One of my favorite sites for reading material is Psychology Today. Because of some of my own recent writings, I’ve been researching what constitutes the microcosm of our own personal identities in the modern landscape of digital culture. Anna Akbari Ph.D. wrote the following article for PT back in September of last year, wherein she wields her skepticism to dissect the many nuances of our online personas. She breaks down the illusion (and abuse) of “authenticity,” addresses the sad reality of our “avatars,” among many other things. And while it all may be a bit critical, it is not without passion and consideration. Ultimately, Akbari writes something of a cautionary diatribe, warning against the many warranted dangers of giving our easily-accessible, often duplicitous second-selves too much worth.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/startup-your-life/201809/identity-in-the-age-social-media
“Each and Every Phantom” sampler
Short story anthology “Each and Every Phantom” available for purchase on Amazon in both e-book and paperback.
“The Priestess”
Even in this dark, Reed could feel the approach and descent of night. The cold always found a way inside, and as it made itself comfortable, Reed nursed his angers. His wrath against his father, that leathery ulcer of human discontent. His sister who did not support him, even when he protected her. This house, this village, and everything which dared to exist.
He clutched at the metal star in his hand and curled upon it—the center of his world. For the first time, he wondered who might have kept it before his mother. It was an old piece of iron, so she was unlikely the first. Perhaps she found it on the side of the road, or received it as payment for services rendered. Perhaps it was a gift from family. Reed knew little of his mother’s family, only that she too, had once had a sister of her own. He hoped there was love between them, greater than the love he knew. He wished his mother was there with him.
Reed pinched at the rise of warm salt in his eyes.
He did not want to be hateful. His mother would not have wanted that of him.
Still, the night clawed forward and Reed saw no release from the gray room, even after the lamplights of the home went out. He would be cold and alone tonight. He tapped his teeth with shaking fingers.
Then the shanty returned. It was in his head all the day long, and suddenly was not. The cadence of it was faint and distant, but absolute and real.
The beast had come again upon the waters.
“Dream Brigade”
As she’d predicted, a large figure lifted itself up from a chasm in the chocolate landscape. It had an arched back, a blood-red bonky nose, wild green hair and skin white as the moon. Shadows retreated down the narrow lengths of its body.
“Aw man, I hate clowns,” Cadence shivered. “Why can’t they ever be pandas or something? Maybe next time,” still, she was a brave balloon girl, so she drew upon the power of her REM balloon sword. If she struck it enough times, she could cure this nightmare.
Tumble took an involuntary step back and swallowed through a hard throat. His chest felt heavy and mixed up, like he’d loosed a tornado of marbles inside. Breathing came in difficult waves. Breathing was not supposed to be difficult.
When finally the clown nightmare pulled itself entirely to the surface, it stood at an amazing height and girth, like a bulldozer. Red and yellow pinstripe overalls covered its body and made its Mickey Mouse shoes seem extra bright and puffy.
The clown bonked its nose with closed eyes. It seemed innocent. Then it smiled, baring a wreath of blackened fangs and eyes that flashed open to veins of red and cold white.
Tumble stepped back a little further and docked an arrow. Kerflooey moved in with the others, head down, his boxing gloves crackling with electric-blue REM.
With a wet crack of its neck, the nightmare charged. Too-long arms dragged along the ground as it lumbered forward, a circus titan from the belly of hell. Its laugh was a demented *hick-hickaw*.
“The Stardust Mirror”
In the kitchen where his mother was usually found slicing bread or baking something sweet, a giant of a man was busy going back-and-forth instead. He was the tallest and broadest creature Tennyson had ever seen outside of the zoo, with everything about him suggesting he might be a distant relative to the rhinoceros. Despite his size, this man, who Tennyson assumed to be the aforementioned Braum, was deft and moved with agility throughout the kitchen, stirring spiced eggs with dexterous fingers, preparing the crust of a cobbler, and flipping strips of sizzling meat on the stove.
“It smells lovely, Braum,” Old Missus Freyja said and retrieved a cane from against a bookshelf in the dining area. Had that cane always been there?
Braum, for all his physical bravado, seemed to blush at this. “You flatter Braum, but he accepts. It will be done soon, we are hoping. Who is this?”
