Now playing:
SubaHibi OST - Tractatus Logico Philosophicus
I'm quickly getting over my nausea, but right now, my mind is on my mental illness—or illnesses,
plural, heh.
I don't think it's a secret to anyone who's been following me that I have, among other things, some
flavor of schizophrenia. I don't think it's worth the time to try and argue if it's plain ol'
schizophrenia, or schizoaffective disorder, or maybe schizoid or schizotypal personality disorder,
or whatever other salami-sliced psychological term. For the purposes of this post, the relevant
detail is that I occasionally suffer delusions, especially paranoid delusions.
They used to be quite severe, to the point that I'd genuinely suspect cars were in active pursuit of
me on the road if they followed me for even just a couple of turns. I've gone to great lengths to
get my physical, mental, and emotional health under control since the beginning of the Kyou Era, and
that's worked wonders to tamp down their frequency and intensity. Even still, however, they're very
much a part of my life to this day, and they can still manage to sneak up on me and color my
thoughts, feelings, and behavior without me realizing it.
I'm sure you see where this is going, heh:
Do I actually need to leave the States at all, or is this whole stunt a mere product of paranoid
delusion?
To be sure, I don't think my thought process was unfounded. Things are genuinely getting dire in
the States—particularly if you aren't a cishet WASP, though I expect even a lot of them will end up
suffering—and from everything I'm seeing, the situation is only going to get worse before it gets
better.
At the same time, however, aren't things getting worse everywhere?
We've committed ourselves to a global economic disaster even in the best case scenario. Far-right
political movements (with adherents so delusional they make ME sound sane) are on the rise around
the world. The post-WW2 international order is falling in on itself like an underbaked cake in real
time, and behind it looms the specter of greater and uglier war. And that's making no mention of
how everyone seems to have given up on trying to keep climate change under control, with clean
energy projects being actively shut down and coal usage ramping back up even as CO2 emissions break
records... but I digress, heheh.
With the situation in the States, my thought process was as follows:
- Project 2025, the playbook of the ghouls in power, explicitly seeks to make any kind of
"pornographic" or "obscene" art a crime.
- My art and that of my community absolutely falls within those crosshairs.
- I, being the kingpin and sponsor of the biggest event that's spearheading the growth of this
"obscene" artistic community, would make for an easy and obvious target.
- Eventually, there'll be a turning point where a bunch of people try to flee all at once, and if I
wait until then to make my escape, I'll be Fucked.
Naturally, I don't want to get black-bagged and throw into a prison or "detention center" in god
only knows where, if not extradited to some remote corner of the Earth that's thousands of miles
from anything or anyone I know...
...and yet, is that not what I'm doing to myself right now, by going into voluntary exile in Mexico
without anyone else here to help, support, or accompany me?
Sure, it's not exactly the same, since I still have full autonomy and agency over my actions here
rather than being imprisoned, and can still make my art and run my events, etc. But now that I'm
here and mulling it over, it's hard not to feel like I've sort of done my enemies' work for them by
turning tail and fleeing—doubly so from the angle of "the cruelty is the point," considering the
intense isolation and loneliness I'd be facing if I were to stay here.
My thinking was that, in leaving early, I could keep all of my plans in motion without any fear of
disruption or persecution, and that I could theoretically have a place outside of the country where
people could escape to. At the same time, however, I've gone to a lot of trouble to make sure my
legal identity and such fly well under the radar, and I've made a point to ensure I can trivially
pass as a cishet male WASP as needed. I did both of these things very deliberately to sidestep any
trouble while residing in the States, and to date, they've been effective.
Thus I wonder:
Am I actually in any danger of being found and captured in the States, or am I just being paranoid?
I'm beginning to believe there was more paranoia at play in my decision-making than I'd originally
thought—which is par for the course with my paranoia, since it's often hard for me to notice its
presence until after the fact.
I'm also considering how so very, very many people I know in the States are struggling, including my
would-be partner, and how I could offer much more than mere words, game nights, and the occasional
bank transfer to them were I there in person to support them. Hell, that notion of having a space
where I could let my friends crash and lay low would be much more realistic if they could reach me
with a mere car or bus ticket rather than having to travel across borders—not to mention how buying
property to have a place to shelter my friends would be much easier in a country where I already
have a well-established credit history, heh.
To be honest, it feels like I've done nothing but try to talk myself out of Operation Mexikyou ever
since I landed here. At the same time, though, I was so stressed and exhausted when making all of
the arrangements, and pushing myself so hard to ignore my fears and anxieties, that I wasn't exactly
thinking clearly. But now that I have a quiet moment, everything's coming under close scrutiny...
Now playing:
Little Goody Two Shoes - Ceramic Grove of Wheat
On paper, everything should be perfect right now.
Earlier today, I finished drafting out the script for my Daydrinking
Jam VN and sent it to my teammates. I'll get to meet up with
one of them—my cute artist friend—in person for the first time within the next week, both to sketch
out ideas together AND to attend a live concert together with other friends for a band I love. For
that matter, winter has finally ended, and my seasonal depression has begun to clear up.
