to be titled Mahasamatman returns from the provinces and sees how his fellow First enforce their divinity, actively suppressing modern advances. Sam is one of the last proponents of Accelerationism, the belief that their technology should be shared with all. Thus he names himself the Buddha and begins a revolution.

How’s that for original.

I’ve yet to read any of Zelazny’s other work. But his writing here is excellent, though hardly straightforward. Much is spoken through metaphor or otherwise implied. Anachronisms abound, clashing with the more lyrical text in unexpected ways. From a device that sends high-frequency prayers into the atmosphere to a goddess describing her Palace of Kama (I don’t need to name the reference here, do I?) as a place of rest, pleasure, holiness and much of her revenue; the setting is unique, but it’s the quality of writing that kept me turning pages. That and the author’s sense of humour. I shan’t ruin any of the puns.

My only complaints are that the introduction of a new character all the way into the third act seems abrupt; and the ending feels rather like the book is walking off into the distance, leaving you behind. There is a very real sense that there are more stories out there, just waiting to be unearthed, if only there were more words on the page.

But I suppose that’s on par for a book that draws so much from myths and legends. Many times throughout his career, Zelazny was offered incentives to write a sequel. He refused them all. He’d told the story he wanted to tell.

Lord of Light is unlike anything else I’ve ever read. It weaves a fantastical, high-tech tale of rebellion, reincarnation and warring gods who aren’t really gods. It’s also colourful, confusing and occasionally hilarious. 

What else can I say? The book is great. Go read it.

A Circle Has No Beginning

"Which came first, the phoenix or the flame?" 

"I think the answer is that a circle has no beginning."

- J.K Rowling 

It’s a warm night in July, and I’m sitting here wondering where half the year went.

All right, that’s not true. I know exactly where it went. These past few months have been caught up in a swirl of new responsibilities at work, family issues, depression and anxiety and too many video games.

Last year was about change for the better. My mother was going through chemotherapy, and it was going well. I was quitting my addictions, embracing my goals, improving myself as a person. I felt like I was moving forwards.

This year my mother’s cancer is coming back, and it’s officially stage four. I don’t feel that different anymore. It all seems like more of the same. Too easily I find myself slipping back into old patterns of behaviour, procrastination and avoidance of painful emotions. This is where the true challenge lies. What do you do when you start sliding downwards? Hope is easy in the beginning, but how do you sustain it?

Today I’m talking about circles.

Someone I know from work died the other day. I knew him for years. We saw each other around most days, made small talk, arrived and left together. The same patterns playing out until you could almost believe they’d last forever. Until they don’t. One day the cycle stopped.

We all have to face death sooner or later. Just like in The Lion King, Simba in the gorge trying to comprehend that his father was never coming back, we too are forced to recognize that the circle of life embraces us all. A circle has neither beginning nor end, but it does end for everyone. Someday it will end for us.

This is natural. Everything ends. Careers, relationships, journeys. Dreams. We get sick of the work we’re doing; we drift apart from the people we’ve loved; we take the final step of the adventure. We lose sight of our dreams. They get buried under clouds of anxiety, mountains of responsibility, the darkness of depression. They get worn down by the constant grinding of routine. And so we fall back into the same patterns as before. The same fantasies that make us feel better. Because we haven’t really changed, have we? We still have the same feelings, the same flaws. We’re still the same people in the end.

But what does it mean to change? 

Mark Manson once said that it’s impossible to change yourself, and a waste of time to try. I love the guy, but when I read that last year, I was sure he was mistaken. I was a better person. I had changed myself.

Later I realized that he was right. I hadn’t changed who I was. I was simply doing different things and feeling better for doing them; getting high on my own self-improvement. Then I stopped feeling better and backslid into bad habits, until I could feel good about quitting them again. So the cycle goes.

That’s all it comes down to in the end: our behaviour. The self is an amorphous concept made up of race, religion, upbringing, emotion, mistakes we’ve made and lessons learned, the people we hate and those we love. Our identity is the sum of our entire lives, every choice we’ve ever made, distilled into who we are today. How are you going to change that?

