The Olympics have been ongoing these past 5 days, and watching some matches unfold has made my fighting spirit itch. How does one feel as they battle? It’s also made me want to challenge my limits physically, a bit like I do through VR. Earlier, I managed to clear the first song in the fourth volume of Beat Saber, Into The Dream on Expert+. It was a long time since I last cleared it and definitely super satisfying, yes! Still, I felt like I wanted another kind of fun… Hence, long story short, I ended up deciding to play a little tennis later on. It’s something I enjoy but I didn’t really treat seriously enough last time, which I wish I had. Yet… restlessness! Somehow, this burning desire to challenge my own limits was overcoming me! And so I decided… why not play a game of competitive Valorant or two?
To be honest, the decision in itself was pretty whimsical. But I must say, the results astounded me.
So for this game, there are two halves. My team attacked the first half and defended the second. The attacking went astoundingly terribly. We were 3-9 down when the first half ended. During the next two rounds, the worst player on my team was being blasted by our remaining teammates. He was the last player remaining for the first round with the enemy team almost fully intact and they were saying negative stuff like how useless he was and how we shouldn’t expect anything from him. There was kind of deja vu the next round as I did pretty lousily and died along with the rest of the team again leaving him alone with 3-4 enemies.
What happened then? Well, someone started a surrender vote. I actually pressed yes even though losing the game would demote me, since I felt going on losing would be pretty depressing. But two people voted no, and so the game went on. Was our worst player one of them? I’d like to think so. Despite getting blasted by everyone but me, he remained silent (just like me) and continued taking the game seriously despite a possible lack of ability. Kudos to that. (Hey, because it’s a team game and you don’t know the team, you’ll just naturally doubt if your team has what it takes! Now, consider that we’ve done so depressingly terribly for the first part of the game. Rationally projecting, we should lose. But hey, if we ain’t giving up, we’ll fight our best to the end!)
And what happened then? Well, we actually went on to win ten rounds in a row to clinch the game. Now, this totally was not conscious for me. It never actually registered for me that the score was 3-11. I stopped counting by the end of the first half. I simply forgot all about the game score and played as solidly I could. I actually only took note of the score next when it was 11-11 or 12-11. If I took note of it at 11-11, it was to realise that one point by the enemy team and it would be match point for them. Whereas at that point in time, we had actually won 8 rounds in a row in which any single win by them would have led to match point!!! Which I was totally unaware of because I stopped keeping score. And when I took notice at 12-11, it was because if they levelled the score, it would be a situation like in sports where we would need to lead by two points to win.
Oh right, there is one thing. At some point in time, I noted with satisfaction that our winning streak had left them too poor to buy good weapons, which exacerbated their situation and kept us at an advantage. As long as we didn’t mess up somewhere, we had the advantage! But it wasn’t like we’d totally suppressed them though! Many of these rounds went right down to the wire and I actually scored several crucial headshots in them, even when I was at low health. And the last round was my best round! I blocked the enemy’s line of sight, one went past me, I got them from behind, I noted the presence of another enemy fighting my teammate, my teammate died, I noticed that I had seven bullets left, which should be just enough to take that enemy unawares and kill her, I succeeded, reloaded, all of a sudden, their team only had one enemy left, it was more or less a done deal. And only upon reflection, looking at the game’s timeline, did I realise that we actually won 10 frigging rounds in a row, going from 3-11 to 13-11! It feels kind of magical somehow to be honest. I had no idea it was even happening, I was just doing it, alongside the rest of the team, of course. Comeback!
This is a first for me and I feel happy that my fighting spirit was roused by the Olympics. To be honest, I find VR games more exciting than PC games in general and I sometimes find myself playing the latter more for the social aspect, as in because other people are playing. The resulting performance varies depending on my mood. Last week, my head was in ‘air’ mode and I was totally happily cheerfully giving away free points to everybody. It’s the reason I even got close to demotion, lol. I had a super big safety cushion like 10 games ago which I had been happily deflating for free. I can’t say I am super passionate about the game; maybe I would be if I had a team to play with and a shared goal to aspire towards… to be honest, this was not the sole match I played today! It was more like the third. I realised in the first that I had to mentally immerse myself into the game. You see, for physical sports like tennis, AND VR, you get immersed right into the game. In comparison, for this shooting game, the immersion does not come so easily for me! In the sense of going into the ‘flow’ state. When I started playing earlier, I literally had to imagine myself being embodied in the character for me to really get immersed in the games, making myself care! about the results, give the stakes meaning. Because there is not so much incoming stimulation. Meh.
But hey, why am I downing myself! Fighting spirit! Blazing spirit! It was a real feat, I tell you. From 3-11 to 13-11! Human beings need happiness and fulfilment for a good life (as I theorised back in high school). The first hinges on bonds with others. The second, it seems, hinges on challenging one’s own limits! For example, I feel like I am challenging my own limits in writing blog posts, in the sense that I won’t settle for half-baked stuff that I don’t believe in. A creator’s pride, you might say? Hah. Alright, I said it. I believe that fighting spirit is part of a good life. It’s the opposite of being privileged!!! Giving up as soon as the going gets tough and simply whining. Really, if no one is gonna sympathise with you, please sympathise with yourself, shed that pitiful look, and make the best of what ya can. Make ya-self look cool!
Let me attempt to describe the epitome of this fighting spirit in the face of adversity: Come on! I know I’ve got the skill to do it… just give me a chance to prove it! C’mon! Maketakunai! Maketakunai yo (I don’t wanna lose!) It can be directed not only towards a fight right now! but also not wanting to lose next time.
In contrast, if you’re feeling sorry for yourself, it’ll be something defensive like: why do I have to prove myself to others? I know I can do it, okay, and that alone is enough. It’s totally the fault of circumstances that I won’t get the chance to prove my worth! Just like that, you’ll simply give up.
Avoid the sorry state. Aim for a life without regrets. Be accountable to yourself, at peace with yourself.
Anyway, I should be playing some tennis later… I plan on taking it seriously in challenging myself to actually think about what I am doing rather than fully leaving it to instinct like I used to in the distant past. Because that’s how you actually get good at stuff- you’ve got to fully throw yourself into it!
That’s my ikikata (way of living)- fully throwing myself into stuff. Ya know, it so happens that this is my 18th post on this main blog, and there are also 8 posts each on VR and Fiction, which makes it a good 34 posts in total! Which is more than a third of a hundred! Yayyy!!! It really is as good a proof of anyway of the power of accumulation. It always starts with a single step, but if you keep it up over time, one day you’ll look back and, like – Wow, I’ve already come this far?? I kinda rock, huh!
Cliched stuff about not giving up? Um, I don’t have such a card in my hand. Just wanna say this – really, try to achieve human flourishing. The saddest sight of all is wasted potential and stagnant apathy.
Alright, end of rant (was oh happily going on about whatever throughout)!
Note: Change is useless if it does not come from within.
Disclaimer: Throwing myself into stuff does not mean that I like to irrationally take risks, aka gamble. I only rationally take calculated risks when there are stakes involved (of course, mere human beings cannot have perfect knowledge of stakes).