“That’s Tennyson,” Old Missus Freyja leaned in further, if it were even possible with the shape of her back. “I’m introducing him to the family.” She said as if she were passing along a secret.
“Well, Braum hopes we do not spook him. But yes, yes, now we are busy,” Braum attended to a snap of meat which sat on the oven, cooking in burning oil. “We shall talk more later? When Braum is ah, ah, not so busy, ya?” He ran one blocky hand over his blond beard and pink lips. “Lily I think would make for a better introduction, maybe? She is out teaching the chickens how to fly.”
To this, Tennyson’s brow screwed to a point. He looked out the window. “We don’t have chickens,” a pause. “And chickens can’t fly.”
“Ah, but they can,” Braum raised a defiant finger. “You just need to help them believe in themselves.”
The MCU and its (lack of) Therapy
Today shows the release of the final installment of what was originally designed to be the entire culmination of the MCU. Over ten years of superhero film evolution and a bajillion mixed-quality plots and subplots. I love the MCU, so seeing this grand narrative come to a close is both disappointing, but also good. I understand it will technically continue, but with the departure of many of its fundamental characters, it will have to create a new identity.
Hopefully that identity takes some tips from the vaguely MCU-connected television series, The Punisher. If you haven’t yet watched any of Marvel’s Netflix original titles, you should, uh, definitely do that. Daredevil‘s third season and Jessica Jones‘s second season are some of the best TV I’ve ever watched.
Back to The Punisher. This series explores mental health in a way that is neglected in the wider MCU, especially in regards to protagonist Frank Castle’s battle with post-traumatic stress (and related afflictions). Now, I understand not doing any deep dives on this in the MCU films. They wouldn’t have the adequate run-time to explore the ideas involved, nor would it be tonally appropriate for the target audience. But a passing mention or brief scene showing that their much needed psychological treatment is being addressed would be nice. Please see the link below for more information.
https://comicsverse.com/mcu-allergic-therapy/
Celeste Overpowers Anxiety through Accepting It
Indie Game of the Year for 2018, Celeste stepped into the video game world and promptly cemented itself as a modern classic. It had no real competition for GOTY in the indie sphere at the time of its release, and so everyone was dialed in on this charming, harrowing adventure of a girl as she climbs a mountain. A couple of them, actually, though some are less material than others.
Without spoiling too much of this superb gaming experience, the main character of Celeste, Madeline, struggles throughout the game with a couple different aspects of anxiety and a foggy opinion of herself. Upon the magical mountain of Celeste, her negative feelings manifest as a dark, brash reflection of herself. Over the course of her climb, Madeline faces this dark side to embrace her greatest potential, and prove to herself that she can accomplish a meaningful goal, in spite of herself.
Read the Kotaku article below to see how Celeste not only chronicles Madeline’s misadventure through the dark swamp of anxiety, but the creator’s experience with mental illness, as well.
https://kotaku.com/celeste-taught-fans-and-its-own-creator-to-take-better-1825305692
Exploring Suicide in Anime: An Analysis of the Medium
**As the title implies, this post speaks towards suicide—how we consume it in media, how it functions culturally, how it affects personal experience. If this is a sensitive topic for you, be mindful of continuing.**
High school was the first time suicide directly impacted my life. A minor friend of a few years had convinced himself he was unworthy of living and killed himself in his middling teenage years—dead before he started. I was not overly familiar with his life, and only tangential in the scope of his social circles, but he was the widely beloved class comic. Witty without effort, smart in how he spun situations to create entertainment for others. Common class-clown things that highly depressed people are often good at. It was one of those things that is obvious in hindsight.
Despite him not being one of my closest relationships, that loss still pried open the gates to a world that, up to then, my naivety had kept in a fantastical land. Intellectually, I understood suicide was a thing that could happen. I had simply never imagined it happening to him.
Suddenly, no one was safe.
Suicide would not have any intimate brushes with my life again until much later, in the tail-end of my college years. This time, it would be a little more personal. This time it was family.
Almost family, anyways. Thank God that darkness was made to retreat, though not without years of heavy battle against some inner demons and leagues of external intervention. It was a wildly complicated ordeal, and I will not unpack it here, because ultimately it’s not what I want to talk about. I only bring up these two circumstances because they served to re-appropriate the emotional energy in my heart and made the topic of suicide one I hold up in both personal and professional interest. I spent years studying the psychology of killing oneself and interacting with people who had tried or wanted to or planned on executing that final act.
