Dissatisfaction 満足がない
Often I find myself deluding myself to that which is fantasy and that which is real. It is a small reassuring day-dream that helps quiet a part of myself that constantly feels uneasy and unsatisfied, that which chafes at the sheer mediocrity and normality of life. The activities I find myself participating in are fundamentally driven by this dissatisfaction with reality.
In reading I can absorb myself in a world that is unreal and fantastic, or at least inherently different to the one I currently inhabit. This absorbs the focus of my conscious awareness so much that just a month before while I was reading I was amazed to discover that after having been engaged for only half an hour that my entire perception of time and of the world had changed. My transition back into reality was jarring and sudden, I found myself disoriented to be returned to this displeasing and normal world. Video-games, television and movies do not have this same immersive phenomenon. With these I can clearly distinguish the border between reality and un-reality, often with the sensation of longing to cross it. Some of my fantasies indulge in this luxury and I find myself contemplating the possibilities of my transit into these make-believe worlds which are inherently more real than our own. They have to be, because they need to for a time supersede the bland reality which we exist in. I find myself emotionally charged by these experiences but they are ultimately still unsatisfying.
Then there is role-playing. This is a more active delusion than the others which are passive in nature. With a video game I do have some control over my fantasy, but with role-playing I am an author, I am a creator. It is the same feeling that empowers me with art and with writing, because for that small time where my brain fully believes the faux reality I have wrought I can be God, I can steer anything and everything. Role-playing though shares this power with others and so it is inherently bound by rules. We have to remain in character and try to accurately simulate and portray the fake person we have created. We relinquish control to the dice and to an all-mighty director who conducts the proceedings. Yet for this we do not relinquish all control, for without the players and our active engagement the game is simply a protracted and drawn out simulation. It is the injection of our disbelief in reality and our belief in our created non-reality that makes the final product work.
I wonder if I am the only one who chafes at this reality and how dull and boring it is compared to the colourful and vast worlds of fantastic scope I can create in my mind. It might be childish of me to wish that I could posses magic or some kind of super-human ability. Perhaps it's a phase that I will eventually pass through, at the end metamorphosing into a responsible and well adjusted adult who is ready to deal with the bland and grey world we exist in. Somehow though I can't believe this, because for all of these activities I participate in someone else has authored them, or at least authored the rules. It would be comforting to be able to rationalise this whole sense of dissatisfaction in a nicely bound and poetically philosophical statement such as: "The dissatisfaction with our present reality is the driving force behind human imagination and progress of the human race." Indeed it may even be that such a statement is still valid, although with such things it is as always only part of a larger picture, a small fragment of a greater truth. But yet for all of my dissatisfaction with the reality present and immutable to me I find myself savouring it when I can. It is at least a small comfort that assures me that I exist, that by experiencing various sensations that I can define myself in contrast to the world. Yet it also stems from a desire to preserve what I have experience for one of my greatest fears is that when I am faced with my twilight years that I will be surrounded by those who no longer have the chance to experience this.
It is all probably somewhat over-dramatised. Admittedly I enjoy being able to write prose like this, it is again another form of delusion in that for this brief moment I can believe myself to be something that I am not. Yet I do not feel uncomfortable with myself and have largely accepted the varying parts and fragments that make up me as a whole. Yet despite all of this I still continue to wish for something more and until I receive it, I will continue to dream and to imagine.