What else?
- I've started chatting regularly with another schizo system I've been around for some
time now, and already we've had strikingly good chemistry.
- My workout routine is bearing great fruit, with me being strong enough to move as much weight as I
ever have, while I'm also rapidly dropping body fat.
- All of my relocation plans are lined up, with me not needing to do anything more now beyond
showing up at the right places at the right times.
- The community around my jams is flourishing, and it's looking very likely that this year's Toxic
Yuri VN Jam will decisively trounce Spooktober, my biggest rival in the jam space.
Things are looking great across the board, really... and yet, I'm haunted by dread. Indeed, I'm
writing this at nearly a quarter past 2 AM because I knew that I wouldn't be able to sleep if I
simply tried to lay down.
So then, what's on my mind?
Around a year or so ago now, I received something like a vision or a premonition. This isn't
anything out of the ordinary, mind you, but just the latest iteration of the flashes of vaguely
clairvoyant insight I get from time to time (because I'm descended from psychics and I'm favored by
my tutelary deity of fate and fortune, etc etc).
As usual, it wasn't anything so clear as a written prediction or some rigidity detailed sequence of
events, but rather a vivid mental and emotional impression of what the end result will be, along
with a through-line that traces through everything which will have led up to it, and which
underscores what will come to pass as a result.
Part and parcel with these premonitions is this sort of spiritual compass readout I get that loosely
steers me in one direction or another, pointing me towards the duties I need to execute—my
"purpose," as some might call it, or perhaps my "fate"—and away from paths and activities
characterized by what I call "definite wrongness," which can range among everything from
self-destructive behavior to a nontrivial misallocation of time, energy, and resources that
should've been diverted elsewhere for something far more meaningful, etc.
Unlike all of the previous premonitions, however, this one has been extremely potent, persistently
flashing more and more red warning lights at me as time goes on despite my initial doubts about the
severity and scale of the ugly picture it's painted for me.
With this premonition, my compass has been pointing me in one direction:
Away.
But it's not so simple as just moving out of the country. No, more than that, I need to manage my
resources far more carefully than I have been in the face of a looming economic catastrophe, lest I
end up in a vastly weaker position financially and end up struggling to support my community and the
underlying currents of genuine creativity and artistic passion therein through my game jams—an
important duty of mine that I mustn't neglect.
Thus I've been desperately gathering any materially useful information and intel from wherever I've
been fortunate enough to find it, scrambling to prepare myself from the storm of definite wrongness
that gathering on the horizon at a scale so intense and so beyond anything I've seen that it
frightens me.
By the time I'm writing this—nearly 3 AM now—I've made most of the changes and adjustments that I
can to harden my position. You can rest assured, my dear reader, that I'm solidly positioned to
continue my game jams and the like through the next few years, come hell or high water~ All the
same, things look bleak, and my sphere of control is ultimately a tiny, pitiful thing.
Amidst all of my good fortune—for which I am endlessly grateful—I've been worried dearly for the
future, for the safety and well-being of those I love, and for what might become of the ideals I've
fought so desperately to embody, defend, and encourage in others.
After all, I might have a ghostly image in my mind about what's to come, but I certainly don't know
exactly what will happen, exactly when it will happen, or exactly how it will happen. It's all in
broad strokes, since ultimately, the future is not set in stone, and a degree of noise and
randomness permeates everything.
Nevertheless, I'm doing everything I can to appreciate and show gratitude for the fruits of my
fortune and labor, and not to let the dread paralyze me, hence why I'm still joining game jams,
still taking road trips, still making plans to go to concerts with my friends, etc.
No matter what the future may hold, and no matter where we end up, we must keep living.
Over the past few days, I was sick with some manner of cold. It wasn't anything too serious—mostly just lethargy and a
low-grade fever—and I'm largely recovered by now, if not all better by the time you're reading this, heheh.
In terms of webdev, I've started fleshing out the Links page, copying over most of the links and website buttons from
the old version of Signal Tower. If you're one of my lovely friends and you're not yet on the Links page, please let me
know and I'll correct that, doubly so if you're already linking back to me, heheheh~
Meanwhile, the state of affairs here in the States has become yet more grim, the spread of definite wrongness continuing
its acceleration as has become the norm. I'll hear no argument against it: Any government using its power to inflict
senseless cruelty and terror upon any part of the population it's meant to guide and serve is undeniably definite
wrongness, and the very notion of it should bring shame to all of us as the inheritors of the Western tradition. I
won't delve any further into the specifics now, since it's very late in the evening when I'm writing this, but it's
deeply troubling, to say the least.
As ever, many dimensions of the worsening situation remain beyond my control, but what I have done is set up a
recurring monthly donation to the Trans Continental Pipeline to help them in
response to the huge spike in demand and traffic they're no doubt struggling with. If you can afford to do so, I
encourage you to do likewise.