Suicide, for all its macabre implications, is important to me. And that’s why I appreciate when I see an honest, realistic portrayal of it in the media I consume. Suicide has a history of being a gimmick, a basic inciting incident or historical cornerstone in a character’s background, but is rarely made the focus of a narrative—probably out of the risk of it tonally disrupting an otherwise happy story.
But that’s what I want to talk about with this article. I write about anime for Geeks Under Grace. I’ve been reviewing anime here since before we had an “anime team,” and I’ve been aching to write an article of this nature for over a year. What eventually made me decide now was the time came after my exposure to the film A Silent Voice (Koe no Katachi), which blew up in 2017, following the international commercial success of Your Name (Kimi no Na Wa). This article is not strictly about A Silent Voice, neither the anime, nor manga versions (both of which have my meteoric recommendation), but I will be drawing on pieces of it, as well as several other anime, to reach my conclusion.
Before we go any further though, I wanted to touch upon suicide as it relates to Japan, the land where anime is traditionally forged. Japan has a long history of suicide, even if the kind we see now is different from the days of old. It’s no secret ancient Japan helped “popularize” the concept of seppuku, or the “honorable death.” You are a samurai who failed to protect his benefactor? Rend open your belly. You had inappropriate sexual relations with somebody outside your family’s favor? It is your duty to atone for the dishonor you have brought upon them, and this means willingly (often publicly) bringing about the end.
And you see, that honor… it never really went away. You can see the echoes of it in contemporary Japanese society. The nuances may be different, but the underlying spirit of the problem remains the same: if you cannot be the steadfast rock your family needs, or find success in a cutthroat professional climate, or contribute to the greater whole of Japan as a nation…well, you can always just kill yourself. Under a magnifying glass, if you break down the various economic and social factors that permeate every angle of Japanese culture, you’ll notice it’s a country almost designed to encourage self-destruction. The tides of difficulty that press against every youth and adult are so staggeringly insane that they’d almost be hilarious if they weren’t real, and the result is that Japan has one of the highest suicide rates in the entire world.
As such it’s encouraging when I see an anime that takes a no-nonsense approach to the subject, because suicide and the mental elements that surround it are something Japan obviously needs to address with more frequency and greater efforts (something their government is finally taking strides to accomplish). Historically, it’s not as if anime development studios (and any prerequisite creators) have been completely adverse to showcasing suicide in their creations; it just seems to be coming into greater prominence now than years past. Suicide has shown up in many series: Neon Genesis Evangelion, Welcome to the NHK, Orange, and even Naruto, to name a few.
But more often, if a character is killing themselves, it’s not out of an innate desire to end their own lives. I want to make this distinction. Dying as a mode of martyrdom, sacrificial protection, or ignorant abuse of one’s own health are not the same things, and should not be confused with what we are talking about. This is intentional self-obliteration, because you’ve found yourself in a situation where you simply don’t want to live anymore.
I recently watched an anime called Made in Abyss, which had one of the most realistic conflicts orbiting suicide I’ve seen inside or outside of the medium. It was a short, gripping scene—one I cannot talk about without spoilers, so if MiA is on your radar, skip down to the bold sentence below and continue reading from there.
I’ll keep this pretty complex scenario as simple as possible. Nanachi is a young girl who has been through a lot. She was enslaved for use in human experimentation by a sadistic madman alongside her best friend, Mitty. Mitty got the far worse brunt of aforementioned experimentation, and now cannot die, despite being in a constant state of suffering. She cannot even die when Nanachi tries to kill her. In so doing, Nanachi only torments her friend more, even after escaping the clutches of the monster who made them this way. Then come the protagonists of the series, who are in a bind. Our lead girl, Riko, is on the cusp of venomous death, but Nanachi can save her, and does. Recovery takes a long time, during which Nanachi becomes friend with our other protag, Reg. Nanachi learns Reg possesses a means of killing Mitty. If Mitty dies, Nanachi can finally be free of the overwhelming emotional burden placed upon needing to take care of her, and all the suffering she has inadvertently caused.
