▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ஜ۩۞۩ஜ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

Life is hard.

Often, it's a miserable slog.
Wake up, go to work, come home, and hope you're not too tired to play a video game or watch a few episodes before you have to pass out and do it all over again.

Life is pointless.

If you believe in Heaven, or Nirvana, or whatever else, this existence is ultimately unimportant.
If you don't, then you know that in less than a hundred years, you'll be gone.
If we are lucky, we are each allotted an utterly meaningless century.

Despite this, we cling to life - because existentially, it's the only thing we're really certain of.
Faced with the knowledge that everything we will ever experience may ultimately amount to nothing, we grow anxious. In our angst, we look for meaning, and in doing so, we turn our backs on the real world to chase the phantoms and fantasies we conjure for ourselves.

So what's to be done in a world drowning in the terror of meaningless evanescence?

Well, never fear! There are a lot of people bracing themselves against that very same terror, and boy do they have an ethos for you - one that frames you as the lone warrior, the last sane person, the last matador, tearing down everything in a world gone mad.

An ethos that will teach you that violence is necessary to bring about some improbable new dawn; one that replaces the uncomfortable mediocrity of the real world with new fantasies that will exploit your helplessness until you're either so angry that you can't see straight, or you give up and just stop caring.

From there, there's nowhere to go but unto infinity - and infinity has no bottom, no end.

The world can be better, but there will never be a better world than the one we've got, and we only have so much time to spend in it.

There is a lot of garbage in the world, but the world is not garbage.

Regardless of what nihilists say, all the meaning you could ever need is within arm's reach as long as you are willing to create it. We'll never know if utopia is possible, but "was" or "could be" are no reason to give up on yourself or the people around you - on what is.

Be kind, despite everything. Lift others up, and hold yourself up in turn.

The world - and life in it - is only pointless if you turn your back on it.

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ஜ۩۞۩ஜ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

I'm Brakit, a 27-year-old mess that's as kind-hearted as I am stupid and immature. I hold myself in pretty low regard, but people that I think are cool (my friends and family) think I'm cool, so I'd like to believe there must be something of value in who I am.

I've wanted to be a hero ever since I was a kid, and while that dream's felt more hollow and meaningless as I've gotten older, I can't seem to let go of it, at least as something to aspire to. The idea of being a light in the darkness - or at least, trying to be - is important to me, even if I've gotten more jaded, and even if I rarely if ever live up to the ideal.

I wear my heart on my sleeve and used to be pretty outgoing, but that's gotten me taken advantage of and deeply hurt more than a few times in my life in succession, and as such I've been in a lengthy, trauma-induced phase where I've been something of a recluse; cautious of strangers and afraid of starting new friendships with anyone outside my circle, all too aware of the cruelty people are capable of with minimal incentives, and all too paranoid of ever giving someone the chance to hurt me that way again.

Rationally, I understand how unsustainable that is, but trauma doesn't really operate on rationality, does it?

I've kept to myself and kept all my profiles private for the better part of nearly five years now at the time of my writing this, but I am slowly trying to start opening myself up again, obviously baby steps at a time. Life's too short, and I've wasted too much time as is on the wrong people and my own despair. I have to be willing to try again.

If you don't know me/just met me in a game and came to check me out to see if I'm friend material or whatever, my honest answer is that I might just be more trouble than it's worth. I'm damaged goods, recovering from a lot, and I might not always be the good time I try to present myself as when I'm goofing off in-game. I'm scatterbrained, always with my head in the clouds, and am chronically bad at keeping up with others, or myself for that matter. But obviously that's up to your judgement, and if we get along well, the newfound company would probably be much appreciated.

If you send me a friend request, please don't take it personally if I don't accept; it's a me thing. I'm still nervous about the people I choose to include in my life, so I'm arbitrarily picky about it even though I'm trying to change. I'd like to think I'm a good judge of character, but I've been woefully wrong before, so if I come to some conclusion that we probably won't get along too well based on some arbitrary read I have on you despite not really knowing you, that's on me, not you. You wouldn't be missing much, I don't think.

And it should be obvious by this point, but if we don't know each other at all, as in not even having met in game, I'm just not going to accept a friend request. It is what it is.

If you used to know me, see this and want to try to reconnect, go for it, though depending on who you are your mileage may vary quite heavily on how eager I am to build a new bridge.

Maybe I'm a broken man, but I still work. I'm trying to be better, trying to change.

I only have the will to do so (and the will to live, for that matter) thanks to my family and friends who've been there for me throughout my life; and if you're one of those people, I can't thank you enough. I promise that, although I'll fail here and there, I'll never stop trying to prove myself worthy of the love and hope you've given me. Thank you all for everything.

And if you're a stranger that just stumbled across this bit of oversharing randomly and somehow read to this point anyway, thanks for humoring the ramblings of a well-intentioned manchild. Hope there was something of value for you in any of it.

Take care of yourself, and thank you for sharing your world with me, whether it's for the long-haul or if it's just a fleeting moment in a random video game. I hope the world is kind to you.


<Last edited on June 16th, 2024>