The answer is, of course, you can’t. I understand that now. You will always be yourself. You can only make better choices, take better actions. The choice to consume less sugar. The choice to put the damn phone away and read a book instead. The choice to actually sit down and write all this out instead of telling yourself you’ll do it tomorrow.

I wanted to find some new insight here. But a lot of this is stuff I’ve said before. I don’t know how to stay hopeful, any more than I know how to predict the future. All I can do is what we’re all doing, one day at a time: stepping blindly into the unknown. Perhaps this is bravery? I don’t feel particularly brave.

We’re always moving forwards, whether we want to or not. There are things I take for granted now that seemed impossibly distant when I was younger. I’m sure that years from now, I’ll look back and feel the same about the problems of today, no matter how overwhelming they may seem.

The circle of life is always turning. We can accept that there are things we cannot change, but take control of what we can. Or we can deny them all, forever drifting through patterns of avoidance, complacency and distraction, until the day the cycle stops. Here’s the thing about circles: every ending is also a beginning. Every death is the start of a new phase of life. Loss is unavoidable, but the circle moves forwards nonetheless.

I guess all we can do is make the most of the time we have left. 

The Winds of Change

I can’t go back to yesterday, because I was a different person then. 

– Lewis Carroll 

Change.

Our greatest hopes and deepest fears revolve around it. Finding love and losing a loved one. Achieving our dreams and watching them die. Rising to glory and falling from grace. In every life, both the storm and the soothing breeze are born from the winds of change.

When I was younger, my life was static, directionless. I was horribly afraid that this was the best it would get. This was all I would ever amount to: nothing much of anything. All those feelings I struggled to escape by losing myself in fantasies. When, I kept asking. I was alive, but when was I going to start living?

I look back fondly on that younger me now. If only he’d known.

Once again, we find ourselves at the beginning of a new year. I thought of listing out my various lessons learned in the old one for your edification and amusement. But nah, screw it. This time I’m doing something more holistic. As I look back over 2018, the year that was, I sense a common theme. A lot of boundaries broken and milestones achieved, but it was all the same, really. Isn’t that ironic?

For me, 2018 was about change.

Stuff happened in 2017. After an arduous two years, my uncle died of colon cancer, the first death in our family in over a decade. He had 62 years, and it struck me that that wasn’t very long at all. My first real relationship ended in a breakup. I’d finally found someone, and it didn’t work out. My mother was then diagnosed with the same cancer, requiring an emergency operation. I signed the form authorizing life-saving surgery and recognized that most painful of truths: our parents aren’t going to be around forever. The operation was a success, but complications led to a stay in the ICU. She almost died.

I suppose it was the perfect storm. I realized that in so many ways, I’d been wasting my life. Going into 2018, I had to start using it wisely. I had to become a better person.

First and foremost, I gained a newfound appreciation for my mother. Our history wasn’t the best. I’d long kept myself emotionally distant from her, wary of getting too close. But keeping track of blood tests and chemotherapy appointments, sleeping on hospital floors at her bedside, I realized that I had to let go of the past. To embrace her for who she was, not who I wished she could be. This was the time; someday soon, it would be too late. Even the thought of that kind of regret was haunting.

Second, I’d long indulged in a certain bad habit from my youth. One of many forms of escapism, like my books and video games and fantasies. All attempts to avoid a reality I wasn’t happy with. But coupled with the internet, this vice was particularly harmful (and sadly common, even touted as ‘normal’). Reluctantly, I accepted that I was addicted.1 I’d made scattered attempts to quit over the years. Now I joined a recovery-based forum and started implementing what it would take to stay clean. 

And third, I realized that I had to start taking my writing seriously. I’ve talked a lot about dreaming of becoming an author, but a dream without effort is just a wish. Was I putting in the work, actually writing my novel on a consistent basis? No, I was not. I’d already dabbled in Habitica for self-improvement. Now I joined a writing guild and began keeping myself accountable through the community. 