But if Mitty was gone, Nanachi would also have no more reason to live. Reg picks up on this and, when approached about whether or not he’d be willing to kill Mitty, says, “Okay. But you’re not allowed to die after she’s gone.”
Nanachi pauses. “Don’t worry. I’ll make sure to take care of Riko and make sure she’s all better, too.”
“Even after that!” Reg bites down on the moisture in his eyes. “Even after that. You need to promise.”
“Oh,” Nanachi contemplates the pool of water at her feet, a sad ache reflecting in her eyes. She resigns. “That’s so cruel… fine. I promise.”
And Reg destroys Mitty in one of the saddest death scenes in recent memory, fulfilling his part of the deal. Nanachi then joins their party afterwards because, well, she has nothing else.
I loved this interaction. My writing of it now cannot convey the heartbreaking rawness of the scene, but the subtle context of Nanachi wanting to die was never explicitly mentioned or given heavy foreshadowing. It was implied through small phrases and gestures leading to this moment, which Reg, being emotionally alert, was able to notice and act against. The audience is trusted to be intelligent enough to understand that Nanachi was planning to kill herself before this confrontation. And Reg—sweet, broken Reg—called her bluff in a gambit to save her life. Being as young as he is, Reg doesn’t have a good solution, so he basically resorts to blackmail. It is an honest, if brutal means of protecting one of his only friends.
Let’s take a moment to talk about Misa from Death Note. Spoilers for this, as well. There’s a bold line for you, too.
Misa Amane is an immensely tragic character. She is gifted in all the wrong types of intelligence, and none of the ones that save her from abuse and harm at the hands of our favorite sociopathic pile-o-trash, Light Yagami. Misa is practically designed to be emotionally manipulated into supporting whatever vague, justice-centric whim passes through the miasma of sludge that is Light’s ego, falling intensely in love with the mass-murderer because, as she perceives it, he dealt justice against the man who killed her family. Misa’s entire existence rotates around supporting Light.
So, when Light is eventually caught out by the investigation agents and brought to an untimely demise (or not soon enough, depending who you ask), Misa’s world goes with him. While we never see her commit suicide, the last image we have of Misa is one of her standing alone on the edge of a tall building. With all we know of Misa, it’s not hard to pick up on the implication that she jumped, forfeiting her life, as Light was no longer in it.
Misa was bright, popular, enthusiastic, and showed kindness to others. The number one complaint fans have against her character is how easily she was manhandled by Light’s nefarious charm. Like, we know she’s smart, so why is she so oblivious to the awful personality of the man she loves? That’s not realistic at all…
I’m obviously being sarcastic. The most tragic part of Misa’s narrative is that she is a loose manifestation of thousands of people who, at any given moment, are betrayed by their better judgment into trusting people who are not worthy of trust. Misa, for all of her dimensions, was ultimately a simple character. She wanted to love, and be loved in return. She wanted to be useful to somebody, even at the cost of herself, because self-sacrifice is further evidence of how much you love someone. She would forego her happiness in favor of Light’s happiness. And, because of the precarious situation she was in, once Light was no more, she had nothing to fall back on. There was nobody else who would be prepared to save her.
Misa is tragic, because she could have been saved if people had known the whole story. She is a superb example of why we should reserve judgment against others. It’s difficult to ever truly know somebody or the struggles they endure, so it’s imperative we be kind to one another. It’s easy to hate Light, because in this example we were allowed inside his mind. We had first-hand evidence he was rotten. If we were on the outside, among his peers—among Misa—it’s likely he would have duped us, too.
There are honestly so many examples I want to explore, but instead, let’s circle back to the beginning. A Silent Voice.
A Silent Voice tackles many heavy subjects. In the roster along suicide, there’s depression, social anxiety, bullying, and living with disabilities, to name the big ones. It’s not really spoilers to say that both of the protagonists, Shoya and Shoko, face suicidal ideation at some point in their respective lives, and for entirely different reasons. Unlike the last two examples, I’m not going to dive into this one, because the idiosyncrasies and emotional buildup are what make the movie memorable, and I cannot adequately communicate those things with words. But A Silent Voicedoes something remarkable, which is not often seen in this industry. It takes realistic characters, in a real setting, with real hopes, goals, and motivations, places them against real problems, and doesn’t water it down for the sake of the audience. But more than any of that, it doesn’t cast these struggles in a blunt light. They are not hideously dramatic or tragic. They are commonplace issues, dealt with by commonplace people, and we see the power of unity as friends and family support each other through the little ways the world falls apart every day.
