Happy 7/11! It's 7/12 now, but what fucking ever.
Those who know me (and let's be real, nobody reads this so it doesn't apply) know that I've played Pokemon GO unironically with my parents since it came out in 2016. This weekend, they had their 10th anniversary celebration and we went out and played just like old times!
As a family, we haven't done that in quite some time. Back in 2017-2019, we went out every Saturday that we could for community day so that we could catch shinies, and we would go out to do raids when raid hour happened and new legendaries/shinies were released. It was a way for us to bond over a mutual interest. Not only that, but we met a lot of people in our area that way and made friends. Many of them I'm still friends with to this day on Pokemon GO.
It tapered off a lot more in 2020 when quarantine hit, since obviously there wasn't as much leeway to do stuff in person. Even in 2021, I remember doing some raids and stuff with people, but it wasn't nearly the same as it had been before. Not as much joking and laughing as I remembered, not as many people. There was more of a divide between us, and it didn't feel the same.
Since I went back to school in person my junior year, I had more to worry about and stopped playing as often. For the most part, I forgot about the game and what it meant to us as a family after so long without it. But going out this past saturday made me feel like I was in 8th grade again, getting a breather from all of the shit going on around me and simply focusing on what was in front of me: an overheating phone and some gas station snacks.
There were so many people there. More than I'd ever seen at any community day, at any raid night, even at the ones back in the prime of POGO's life. Literally over a hundred people all huddled around each other with portable chargers in their bags and pockets, all in their own little groups and worlds while all still playing the same game. It felt so natural, and I missed it more than I could have thought to.
All in all, I caught 17 shinies, many of which I didn't yet have, including Mewtwo! I also got every english Unown letter variant, plus exclamation points and question marks. I also got a 100IV Tynamo, which would be better if I didn't already have a 100IV Eelektross... ;-;
It was a lot of fun.
On Friday, driving home from my partner's house, I recorded a little audio blog. I told myself I'd probably transcribe it. I don't want to, because I ended up in tears on the drive home talking about the constant tension I have with my parents. I'm going to summarize it from how I remember and keep it in a little hidden drop-down because I know it will be a lot.
My parents made the choice to monitor me closely because I was not mentally stable. I respect that choice, and I agree that it was the right one, as opposed to ignoring me and letting me deal harm to myself. But they do not acknowledge that that course of action still has lasting consequences on my ability to be open with them and others. I find it exceedingly difficult to be honest about what goes on in my life. That's in part because I am, and have always been, a bit of a recluse. But a lot of it is also because I'm embarrassed. I was always fed the half-truth that I "had potential". But it's hard to realize any potential when I'm not motivated like a human being is supposed to be. Saying that I'm not motivated sounds like a bullshit excuse to anyone who has any ounce of motivation or dream. That's why I don't talk about it, even if it's the main problem and my strongest insecurity. It makes me feel nonhuman. In part, I feel brotherhood in technology. There are rules to existence and the way things behave, strict and structured but with fullbodied reasoning behind them. But I also embrace the ambiguity in everything. I see the reason for the reasons, and I make room for the grey area to question the foundations. "For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears." The consequence in training an algorithm to know that it is being watched is that it will share less in knowing that the watcher will know what it does not share regardless. Whence the watcher ceases, the algorithm will not have learnt to share, nor why it would naturally consider it. No memory can be erased, so the watcher remains, even as it does not exist. When the fear is human, the concept of the watcher becomes greater in omniscience. And when omniscience is assigned, the humanity in parallel ceases, and the abstract overtakes rationale to form disordered response in place of the capacity to understand. So the knee-jerk is not to realize that the training was flawed, but now to feel the floor that held the fear collapsing and dragging one down along with it. Some point along the way, I think my brain lost control of what is and isn't meant to be a secret. So I'm scared when I talk. But when I do, when I feel happy to, too much of it escapes me and the cycle repeats itself again. And it trains on itself, silently pacing over rationale that was not meant to exist. Click to read a bit about why I'm absolute dogshit at opening up to people and why I blame my parents /hj. Or don't. I can't tell you what to do.
...yeah. That was a lot. And that wasn't all of what I said on recording, I just don't feel like listening back to my incoherent rambling just to try and translate that nonsense.
I think that this blog helps me share, even if it's to nobody in particular. It helps me gather my thoughts in one place and in a way that's way more coherent than it otherwise is rattling around aimlessly in my head.
I have been feeling more manic than usual the last week or so and I'm a bit worried about that. Great thing to note at the very end of the entry, of course, but it's the truth and I need to share that here, too. I don't want to do something stupid that reminds me why I feel like I don't have any privacy; the greater good as to why I don't deserve privacy.
So I'm going to smoke some weed and listen to music. The music makes me feel a lot of things, so maybe that's a poor idea. But I love it because it does make me feel. Hopefully I get too high to do anything exceedingly stupid. God knows I have a bad track record with that. It's hardly ever destructive, though. Just stupid and funny to look back at when I'm sober.
I'm going to go and do that now. I'll be back whenever I feel like it.