TheShepherdStar.com

Category: Personal Blog

  • Nightmare Journal 2

    Written on October 1st, 2023

    I was back in middle school or high school. Somehow, my sister was also in the same school. There was one kid laughing hysterically; they had to remove him from the class. Something was not right at the school. It was the birthday of a girl I liked; I was trying to write her a card. For some reason, my sister was working at the school, and my mom was there to pick me up. School was just about ending, and I was on the roof by myself with a card. Then I heard screaming. I came down from the roof and saw kids and parents running scared. I heard maniacal laughter from inside the school; it sounded like my sister’s laugh. My mom told me something wasn’t right. We made it across the street, but I kept hearing whispers, and I wasn’t sure if it was my mom or this voice telling me where to go. I heard a car, but my mom’s voice said it wasn’t real; she must have heard it too, but there was nothing coming, just a bunch of leaves blowing in the wind towards us. I heard glass shatter back at the school; the laughter stayed in my head; it felt like the kids and teachers were all possessed.

    It had felt like the beginning of something, and the end of the world at the same time. The people possessed including those close to me were beyond saving. There was no escape from it. The laughter seemed to prolong the slow decent into madness I was feeling.

  • If life were a “Just” a video game

    By Aaron J. R.

    If the reality that is “life” were a video game comprised of the all the things that life throws at you from age 1 to death I’d imagine the reviews for it would be very “mixed”. For example some reviewers would give it a “10/10 perfect score“ and say things like “Life is beautiful, would definitely live again!”or “If I could start over I wouldn’t change a thing!”Others would deem it a 5/10 or perhaps not even worthy of a 1/10 and say things like “poor design, poor execution, boring, only beneficial for certain individuals born in the right era, inherited the right amount of wealth, with no birth defects”, they would say something like “Very Dissatisfied Overall” or “Not worthy of your time.” I’ve known a lot of gamers that might agree with either review, and I, being a gamer myself, understand that this concept isn’t necessarily one that every human being will understand, but I will explain. Sometimes games that we now call “Triple A” releases will get announced, developed over a cycle of trial and error that takes anywhere from 5-6 years, marketed and finally released worldwide to varying degrees of success, but also be met with critical feedback and most of the time “mixed reviews”. Opinions are always fairly mixed when it comes to entertainment. We hear fans talk about their favorite sports teams and criticize how they haven’t played their best in years but they still support them. Movie goers or modern television critics will often talk about how a franchise has gone on too long and now feels uninspired or controversial for the sake of viewership. The point is, if life were like a game, or a movie or a television series, it would probably get met with the same criticism as all of those things. Why specifically a video game? Well video games are not like movies or television series, they have more in common with books or comics but in recent decades they have contained more than thousands of pages of entertainment for all different audiences and age groups. Video games are interactive, they require more attention and motivation to operate than most other media. 

    In the 80s-90s games were intentionally challenging because the means of overcoming those challenges were addictive. Life, specifically mundane life, may not be be as appealing but there are many challenges within life that create an unending cycle for which people will submit themselves to in order to obtain their goals. Whether their goals are to be successful financially, overcome mental challenges or simply to survive, there is always a journey and a destination to strive for. But unlike a video game, there is no option to “replay” life from the beginning. Once it ends, there is no retrying. But if a specific point in life ends, and a goal is never achieved, life does continue, and you may retry. You must. For if you give into the despair of losing, you may run out of chances to “try again” and perhaps the next time you do it, you will succeed. But is the reward even worth the risk? This is a question everyone at some point has to ask themselves.

    Life as video game would be particularly challenging because not only are you given the world’s biggest tutorial from a young age to adulthood but there is an invisible timer counting down on the years, months, days and minutes you have to live. If that wasn’t bad enough, there is also a chance that timer runs out on you sooner than you think. Does this mean you should hurry up and go after your goals as soon as you are able to? Or should you take your time, relax and try to enjoy what life you have before it is stripped from you? I have struggled with this dilemma a lot, especially lately. I always get to thinking my “Game Over” is closer than it looks. But all that does for me is distract from what is truly important, and that is the thing I am doing right now. At this very moment, I am writing to you, a reader and it gives me some sense of purpose. If we just stop to look around once in a while we’ll begin to notice things about this world. The smaller details. And that, to me, is the greatest gift of being alive, being able to appreciate the now.

    Some days feel like a thousand years and some feel like a blink of an eye. Maybe I am not as good a writer as I know I can be and I need to try harder, and also go after other things that make me happy. But if you chase more than one thing you’re bound to lose sight of both of them. Maybe I need to change my perspective on life and treat it as one whole journey, one whole thing I’m chasing before the inevitable “Game Over”. The only critic I need to worry about is the one who created this world, and supposedly loves me. But for many I know this might not be the case, and this is fine. I often don the mask someone who “thinks” they know what they’re talking about and it makes me feel like such a fraud, but in truth I may have more in common with the average person than even I am aware of.

    Life is obviously not a game and should be taken seriously. But that’s why games are so popular because WE DO take them seriously, as gamers, as people who love a good story, or a good challenge, and one that won’t end with our demise. The answer for whether it’s all worth it in the end is ultimately up to each individual person who is experiencing this thing called life. What answers we find at journey’s end may not always be the ultimate truth we were hoping for but it’s important to remember it’s the journey that keeps us coming back for more not the destination. Life in it’s essence is never made to be easy, and although some make it looks easy, don’t assume they got it all figured out either. Don’t assume I do myself, I am just trying to put myself out there as an individual. And maybe together we can make this journey a little easier, we can overcome these challenges if we just learn to change our perspective of them. Perhaps we can learn from each other instead of competing with one another. After all no matter what you do, the game will end, everything will continue without you, and all that will be left in it is the memory of yourself in others. You don’t get a second opportunity to experience it, and depending on what you believe, you won’t get to try again in the next life. Even if I feel like a fraud for saying it, I think we all must be who we are no matter what. 

    “game over”