I don’t want to deviate too hard from the subject, or feel like I’m bashing you over the head with what I think you should watch, but I cannot stress enough the merits of seeing this film. And, if you liked that, I recommend you read the manga, too. The latter further fleshes out the characters and narrative that the movie, while great, did not have the screen-time to capture.
I guess what I really wanted to do with this article was say thanks. It’s a wide, open letter to every creator who had the skill, courage, and insight to brave the trenches of suicide in narrative. It’s not an easy thing to do, even from a technical vantage. It’s a story that can be easily cheesed without setting the proper tones and expectations for the audience. Yet, it’s one of the heaviest and most needed stories of our modern day.
I’m not expecting any isolated anime, book, video game, or movie to be enough to “save” somebody who struggles with suicidal ideation. But if it can reach them and help them realize they aren’t alone in their struggle, that’s a worthy thing to ask of “entertainment.” Maybe if they see a story in which depression is toppled and anxiety is overcome, they could even find it in themselves to seek help.
If this is you, please understand you are stronger and more important than you believe. Please, if you have an authority figure or religious leader you can trust, reach out to them. If not, the 24-hour suicide hotline is 1-800-273-8255, and talkspace.com has an affordable, online therapy match-making program, which I have on good knowledge to be worth its weight.
You have my prayers. I believe in you.
Thanks for reading, and God bless.
(This article first ran in geeksundergrace.com, in April of 2018.)
http://www.geeksundergrace.com/anime-cosplay/exploring-suicide-anime/
Emotional Repression, and The Girl Who Would Be Tank
**I will refrain from using game-specific terminology in this post, as it would break the flow of the article.**
Presea Combatir is one of, if not the greatest example of a tragic character in the beloved Tales franchise of video games. In a gambit to make herself useful to her struggling family after her sister falls ill, she subjects herself to a malevolent experiment, wherein she gains increased strength at the cost of her emotional and physical growth being permanently subdued. As such, she turns into a shell of the child she once was, and by the time she is found in the game, sixteen full years of this repression have cost her much of her humanity.
Though technically twenty-eight, Presea appears as a twelve-year-old girl, with her emotional and social maturity being practically non-existent. She is in a routine of soulless labor, with no cognitive attachment or awareness for the world around her. Even when her father dies, she doesn’t notice or care, allowing him to rot in his bed. Her freakish nature and questionable history have turned her into a pariah within her village, completely ostracized from peers and adults.
When at last the main cast of Tales of Symphonia is able to recover part of Presea’s humanity, much of the damage cannot be undone. Yet, she begins to age normally again, and slowly starts to form new connections with the world. She remains blunt and distant to communication with others, and does not understand social protocols. This is occasionally endearing, but mostly it’s sad. It becomes quickly apparent that her lack of emotions was something resembling a boon, for now that they were coming in full force, they were almost all negative. She grieves the years she lost, the family she doesn’t have anymore, and suffers without a clear purpose in the world. At the core of her reservation and ongoing melancholy is the tantalizing perception that, even with her new friends, she is ultimately still alone in this world. It is the bulk of her character arc from this point until the end of the game that she must realize, through the actions of her companions, that she is loved and has a home. It might not be the home she originally wanted or remembers, but it is something worth cherishing and protecting.
Protection is Presea’s strong suit, even as a combat asset within the game. Her size and cute appearance are deceptive. With her aforementioned inhuman fortitude, she can shrug off harm that would critically wound her friends. As such, she operates best as a “tank” for the team. That is, she offers herself as the one who, when everyone else must play it safe, walks into challenges head-on. She has faced hardship and hurt and damage, physically and emotionally, and they have strengthened her in a way her companions don’t immediately recognize. So, she’s the tank in every sense. The one who endures injury, but never relents.
Presea is my favorite character from Tales of Symphonia. Her tragedy aside, she is a wonderful, quirky little girl, fascinated by animal paws and woefully ignorant to the innocent flirtations of others. She is lost in the world, but possesses a durability in spite of her loneliness that things will somehow get better. It’s these things that I want to see more in myself, and hope to inspire in others.
