"What is 'sad?'"

This one's about Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga, and various other things.

I've been playing through this recently. I've had my fair-share of experience with SMT-related things, but the main series never caught me as much as Persona did. Now, having put the whole JRPG thing on hold for a few years, I appreciate the grind and gameplay cycle more than I had previously. It's a good series if you're interested in strategizing and engaging with a cool atmosphere. It feels good to build a character and kill shit with new skills. The mantra system offers a lot of build variety, allowing you to basically turn anyone in your party into whatever you want. In short, if you ever wanted to play a grindy JRPG with cheesy exposition about eugenics, I'd recommend this. It's a good time.

As I alluded to, I have a history with the overarching SMT-Persona franchise. I was fourteen when I really got into Persona 3 FES, diving into my now-derelict PS3 during the early months of the pandemic. Like most other phases I've been in, it was unquestioned and it seeped into everything I did. It was a very close analog to religion. Of course, this led to burn out, going "too far" to the point that it lost all appeal.

I'd bought physical copies. I bought a couple figures. I changed every profile picture on any account for anything to whatever plastic-faced anime cunt I had the hots for at the time. I made a fan account on Instagram and posted really, really unfunny memes. I had group-chat "friends" I talked with endlessly about the same four topics and how the opinions we collectively shared were right and good (echo-chamber). I posed my Japanese copies of Persona 2 and all my other paraphernalia on my desk (which was entirely impractical and prevented me from getting anything done).

I was inside something I couldn't see out of. In a modern context, I think we only know what some of our habits are after we stop practicing them. Self-awareness does limit the extent to how far or radically we can wander without realizing, though there are inevitably limits to self-awareness. I wouldn't be surprised to know I demonstrated (or will demonstrate) some hypocrisy elsewhere on this website.

What's the moral of my story? None, really. I told it for the same reasons I talk about anything else here: because I feel like it, and I can't help but imagine there are others that might stumble upon this website who've had similar experiences.

I'll say this: I feel positive emotions more consistently not being all--or trying to be all--one thing. I like holding a dynamic identity. It gives life some variety, an array of comfortable, transient things I can come into and go out of willingly. I don't feel the need to escape into these places as my only semblance of meaning or individual validity. Where I am is okay; it's alright. I can live here and not feel the need to run from it, and perhaps that's the very thing I was trying to find in those dorky visual novels.

So, I lied. This actually had very little to do with Digital Devil Saga. Is there any consolation I can give? Probably not, but I'll say this also: try to get to that reasonable, tangible place, where ever that is. It was very hard for me to find--required both physical and mental displacement--but it's been more worth it than anything else I've done. If you can wake up everyday without the urge to kill your boss right now, and can go to work and not hate everything you've ever interacted with, and can play obscure video games every now and then without longing to live inside them, then you've made it. Everyday thereafter must be gravy; it doesn't get much better than this.