It is October 1st in China, which means I’m about to have an 8-day national holiday. What will be a better opportunity to write my seasonal update than now? In short, I have made peace with the fact I’m not going to Sweden (but the dread of doing applications again still haunts me), started an Internship in the game industry in Beijing, and started dating someone (this could mean a lot).
I’m not sure if all these would be too “personal” to share, but I might as well treat this as a publicized Stoic reflection. But practically speaking, I’m also not sure if posting this on the Internet will be safe. I’ll try not to mention specific things, but if you are curious (and I also know you well), feel free to ask me and tell me how things are going for you as well.
Reconciliation
Existentially or deterministically speaking, I couldn’t write about this if I succeeded in going to Sweden. So I can’t really complain about it desperately. If I don’t have to apply for schools again, I think I would be subtly happier than now.
I might have spoken too much about it to the fact that it becomes pretentious, in the sense that I might still be upset/anxious about not knowing where I am going (again). Anyway, I’m doing more than fine now with this forced gap year.
Workism and Idleness
I didn’t exactly know how much each meal cost until I started managing my own finances. I was (kind of, maybe, a bit more) loose during college in the sense that I didn’t really oversee every cent I spent (which may have led to some waste of money). And suddenly I gain the anxiety to not overspend (Spoiler: I already did). I suppose I have to learn how much money is worth sooner or later.
In terms of the content of the job, I’m surprised that I can actually work in the game industry after all the twists, including not getting any interns in the States, making some random games, and getting a degree in Philosophy.
The position is not, by any means, related to game design (such as level design, narrative design, system design, etc.). It’s more like operational management for a game. The content of the job is to respond to customers’ requests related to the database, such as the purchase history, why the loot-box system didn’t drop anything, reports of cheaters and inappropriate behaviors, or why some items went missing, etc.. My colleagues would do something a little bit more complicated, such as register events into the game database, make charts and reports to analyze market feedback, and make adjustments to the event schedule.
I think this job actually works better with me for several reasons:
1) I don’t think I’m a good fit for most game studios in China. In the sense that it would be hard for me to readjust my ideal of game design to solving problems for the sake of maximizing profit. I don’t have enough data to support the idea that all the studios in China are like that, but it appears that most of them are. So it might be better for me to draw some distinctions between the ideals of game design.
2) Considering the nature of the philosophy job market, I found it helpful to know how to do operational work. Even though this job is not philosophical at all, I can still develop the skill set of planning and data analysis. And they kindly allow me to work remotely on Monday and Tuesday so that I can audit at a University. (Thanks, J. GL, for connecting me, and M.R.for allowing me to audit in their class.)
Philosophy of Love in Practice
I posted a note on Xiaohongshu (Red Book, which is a platform in China very similar to Instagram) on the Saturday before I got interviewed about looking for dates. Long story short, it somewhat works. My personal description turned out to be much more sincere than people expected. And I got very lucky not to get scammed.
I didn’t really like the idea of situationship at all. It’s hard for me to imagine that people temporarily get together but are also ready to move on at any available time. But maybe it is just the remnant of monogamy. But I concur there will be more nuance than that.
For the sake of privacy, I will not speak too much about the date itself. All I can say is it’s going well, maybe very well after the second date.
I do like to share the irony of reading Byung-Chul Han’s Agony of Love. In a nutshell, it’s a post-modern analysis of the place of love (Eros) challenged by the capitalistic society – an erasure of otherness into the same. I never read those post-modernists, so my understanding of otherness roughly aligns with Parmenides’ notion of “nothing is not”. (Sideway: Alain Badiou wrote the preface for this book, whose book, In Praise of Love, is referenced in this book(which I presented at Philosophy Club))
It is powerful to see how much I’ve missed in the adjacent to love, or how much I’ve done wrong in the name of “love” (which turned out to just be desires). I very much like the idea that love (eros) should not only amount to just “warmth, intimacy, and pleasant arousal” [^1].
There is so much potential in love, not just romantic love, any kind of love that reminds us of the otherness, as Han puts it, “The eros-driven soul produces beautiful things and, above all, beautiful actions, which have a universal value[^2]”.
A person who has lost love is “a survivor like the undead: too dead to live, and too alive to die”.[^3]
Conclusion
To cheer things up a bit, how are you doing recently? Please say hi sometime! I just ran into Saint Etienne’s latest (and the final) album. I found them very cheerful, so I will just share one of them here. Hope everything goes well for you.
I will write again when the leaves turn yellow.
[^1]: Agony of Eros, p.33
[^2]: Agony of Eros, p.43
[^3]: Agony of Eros, p.26
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