When Romance Faces Depression
Anybody who has ever faced any level of depression is familiar with the deep, wormy feeling of not wanting to do anything. Anybody who has ever faced depression and tried to participate in an active, romantic relationship knows that wanting to do anything is kind of important. Whether it’s related to intimacy or simple, day-to-day activities, depression can make everything either more difficult and exhausting, or altogether impossible.
Below is an article that sadrunner.com ran back in 2017 (penned by psychology writer Katie Davies) that explores the crux of this problem in greater detail. It provides not only further definition to the struggle of romance and depression, but tips on how to fight back, both on your own, and together.
http://www.sadrunner.com/2017/romantic-relationship/
Podcast Spotlight — Anime Addicts Anonymous
Dedicated to making your anime addiction worse, the AAA podcast has stood the test of time in my gallery of weekly podcasts. Now a regular listener for nearly four years, I’ve seen a handful of hosts come and go, each contributing their own flavor to what the podcast would eventually become in the present. In my opinion, the series is as strong as its ever been. As one of the longest-running and most popular anime podcasts in the world, they’ve had plenty of time to come up with fun, interesting segments to engage the hosts and audience, as well as streamline the format into something digestible and concise.
Each of the hosts goes by a Japanese moniker (because, you know, weeaboo trash and such). This isn’t to preserve secrecy as much as it’s just fun. Mitsuki (also known as the Anime Pope within their thriving Discord channel), is the founder, moderator, and most consistent host presence on the podcast. He is the “old man” of the group, which is as endearing as it is occasionally annoying. He’s still a very fun person, and could probably bench press me into the ceiling. Kazuo is the resident goofball. They’re all different brands of goof, but if they were stuck in a horror movie, well, he’d die first. Mandi (that’s both her real name and host name) is the manga enthusiast and essayist of the group. She goes into the greatest detail in her reviews and lines of reasoning. Enzo rounds them out (also his real name) as the one who is arguably the most sentimental of the group (maybe) and thus engages listeners most on an emotional level. Mandi and Enzo are the two newest hosts, both starting at the same time about a year and a half ago, and each of them have personalized segments in “Mandi’s Manga Minute” (you can probably guess what that’s about) and “Enzo-Senpai’s Notice Me Corner” which has Enzo reading out a listener-submitted positive-report about things that are going well in their lives and requests for continued support. Both of them are some of my favorite segments in the podcast’s history.
The best segment is obviously “Does Mitsuki’s Mom Know?” But that only shows up every once in a while, which is fine, otherwise the novelty would wear off.
Every episode generally consists of a topic of discussion, submitted by the fan community, a weekly anime review, two news breaks, two pieces of trivia (in which you can win actual prizes), and otherwise a ton of natural shenanigans. There will occasionally be special interview episodes or guest hosts or any number of other variations, but what I listed above is the most common formula for their episodes, and it works like a charm. The AAA podcast is one of only two podcasts that I listen to as soon as it comes out. I can be in the middle of an episode of tv, a song, another podcast, whatever, and I’ll immediately stop and change to them. It is a consistent, reliable comfort in the growing bleakness of our modern landscape. Maybe I’m just getting old and jaded. Either way, it’s an aspect of the podcast I can’t overstate enough. They (and the Discord) make you feel welcome and at peace, for just a little while.
As for where to start, I’d suggest you listen to episode 466, wherein the entire cast is present to discuss their Spring 2019 anime selections to review. It is a recent example of an episode that holds all of the charm that defines this podcast’s popularity, and if you’re new, would be a good place to pick up the show. If you end up liking the hosts (which I suspect most people would), you can entertain retroactively exploring their older episodes and reviews at your discretion. Or, you can become a patron, as I have, and enjoy the bonus episodes of their After Parties and Hobby Addicts episodes, which are both a blast (THEY’RE AT THE BEGINNING OF A NEW D&D CAMPAIGN). There’s another tier for their Hentai episodes, which I suspect are hilarious in their own right, but that’s not my speed. To each their own.
If you like podcasts and you like anime, you can’t sleep on the AAA podcast. It offers the best of both worlds, quality and geekdom. The personalities are brilliant, the show is meticulously crafted, and the fun times show no sign of stopping.
Thank you for making my addiction worse.
