in my daily life, i've been told by a few friends that i act a bit like a shounen protagonist.

i don't deny that the sort of tangents i go on within this blog also appeal to that. indeed, though i don't have many followers or even many posts, i tend to engage with subject matter from a very personal perspective, coloured by my strange experiences with other people, school, art, etc.

of course, that in and of itself doesn't mean i'll act like a shounen protagonist. it's moreso the things surrounding those truths that make it so. i believe that's because of the way i've just naturally grown up around shounen anime and "badly written stories", but let me catch you up to speed.

i don't believe it is common for most people to view themselves or the world nowadays within a highly spiritual or magical lens, viewing inner insights, art, music, math, or even just the experience of being human as this innate spiritual or "magical" experience. at least in western society, because of the culture surrounding science, truth, and the boundaries of the physical world, many people are focused on what is "real", or "allowed", or able to be experienced within the "real world". that is to say, there is an idea that there is a real world, it is the physical one we experience, and we are simply self-replicated, self-aware humans that experience all that there is within our lifespan until we die. because, well, of course! it is science! we have evolved as a branch off of the apes who learned to walk and use tools, and now we are the homo sapiens, the wise apes, who are able to take all the knowledge and intelligence we have to even understand many of the fundamental aspects of our world. we have proven this, and we can see the effects of our actions, the way things world, the way the wind moves and gravity works, even if we don't understand everything.

it is, perhaps, a perfect view of the world to see ourselves as nothing but playing a role of the conscious, intelligent, wise beings that have been given the gift of consciousness, intelligence, wisdom, and free will to assert ourselves, learn about the world, experience the things outside our doorsteps and actually know them, perceive them, and experience them, until they disappear of course because of the truths of life and death of course. all life comes to its end.

but isn't it neat? isn't it, perhaps, magical that we get these several years, forever tied to our brains and consciousness until the end of our bodies? that we are made of the exact same atoms and forces that have caused stars, planets, and even video games to exist?

to many it's just science, and frankly, i've been trying my whole life to see it from that detached, disarmed perspective that is almost "ego-less". we must attain more knowledge and learning for it'll disappear from us one day. we must keep learning and seeing, gathering more until there's almost nothing left that we can't understand. we must use our wisdom to ensure the success of ourselves, our loved ones, make the people in the past proud of our accomplishments, even our past selves of yesterday and the generations past. and, of course, the people of the future too.

and perhaps then we'll feel fine? we'll feel good?

in frankness, i can't help but feel disillusioned or perhaps a bit afraid that those are the truths, even if i know them. it is no secret to any living being that is aware enough to be here that we will die at some point, and that life is a great, magical thing. it is also no secret that the notion of dying at all is immensely terrifying.

the end of everything? perhaps the end of everything is the apocalypse, is it not? and, if your consciousness will be taken away from you, isn't that also, indeed, the apocalyptic end of the world?

of course it is not, but, well...

i don't know...

dying seems kinda unfun, not gonna lie.

i've tousled and touched with the idea of ending my own (thankfully i'm past that), but the grander idea that many who have thought of killing themselves still stands with me, as much as i'd like to say it's past me.

for that though, i'd need to return to the title of this blog post. what's all this on being a shounen protagonist, being a hermit, and "badly written stories"?

and what was that whole spiel on science and spirituality? why so much spiritual, misty?

for many of my former years, the days that i didn't spend fighting with my parents, watching youtube, playing video games, or chatting with friends, i spent on watching shounen anime. as a kid with free access to the open internet (and an open internet with much more easy access to pirated media), i spent nearly countless hours just watching my favourite shows, of my favourite characters doing their cool things. a dragon slayer with cool fire powers, or a ninja with a cool backstory. heck, maybe even throw in some teenage angst and fun abilities into there?

fanfiction was most certainly a part of this too. if i wasn't doing any of the above mentioned things, i was most certainly daydreaming or thinking about my favourite characters and the scenarios i'd get into with them. romantic plots, angsty plots, heck, maybe even throw in some parts where we don't even see the characters doing their cool thing, they're just baristas or firefighters now. isn't that neat?

