A Reason to Live

The documentary about independent game developers was super interesting! The video games spotlighted seem very nonsensical at first glance, but to all three developers, the games had personal meaning and a purpose. One of the men who made Super Meat Boy had expressed that his younger self would have loved it, and Aether was inspired by his niece and the isolation creators often go through.

Phil Fish really caught my attention, though. He's got guts to continue making an incredibly complex game by himself among waves of harassment and game bugs as experienced at that convention. Something he said stood out to me when he was asked what would happen if he didn't finish FEZ.

"[If I didn't finish FEZ] I'd kill myself." He sounded quite serious, and I can sadly understand why he would say something like that. FEZ was his reason to live.

After he said that, I heard a couple giggles from some people nearby.

I have a message for those people: Don't laugh. For God's sake, don't laugh at that. There are many jokes in this world to laugh at, but, and I hate to sound like a social justice warrior, suicide is not funny. 

Even the threat or mere passing jest of it isn't funny.

It's not funny.

Laugh again when the smallest problem has the potential to send you spiraling downward.

Laugh again when you're still trying to overcome an irrational fear of knives.

Laugh again when you can't even recognize yourself in a mirror due to a bout of severe dysphoria, doubting your entire existence.

Laugh again when you have to take a good hard look at yourself, separate soul from body, give yourself a list of reasons to not end your life, and hope to God that you listen to yourself.

I ask kindly, please don't laugh. Suicide is a terrifying beast to face, it's a moment-by-moment battle with your own mind. I could talk about this and give my experiences and how I've dealt with it, but I'll save that for another post.

A doodle from a past despairing, featuring a lyric from the song Anathema by twenty one pilots.