“You get to a certain age, you drop all your illusions. Life just gets easier from there.” ♫

I’ve said it enough times in my life, but existing is exhausting. To be perceived by the world in any form is among some of the most harrowing shit in life. I have enough trouble trying to cope with existing in my own terms, but to exist in yours, too? It’s a perpetual headache - one that I can’t seem to shake or make sense of this far into my life.

In spite of that, I find comfort in the fact that life goes on at a merciless, never ending pace. Nothing ever stops, no matter what I do or where I am. There is no scale at which my potential fuck-up will cause our planet to screech to a sudden halt. Even like, if I were to die at this very second, it wouldn’t do a thing to you from where you’re going. I always have trouble putting a feeling like that into words, but it’s like… I don’t know, liberating? It makes me feel like I’ve wriggled out of a tangle of chains that would’ve kept me from being who I am. I can choose to live however I want to.

It’s funny - the worry that anxiety will continuously force into your brain, is that everything revolves around your failure. It almost sounds self-centered as shit, if it weren’t for the fact that it forces you to carry an insurmountable burden that doesn’t even fucking exist. Besides, it’s not like I don’t deal with that burden every other waking moment of my life. There’s a very delicate balance between finding liberation and existential dread in the passage of time. That is something that I’m still working on. Shit’s tough, man.

Anyway, the point I wanted to make is that the struggle to come to terms with my existence is part of why I like big cities so much. The bright lights, loud streets, bustling lives - it’s a proverbial beating heart that draws in me and cradles me with a big blanket. It’s a double-sided blanket, too. A double-sided blanket with one side that allows me to show off to the world, while the other lets me blend in and disappear into the crowd for a little bit. Both sides provide me with their own kinds of comfort depending on what I need.

There are times where I need to be a part of a space in order to feel valid. This is especially true for being a trans gal, because the little things like passing and pronouns and all that stuff, are little boosts I need to feel like I am who I think I am. Sometimes, I need my body, and my voice, and my clothes and my hair to be perceived (no matter how) to feel attractive - to feel like I am allowed to exist, y’know? Other times, it is the gentle glow of the night time sky that I find appealing. To disappear, and observe the world as if I was never there, is… well, there’s a beauty in the particular sense of loneliness that it makes you feel. Life goes on.

image “We’ve got a city to burn.” ♫

I had a lot of time to think about these feelings while thoroughly playing the shit out of Cyberpunk 2077. It was one of those “right time, right place” sorta things that feel prophetic as hell, like the world knew this was something I needed. Don’t be fooled, though - there’s a ton of commentary on trans-humanism, souls, corporations (of which the irony is staggering at times) but none of that stuff was the real takeaway for me and Cyberpunk, at least in this context. That stuff was cool and all, but the part of Cyberpunk that truly struck a chord with me was the big, bright hellhole of a city it puts together.

My time with Cyberpunk is done for now, but I cannot seem to get Night City out of my fucking head. I cannot stop thinking about its claustrophobic, overcrowded markets and cramped megabuildings brimming with rejects and wannabes from the city’s underworld. Pipes, exposed wiring, dirty street corners and tiny nooks at every turn - it’s like everywhere you look could be someone’s favorite place, or the best noodles in town, or a creepy little shop where a weirdo is selling discount body modifications. The mechanical immersion doesn’t go as deep as allowing you to sit at a food stall and eat, but that kinda doesn’t matter to me because the entire thing sparks my imagination in a way I’ve rarely felt.

I get lost in Night City, but not in the weird video game-y that nerds talk about when they like a mountain in Skyrim or think the grass in Horizon is pretty. I genuinely find myself mesmerized by the soundscape of beeping cars, indistinct chatter, coughing, arguing, even down to the little details of miscellaneous future beeps and boops. It is comprised entirely of its influences - forming a whole from the steamy streets of Blade Runner, the hyperbolic 80s fashion sense of Akira and the part of Ghost in the Shell where massive, sanitized corporate towers linger as predators over a sea of lights. Though, my personal experience got a bit more Serial Experiments Lain out of everything. Whenever there wasn’t pounding trance music in dark clubs or desperate husks of chrome and flesh roaming the streets, there were low hums of hard drives buzzing and electronic fans cooling off heat in dark rooms dimly lit by a single computer screen. There will always be noise.

image “Don’t want people gettin’ stuck in a rut, stuck in the past. Want them to change. Them and the world.” ♫

I consistently find myself describing periods of my life as “weird.” It’s always something like “things have been weird lately,” or “I’m going through a weird patch right now.” Day after day. It has gone on for so long, the thing I call “weird lately” has now gone on for most of my life. Thinking about it, I tend to say this more often in stretches that feel transitional. The bit of time between college and university? Weird as shit. In fact, the entirety of my time at university felt transitional - as if I had spend the entire time trying to settle and find my place when I never did. I don’t remember much from those years, because it felt like I was going to eventually land on my feet and I would finally make sense of the world, of my life. I never did.

Currently, I would describe this period of my life as “weird.” Somewhere between finding the most incredible person I’ve ever met (hi, Jace) and figuring out what I can do with that to make a life that matters to me. Because for most of my life, there was nothing to live for. Each and every thing I did were varying means to making sense of why I am in this world. Will I be inspired at school to make good academic decisions? Will university spark me to find a real-world profession and be a part of everyday society? Fuck no. Not a single time. All I ever wanted to do was push myself further, and further away, especially if it meant it would kill me.

The allure of the city makes me forget all about that, because for once, my existence is unconditional. I don’t exist for you, or for money, or for profit - for anything other than to exist in my own terms. To be in a crowd that crosses the street is blending into the world, homogenizing myself for just a little bit. To order a coffee and sit in the comfort of my own company, so I can lose myself in lives gone by. To dance in a crowd, or commute in a lively train, or even just… lay there and take it all in. Night City reminded me of all of it.

There’s probably something profound I could say about how capitalism, and social pressure and the structure of the world forces my hand to find a purpose that provides value to the world, but I am not looking for it here. Someone I love deeply once taught me that there are things in life that do not make sense, because they just are. Life has no grasp of meaning, or rules, or time, or purpose, it merely exists how it must, on its own terms.

I don’t want to make sense. When I get lost in like I did in Night City, I lose the concept of sense. Instead, I inhibit this desire to just be. To listen, to observe, to look cute, to indulge, to consume, to be as passive or hands-on and I want or need to be. It is such a distinctly human feeling to free myself from unwanted perception and exist as I want. If you see me, it is because I want you to see me. If I disappear, it is because I want to disappear. There is little more that allows me to feel a sense of agency over myself.

And… I don’t know, there’s something empowering about knowing that I don’t have to be anything that I don’t want to be. Until recently, I had the impression that in order to have a fulfilling life, I would have to be something or someone big. I would have to make a lot of money, or be seen by a lot of people and those are the validations that really mattered in life. That it didn’t matter what I really wanted, just that I had to mean something to the world in order to be a real person.

V, the playable character in Cyberpunk 2077, has her own reasons for wanting to be a legend in Night City. Her goal is to be remembered by everyone. Seeing what V wanted made me realize that wanting to be known is no longer something I desire. I wonder if it is something I ever truly desired at all. I do not want to be useful to you. I do not want to be talked about by you. I want to be.

I still have a lot of growing up to do, don’t I?

Ajay

01/08/23 @ 00h48