something that i've come to realize now though, especially as i venture more into art school, is just the heavily contrived and trope-y nature of shounen anime, or even cartoons and animated films in general. i have many words to say on their predictability, plot armour, plot holes, strange character actions, strange writing choices, fanservice, and, perhaps, if i'm really up in my thinking brain of the world at large, how it really all of that has arisen from human psychology and the political systems of our colonized and capitalized world to date.

i wish that i could make this a sermon on why all my favourite animes have bad takes, bad choices, perhaps even the shittest premises known to man, but i'm sure that anyone reading this can come up with their own talk on why that's the case, even if the devil is in the details.

in speaking more generally, i can't help but find myself disillusioned with, even as how we've progressed so far in computer animation, storytelling, and the information available to us now more than ever as humans, that we are still gripped into the same ideas, tropes, characters, etc. at some point, can't you just come up with a sort of formula for almost every shounen anime? give it a starry-eyed protagonist, or a cool one, give them cool hair or a nice sense of style, and make them an idiot with cool powers, but of course, the strongest one, and give them a cast of other characters fighting against the big bad with everyone also having their cool powers.

it's a formula that works. it gets people gripped.

it gets people to escape from the monotony of the everyday world and puts them into a magical place where they are the ones experiencing this story too. maybe they too have magical powers that science can hardly explain, with friends that accept their weird antics, and life and death are just toys that we can experiment with and play with. and maybe we're hot and sexy, and look super cool, and other pedantic things like that.

and might i say that these chains shackle me like no other?

i don't deny that it's likely a common experience, and perhaps only slightly more rare in the fact that i'm thinking about it and writing about it, but i can't help but feel as though this devil has it's shackles all around me, if only i could escape the thought processes and childhood that i had experienced.

at the end of it all, i too, am kinda experiencing this "shounen protagonist" life. genuinely, at the point that i'm at in my university career, i am one of the few actively social members at my university still pursuing my major which most of my friends barely understand or know about, with so many friends with weird abilities, antics, and drama to beat. art school is a fucking weird place, but i guess you could call it a fairy tail guild or naruto clan. in my "third year arc" i've gone from being a lazy, senseless, procrastinating egotist (not that the procrastination or laziness have changed much, because of course), to an upperclassman with "experience" and "know-how" of my major.

but there is a little voice in my head that says something. it says i should stop thinking in this way.

realistically, everyone is experiencing their own shounen protagonist ways, and the "abilities" we have, inborn, or not, are a result of our experiences up until this point. experiences that we can't remove or take away anymore. and experiences that are inline with the truths of the fundamental world.

my friends aren't just insanely good at art and music from birth, even if they were prodigies. they crafted that skill. they've gone down the skill tree in the most broken system possible: trial and error. they kept making art, kept practicing their instrument, kept going until they got to their point of mastery. each skill works like that, social skills included. life skills included. intelligent beings don't become intelligent just because they're conscious or have experience, they've have time to practice those experiences and conscious states of being and the skills that they have now. that's the way the world works. you get better at the things you do, constantly, and forever, pushing yourself just when you're not comfortable and maybe even past the point of where the classical "masters" have stopped due to complacency, disillusionment, illness, or death.

that is the true story of the world, frankly. and many people are tired of it. so am i of course, but, really, any "wise theme" that you find in any narrative that says "work hard! study hard! you'll get what you want in the end if you really keep trying and just trust and enjoy the process!" will always seem so contrived and "dumb" to anyone that has seen it more than twice and lived it while sentient. "it's just life".

at the point that i'm at, i have a true jealousy for anyone that can stomach watching cartoons while they're not stoned or drunk anymore. i truly cannot do it, even video games. i just watch now, at this point. perhaps it's egotistical for me to say, but i truly feel like i've "seen it all" when it comes to cartoons, video games, and fantasy worlds, and i just cannot find the will within me to watch them anymore and take it seriously.