The BBC on “Grave of the Fireflies”
The late Isao Takahata left us with many endearing and/or morbidly insightful tales, using real events and emotions extracted from the world around us. He was a visionary who sought to wield anime as a tool to capture the pestilence and resilience of the human spirit. Among his body of works, none capture that cocktail of ambitions quite like the Studio Ghibli classic, “Grave of the Fireflies.”
In 2018, the BBC ran a retrospective on this landmark film, following Takahata’s passing, wherein they explore the heartbreaking and vaguely heartwarming events of two orphaned brothers amidst the bombs and blasts of World War 2.
It is a foundational movie for the committed anime enthusiast, but its personal take on war (drawn from Takahata’s own childhood experiences), is meaningful on its own worth.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-43695803
The Scrappy, Little Owl
I recently lost my job. Considering I spent eight months working to get it, and lost it in two for reasons outside of my power, I did not take to this development especially well. A lot was riding on that position. By it, I’d intended to pay off what remains of my embarrassingly large credit card debt and, since it was a remote job, transition seamlessly into a move I’m planning for July, wherein I’ll be driving vertically across the entire United States.
Yet, though this blow was pretty demoralizing, I must admit it didn’t hit quite as hard as many other tough life events to date. It helped that I still had a part-time overnight job, so I wasn’t completely sunk in terms of income, but more importantly, I had recently, finally, articulated something resembling a life ambition. I don’t like calling it a dream. Dreams are flights of fantasy, and subject to be discarded without much permanence. But it was as if a dozen small, unconnected ideas that had been germinating separately for years had at long last collapsed together into a coherent, meaningful project.
I immediately crystallized the idea in words, then plans, then bullet points and timelines. It felt good, finally having some semblance of a direction, after what felt like years of trying to figure that out.
But I still had to get a new job, and deal with episodes of depression along the way. Working at the gym was an easy side-gig for a little extra money, but it would not be able to carry rent, let alone all of my other payments or paying off my credit cards.
I’m going to talk about this debt openly for the first time. Its continued existence and growth both is and is not my fault, and I’ll be the first to admit, much of this could have been avoided if I hadn’t been so naive. I like trusting people, but that is rarely left unabused by strangers. For the sake of brevity, I’ll keep things short, as I’m not going to occupy this post with five years of misgivings. There was the problem of falling for a scam when I was trying to buy my corgi (who was her own separate issue. Good life decision, bad financial one), which cost me about $300. If that was the extent of it, it would hardly be an issue, but a couple years later I fell for the same goddamn scheme, but lost $1,450. Those? Those are on me. Those are the consequence of an ignorance which I have since tempered.
What isn’t my fault is the rest of the list. I had to pay a couple months of rent for a roommate, only partially recovered, and only after interest had accumulated. I was promised $2,000 schooling reimbursement after a year of work by a behavioral health job who went back on their word because I was in the wrong position (despite my having the packet from orientation that said it applied to my job as well). The student loan help program that I was reluctant to accept, but was eventually convinced to join because of trusted sources, ended up costing me $5,500. That smelled of a scam, but I don’t remember the details of how it was sold to me. All I know is that the company responsible has been caught out and shut down, and I was only one in a long line of people who were duped. None of this is even to mention my continued, egregiously-priced student loans that I am continuing to pay off.
The above are a list of financial setbacks, because they are the most tangible to discuss, but the last several years have seen what feels like no shortage of complications. Nearly every attempt at self-improvement, or actively trying to better a life circumstance, has been met with a negative consequence of equal or greater weight. And if they were isolated incidents, perhaps my emotional state would be more stable and resilient in the face of each, but as I am now I feel like every new transgression against my forward momentum, real or perceived, is a critical loss or personal failure. It’s a toxic mentality that is hard to shake.
Yet, as I said before, I’m feeling particularly scrappy right now. I’m still going to move across the country. To Texas, specifically, because when you see as many -50 degree winters as I have, you’d hate winter, too. Winter is godless, but that’s another topic. If things go poorly on the job search in Texas, oh well. I’ll be homeless in Texas before I spend another year enduring the all-consuming, death-freeze of the North.