Meanwhile, the world was changing too. On May 9th, in a shocking upset, Malaysia’s ruling regime was voted out for the first time in the country’s history. Fed up of corruption and draconian authority, the people changed the government. And they did it peacefully, united despite underlying racial and religious tensions. I played no part, but I’m still proud of that. I’m proud that this country is my home. On a smaller scale, my workplace underwent some much-needed, ongoing renovations, with an increased focus on animal welfare. My schedule was also reshuffled to some extent; suddenly I was busier than ever. But I digress.

By the middle of the year, my mother’s cancer markers were going down. The chemo was working. I’d been clean for months and found my whole mindset changing. Confidence and social skills were so much easier without guilt. For so long, I’d believed that my vices were things I couldn’t live without – and now I was proving to myself that I didn’t need them.  

I’d also quit Instagram earlier in the year, realizing that social media was just one more time sink on the internet. (It’s a good thing I never got on Facebook.) To my surprise, I even found myself losing interest in video games. I still loved them, but felt no desire to play for hours on end. I’d taken up meditation, was spending more time making artwork, began learning Japanese as a third language and had gotten back to playing the piano. And of course, I was writing. There were better things to do.

I was starting to appreciate real life over the one found in fantasies.

My mother finished her chemo in July, with excellent results. The cancer was in remission. Words can't describe my gratitude for that. But I was also finding the writing frustrating, getting bogged down in the second act. And the high of staying clean was fading fast. This was the new status quo, after all. The novelty had worn itself out, and my motivation faltered.

I’d been driven by the thought of becoming a better man. But I started to wonder: had I really changed? Wasn’t I the same person, with the same flaws?

So I slid back into my old habits. The next few months were a struggle to stay clean again.

I wasn’t exactly moving on in the romance department, either. Even post-breakup, I still clung to my old relationship like a security blanket. We consoled each other that we could still be friends. And we are. I’m forever grateful to her, and still am. But I was afraid to let go, even though the core problems persisted, and my own feelings were increasingly ambivalent.

Sometimes we have to learn the same lessons over and over again.

If the first half of the year gave me the drive to improve myself, the second half taught me something equally important: self-acceptance. We’re all human. Sometimes we screw up. I struggled, failed, went back to the same cycles. And that was fine.

You see, I realized that I’d been approaching this the wrong way. As Mark Manson put it, trying to change ourselves is a waste of time. What matters is our actions, how we behave. We all struggle sometimes. But as a wise old wizard as flawed as any of us once said, it is our choices that make us who we are.2

I am a better person now – because I choose to be.

Which brings me to today.

A few weeks ago, three years after I wrote that first chapter in a blaze of inspiration, I finished the first draft of Wraithblade. There’s still much to be done, but this was the first year ever that I sat down and put in sustained effort towards writing a book. I made more progress than in the previous two years combined. Discipline and accountability make a difference.

I met someone new in December, who showed up in my life out of nowhere. Compared to before, it’s a different story in every way. I appreciate that. Funny how someone can make you rethink everything you thought you knew about relationships; it doesn’t have to be complicated. Sometimes people just click.

My mother is still with us. I’m still putting my thoughts into words, drawing order out of chaos. And I’m nearly a month clean, which is better than nothing.

There is a Buddhist saying that my father told me. ‘Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.’ I’m certainly not enlightened, but it is apt. In many ways, I’m living the same life as before: working during the day and writing at night and spending too much time on my phone (the struggle is real). But now I enjoy it all more. I’m committed to living in the moment, instead of wasting time picking over the past or worrying about visions of the future. Life is here and now.

I’m not a kid anymore, and that’s okay. It’s time to embrace being a man. I am proud of all I accomplished in 2018. I still have my demons, just like everyone else. I’ve just gotten better at fighting them.

Here’s to turning the page to the next chapter of our lives.

Keep moving forwards, everyone. Have a great 2019. 

1 - That post wasn't really about video games.

2 - Or as another wise old wizard said, all we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. Bonus points if you can name both.