there is one other time where i feel like it'd be nice though and i do indulge.

that's when i'm feeling the way that i am now. depressed. lonely. anxious. like i want an escape.

it tends to be video games in frankness, the playable "shounen animes" of my time. i can't deny that the endless hours i've spent playing overwatch, or league of legends, valorant, etc. have just been me trying to be the best gamer there was while also living out my dream of being as cool as the characters i was playing. i still can't help it. i still can't help thinking of them even if they're fictional and people don't just get cool abilities like that for free. i still want to think of my life as a video game, and my friends as having cool abilities. what's mine? i've actually asked something like that to one of my friends.

but, if i can't stomach it when "sober", then why?

...

why does any person even watch these shows, sit down and pop open a beer with the tv on, or get stoned in their parents basement?

they want that escape. they want that magic.

they want one of the apexes of human experience:

joy. happiness. peace.

and they find it in the television, in the drink, in the game, more than they can in their real lives.

.

because of that, i can't deny that when i get depressed like i do now, i want to just disappear from the responsibilities of our real world.

return to my older habits. of when i was in high school or my early university days, where i was a true hermit, sheltered and in their own tower living their own life.

as a return back to the title of the blog post, i can't help but feel as though those hermit like habits, of staying in and finding myself, were some of the best days i had, even if i was spending insane amounts of money, destroying my body with drugs, and running away from the truths of my gender and life by dressing like a cool boy or cute girl.

severely, i want nothing more than to just disappear from the face of the earth i've occupied and live a life of complete and utter irrelevance, because i feel like a connection to that truth is deeper and more inline with the "truth of the world". and by then too, i'd also be living my place as an obedient little human.

i'd die as an irrelevant life. one that mattered, of course, but one that was just another page in the books of a corporate tower, a single person who lived as much as they could, and lived a "good life" free of strife. full of peace.

i'd die, perhaps, on the way to work, or in my sleep knowing what tomorrow would look like: the same as yesterday, the same as today, and the same as tomorrow.

i wouldn't call my daily journal of days to occur a badly written story at that point. it would be a story that just wasn't written at all.

but we reach. so often as humans, we reach for that magical plane of existence where magic is real, heaven does exist and is provable, and the deities and higher beings in our lives have come to attest that we are here to support each other and live life to the fullest.

"this is our destiny! this is our fate! this is where we make the true magic of the physical plane, earth, the reality, our reality! and in this domain, there are gods, yes, but we do not need them to turn the world upside down! all that we ask is for their favour, their wisdom, to continue going on forward! and enjoy our lives until they're inevitably gone!"

but i don't know. i can't help this inexorable pull of opposite forces. of the imagined reality and the real one we occupy.

wouldn't it be nice to be a magical, cool, magician or thief that overturns the world, perhaps defeats god or the evil empire with nothing but a small force of other fantasy party members?

wouldn't it be nice to be a cog in the machine, obeying the orders given to you, and being fine with your place, perhaps because the stability and knowledge of staying exactly where you are in stasis is comforting?

but the thing about these two opposing lives is a similar feeling. a sameness.

they are the same because the protagonist occupying those journeys is in total acceptance of themselves, of who they are, their mission, their journey, and where they want to go.

perhaps that's where i've faltered all these years.

i don't have anywhere i'd really want to go.

---

in writing this, i can't deny that i've been feeling extremely stressed and burned out, even as i'm in week three of my third year at uni. i'm actually writing this the morning i have a project due i haven't even completed, a rehearsal i'm personally conducting for, and several friendships i'd like to keep afloat.

hermitance (is that even a word?) seems nice right now. i'd love nothing more than to just escape from every single responsibility that asks anything of me.

i know that it is my journey, my,,, fuck, destiny, i guess to live like this? live this life doing something only others dream of and bring something to the community that usually isn't there?

but it would be really nice, i think, one day, just to lay down arms, walk off into the sunset,

and finally be free to wander as a truly nameless soul.