I have talked before about how I reach the end of things and then decide that I need to move on. It’s not a good or a bad thing; it’s just the way I am. Meaning that I get bored with things if they don’t change.
I had a Taiji class today (Zoom), and we were going over a movement that is in the first section of the Solo (Long) Form. In other words, the very beginning of the my studies. It has been refined and tweaked, but I’ve been doing it for fifteen years. Back before the pandemic, I was teaching myself the left side of the Solo Form, and made it to roughly two-thirds into the third section. In other words, one-third from the end. My teacher’s teacher was tinkering with the form, and he was changing so much at that point that I decided to put it on hold until he finished.
Theoretically, I understood that it wasa living form. Theoretically, it was exciuting that he kept changing it. My teacher said that when he was taking lessons from the masters, they were changing t on the regular and just expected people to keep up. Which, fine, but that’s not the way I work. Especially when I was trying to teach myself the left side.
Then, I became focused on the weapons and then, the pandemic hit. It’s only in the last six months or so that my teacher has been teaching us the new Solo Form. It’s mostly the same, and my brain is not remembering the differences. I’ll need my teacher to go over them with me in my private lessons, but I’m happy that A) It’s been refined and B) It’s settled, more or less.
I’ve been in a rut for the last few months, and I’ve decided to shake things up. Now, I’m focusing on refining the forms I know, but also on working on my upper body strength. I need to keep things spicy enough that I don’t get bored, but comfortabl e enough for me not to feel overwhelmed.
I have a weird way of doing that. I stick with what I know for a bit too long, and then I rush to do ten new things. I do wonder if I have ADHD or at least the traits. I tend to hyper-focus on something until i get bored, and then i move on. This is with groups, hobbies, and, sadly to say, people. Not that i need a person to be constantly evolving because I sure am not, but I do need a person to be at least open to the idea that there is more out there than they know. In other words, that they are willing to learn something.
My brother has an ex-friend who is a dedicated Republican. They became friends back when he was a Republican (in name) and worked at the same place I think. She was really rightwing and said to him straight up that the truth didn’t matter. If the Republicans said it, then she believed it. He did not know what to do with it, and he wanted to talk about it from time to time. He wanted to know why she thought that way because he could not fathom it.
My brother is a straight arrow who cannot tell a lie. He’s terrible at it, and it would not occur to him to lie. He’s a big believer in the truth and while he sometimes believes in some dodgy shit, he will change his mind if he’s presented with enough evidence.
It took decades, but he finally ditched this woman as his friend. He still wanted to understand why she thought the way she did, though. He could not grasp how she could say that the truth didn’t matter. I told him that for some people, it was more important to belong to a group and/or to be told what to do than to adhere to facts.
That’s what groupthink is and why it’s so seductive. To be a part of a group, I mean. The more people around support what you think, the more comfortable you feel. And it makes it easier to dismiss others if you’re in the in-group.
It’s interesting in the RKG Discord group because…well, I’ve talked before about how in the Souls community, there is the mentality that the GAMES ARE HARD and you have to FIGHT THE BOSSES ALONE otherwise you’re not a real fan. Any time someone trots out ‘real fan’, I start rolling my eyes.
That’s the reason some old fans don’t like Elden Ring. They hate the fact that the bosses are tuned to be fought with spirit summons, which makes them much harder to solo. I love the spirit summons. Maybe it’s because of my stroke, but I don’t feel the urge to beat my head repeatedly against a boss just to prove I can. And if they want to do it, they can!
I have said this over and over again. From is allowed to change, evolve, and, *gasp* do something different than they did a decade ago. I find it amusing and frustrating that people want them to do the same thing over and over again. Make the bosses hard, I mean. That’s what they want, but I feel that FromSoft is over it. Like, they’ve done it several times. They have nothing left to prove. Let them do something different, for fuck’s sake. I know that you can’t go back to the old games and have the same sense of difficulty for the bosses (most of them), but that’s not on From, either.
Every week in the RKG Discord, there is at least one person who whines about Rory using NPC summons and spirit ashes. They whine about him being too OP, and they want him to be shit again. But other people whine about him not knowing the buttons or using the torch (he’s weirdly wedded to it) instead of the shield, not knowing where he’s going or why he keeps emoting.
And some people whine about his build or that he’s spreading his points evenly. Honestly, I would not be surprised if he did not read any of the comments on any of the media because it would be dispiriting. I actually hope he doesn’t read the comments because it would be better for his mental health. Rory, I mean.
I really wish people would just CTFO and let him play the game the way he wants. I’m getting to the point where I’m just mentally blocking those comments and moving on. Fortunately, theren’t aren’t many in the Discord itself, but there are plenty of the unkind comments on the Patreon page. The few times I hold my nose and delve into the YouTube comments, I dearly wish I hadn’t.
These are the same people who could not comprehend someone enjoying the game in a way that they didnt’t. How DARE he? I remember in Krupa’s plat streams, there was a guy who would argue with me about PvP. I don’t like it, will not do it, and will jump off the nearest cliff if I’m invaded. He argued with me that in the same way I learned how to do PvE,I could learn to do PvP. Counterpoint: nope.
First of all, I can do PvE in the Souls games/Elden Ring beacuse can customize specifiaclly to my specs and because I can over-level if I want. Secondly, it’s a completely different thing and I cannot make my reflexes better. That’s just not happening. It’s not physically possible. Thirdly, I don’t want to. I hate PvP and do not want to invest any time, energy, or effort into it. Which is perfectly valid. He can enjoy it to his heart’s content; I can enjoy not doing it. There is nothing wrong with that. I’m done fro now. Will pick this up later.