Speaking of the job search, I did get another job after losing the one mentioned in beginning. It’s not glamorous, nor fun, but it works, and allows for overtime. Right now I’m putting in about 60-65 hours a week, not counting my continued dedication to physical fitness and writing. Between work and those two things, I do almost nothing else right now. Someday, I will resurrect my other passions and hobbies, but that day will come once I’ve learned more about myself and better understand where I’m going. I’ve never had career ambitions, and only ever fabricated some to shut up the people around me. I don’t know what I want to do. Hell, I’ve recently come to terms with the fact that high school and university did an awful job of helping me learn what could be done. In the past 6 months alone, I’ve learned the names of maybe 300+ jobs that I could not have told you what they were called before, or that they even existed. I feel like I only ever had a knowledge of 1% of my options, and those options all required college. I wish I could tell my younger self that, lo, this is an illusion, but hindsight is a bitch and such.
That said, I don’t mind working, and I will do everything I can or need to do in order to realize something more for myself. I’ve worked in security, housekeeping, hospitality, fast food cooking, fast food driving, grocery stores, movie theaters, mental wards, those awful people who try to sell you useless shit in CostCo, a cushy desk job (which was honestly one of the worst), in-home mental health assistance, among about half a dozen other things. I’ve worked overnights on and off for what totals about 7 years. I am no stranger to 18 hour work shifts. I am currently working 60-65 hours a week just to make ends-meet and relieve debt. That’s not counting the time I dedicate to my ongoing physical fitness or writing, which together qualify as another job, minus the income. I must think of them as jobs, otherwise they will be abandoned, and I can’t afford to do that.
Again, I’m feeling unusually scrappy right now. A scrappy, little night owl, who in spite of some less than fortunate tides of life, now feels more determined than ever to strangle my fears and doubts and shortcomings to death through hard work and the audacity to believe, for the first time, that I could make something good.
So, here’s the plan. I’ll leave out the bullet points and timelines, as those are soft numbers and fragile like most human plans are. These aren’t necessarily in order, but there will be some overlap between a few of them:
1. I’m going to establish at least 4 streams of income. I hate talking about money, and have almost no entrepreneurial spirit whatsoever, but I’ve recently come to realize the magic of passive income. I have no intentions to ever stop actively working in some form, but if I can do something that allows me to work on things I at least vaguely enjoy without the stress of making my rent for that month, I’ll call it a win.
2. I’m going to pay off my credit card debt. If all goes the way I want (which it won’t, but at least my expectations are grounded), this will be entirely, or mostly paid off by July when I make my move. If I get it down to sub-$1,000, I won’t sweat that too much. That’ll mean I killed almost 90% of it in a few months, which will be a great feeling.
3. I’m going to network with and learn from other freelancers and entrepreneurs. While their goals are likely very different from mine, these types possess an untapped wealth of resources and knowledge that I have until now been both ignorant of, and ignored. Even if I don’t aspire to become them, I find it hard to believe I won’t learn something useful from their means of doing things.
4. I’m going to establish a distinct brand and work for myself. I know, this is the hot, Millennial thing to do right now. I hate the word “brand” on an almost gut-level. But the changes of this already reflect in my website and the environment around me. Both aesthetically and philosophically, I am striving to make everything I do have intention. So far, it seems to be working.
5. I’m going to get a book traditionally published and present it to Christina Grimmie’s grave. This is a bit of a dead horse at this point, especially to the uninitiated, so I won’t go any further than to say it would be the fulfillment of the greatest promise I’ve made in my life. Considering that my steadfastness to my promises is one of the only things I’ve always liked about myself, I’m not about to let that slip.
6. I’m going to cultivate a community of like-minded individuals who believe in character-centric, emotionally intelligent storytelling, and create a publishing company that showcases those merits in our works.
7. And ultimately, I’m going to create a not-for-profit that unites the geek community to raise funds for awareness and treatment of emotional and mental wellness. Kind of like Patrick Rothfuss’s Worldbuilders, except for depression, anxiety, etc. I was thinking of calling it, or the publishing company, the “Dark Blue Owls.” We’ll see.
Again, it’s a soft plan, and I fully expect things to go awry no less than a thousand times between here and the end goal, but I’m going to do everything I can to stick to it.
And if I chance upon joy, love, family, or a place to call home between now and then, I don’t think I’d have any complaints.
Dark Blue Owls 