私に前の現実は詰まらないね。私はいつも別の世界を考えていて、魔法が本当にあり、竜と巨人もあります。読書する中で私は不本当の世界に生きて出来る。私は動力化で読書するから、現実の世界が忘れます、でもいつも後に現実に回帰してしまいます。ビデオゲームやテレビ番組を見ている際でこの感覚もありますけど、もっと弱い感覚でしょう。ロールプレイはちょっと違い感覚を感じる、新しい世界が作ってできて、しかもその世界に住まれます。現実が嫌いわけじゃないけど、現実の世界は簡単も詰まらない。私は普通の人間で、普通の能力があります。そしてどうすればいいか、大人になりましょうか。私はほとんどに大学から卒要します、今年後で就職してなかれならない、自分では働いて、自分のうちを探さないわけがない。でも、私はまだ九層の世界が欲しがっています。
In reading I can absorb myself in a world that is unreal and fantastic, or at least inherently different to the one I currently inhabit. This absorbs the focus of my conscious awareness so much that just a month before while I was reading I was amazed to discover that after having been engaged for only half an hour that my entire perception of time and of the world had changed. My transition back into reality was jarring and sudden, I found myself disoriented to be returned to this displeasing and normal world. Video-games, television and movies do not have this same immersive phenomenon. With these I can clearly distinguish the border between reality and un-reality, often with the sensation of longing to cross it. Some of my fantasies indulge in this luxury and I find myself contemplating the possibilities of my transit into these make-believe worlds which are inherently more real than our own. They have to be, because they need to for a time supersede the bland reality which we exist in. I find myself emotionally charged by these experiences but they are ultimately still unsatisfying.
Then there is role-playing. This is a more active delusion than the others which are passive in nature. With a video game I do have some control over my fantasy, but with role-playing I am an author, I am a creator. It is the same feeling that empowers me with art and with writing, because for that small time where my brain fully believes the faux reality I have wrought I can be God, I can steer anything and everything. Role-playing though shares this power with others and so it is inherently bound by rules. We have to remain in character and try to accurately simulate and portray the fake person we have created. We relinquish control to the dice and to an all-mighty director who conducts the proceedings. Yet for this we do not relinquish all control, for without the players and our active engagement the game is simply a protracted and drawn out simulation. It is the injection of our disbelief in reality and our belief in our created non-reality that makes the final product work.
I wonder if I am the only one who chafes at this reality and how dull and boring it is compared to the colourful and vast worlds of fantastic scope I can create in my mind. It might be childish of me to wish that I could posses magic or some kind of super-human ability. Perhaps it's a phase that I will eventually pass through, at the end metamorphosing into a responsible and well adjusted adult who is ready to deal with the bland and grey world we exist in. Somehow though I can't believe this, because for all of these activities I participate in someone else has authored them, or at least authored the rules. It would be comforting to be able to rationalise this whole sense of dissatisfaction in a nicely bound and poetically philosophical statement such as: "The dissatisfaction with our present reality is the driving force behind human imagination and progress of the human race." Indeed it may even be that such a statement is still valid, although with such things it is as always only part of a larger picture, a small fragment of a greater truth. But yet for all of my dissatisfaction with the reality present and immutable to me I find myself savouring it when I can. It is at least a small comfort that assures me that I exist, that by experiencing various sensations that I can define myself in contrast to the world. Yet it also stems from a desire to preserve what I have experience for one of my greatest fears is that when I am faced with my twilight years that I will be surrounded by those who no longer have the chance to experience this.
It is all probably somewhat over-dramatised. Admittedly I enjoy being able to write prose like this, it is again another form of delusion in that for this brief moment I can believe myself to be something that I am not. Yet I do not feel uncomfortable with myself and have largely accepted the varying parts and fragments that make up me as a whole. Yet despite all of this I still continue to wish for something more and until I receive it, I will continue to dream and to imagine.
私に前の現実は詰まらないね。私はいつも別の世界を考えていて、魔法が本当にあり、竜と巨人もあります。読書する中で私は不本当の世界に生きて出来る。私は動力化で読書するから、現実の世界が忘れます、でもいつも後に現実に回帰してしまいます。ビデオゲームやテレビ番組を見ている際でこの感覚もありますけど、もっと弱い感覚でしょう。ロールプレイはちょっと違い感覚を感じる、新しい世界が作ってできて、しかもその世界に住まれます。現実が嫌いわけじゃないけど、現実の世界は簡単も詰まらない。私は普通の人間で、普通の能力があります。そしてどうすればいいか、大人になりましょうか。私はほとんどに大学から卒要します、今年後で就職してなかれならない、自分では働いて、自分のうちを探さないわけがない。でも、私はまだ九層の世界が欲しがっています。