the pain of free will

it's not my fault no it is i'm the one to blame but the way you smiled was so empty it hurt to watch you you're hurting like crazy on the inside yet you grin and bear it i think people only have real value when acting on their own impulses and desires [Music] despite sometimes craving simplicity humans are incredible creatures our brains are amazing natural machines raised up through the harsh confines of nature to send us leaps and bounds beyond anything which has ever been known to exist we were challenged by a cruel nature to survive and instead we thrived seeking an exit from the bounds in which we were born and succeeding we built ourselves and our creations up until we reached the sky and then we went even further we burst out from our origins and left a mark upon the stars by calculating the very mysteries of the universe themselves humans are amazing creatures who thrive on this ability to perform internal calculations and make the best decision not on the basis of survival but of our own will this is the hallmark of what we are but we can't look at this without its downfalls sometimes these considerations are too much we're overwhelmed by a world of our own creation which exceeds the capacity of a single mind because it's made of many there are animals which exhibit suicidal behaviors for the sake of the collective or who stop eating because of what seems like depression but there are no animals which look at the world around them and decide to remove themselves from it except for one humans our ability to choose isn't always good the human brain is as much a curse as it is a blessing in some demonic balance of the universe that which provides us such grand benefits must also prolong and highlight our suffering humans are destined to be aware of every moment we live to consider every possibility which both will and won't come from our choices before we talked about the existential and absurd feelings that arise from this but today i want to get more concrete and look at the function of the brain which creates this suffering our ability to reason and specifically the decision-making process which it provides us with our ability to reason within the confines of human creation and why sometimes we reject the very thing that makes us but sometimes we make the choice to choose nothing to pass that responsibility onto others to decide that which is only what we've known before or to place ourselves in a state where the choice leads to nothing at all and thus becomes non-existent this can come in many shapes and sizes but the core is always one thing a refusal to decide sometimes this choice is easily observed as something binary the most famous example is probably ken kaneki from tokyo ghoul their world is mostly just ours but with a key difference ghouls beings who seem exactly like humans but can only derive nutrition from human flesh kaneki becomes a rare one-eyed goal after having the organs of ryze kamashiro a demented and powerful one used to replace his own as such he exists between two worlds no longer human but not quite a goal either this pairs with his mother's guiding philosophy stated as it's far better to feel pain yourself than to inflict it on others to make kaneki the person he is someone who does nothing despite being the main character his impact on the plot is limited to him being an oddity everything which happens to him is a result of others actions as he reacts to the world around him seeking to change and better it bridge the gap between humans and ghouls as maybe only he could do but with a downright refusal to fight for such a thing by never taking aside he watches as humans and ghouls alike keep suffering he refuses to choose to give up on one thing for another so he gets neither eventually as he's captured and tortured this feeling comes to a head forced to pick between one person who should live and one who should die ken refuses saying choosing would be like killing them himself so his captor yamari instead kills them both ken's inaction only led to death what he could once ignore was now taking over his mind this moment breaks him as he begins to war with brieze's mentality which resides in his own he questions his past and what he perceived as the kindness of his mother's philosophy now realizing it's exactly because of that that he and others have suffered so he imagines his friends humans and goals alike all dying as they had before due to his indecision as rize says you know what happens when you play both sides in the end everybody loses she's right by trying to have some form of everything he maintains nothing there's simply too much to try and hold on to eventually everything he refused to fight for was almost lost so why not at least fight like hell for some of it this is what he does breaking free and becoming a cold shell of his former self obsessed with power so he can protect the ones he loves but alienating from them in the process this complete contrast is a result of his lack of choice going so far it became such a large part of him that when it was proved false he broke all that made up ken kaneki was really nothing it was just the space between other things he became someone entirely different someone dedicated to one single idea because he was left with nothing he was simply desperately clinging to the scraps of binary rejection we see in ken's story is something i call the hardest easy path it's doing something painful for a long time instead of making one hard choice it's something which quals the anxiety and woes of the mind for a moment and then this appears to avoid pain but it merely saves it intensifies it and returns it later to hurt us more the smaller amount of pain you experience from splitting the difference starts to add up time by time creeping in back every now and again to remind you how much work it really is it all looks fine until suddenly it isn't and you realize it's much too late to fix things you're torn in half by what you cling to he goes from fighting with a kid from school to being kidnapped by a mad cannonball to watching his suit a little sister's mom dies he does nothing to being tortured out of his mind if he decided early on to fight for one side or the other at least some of this could have been avoided he could have maintained some sense of himself rather than losing all of it it's hard and you'd be justified in despising this world for providing you with decisions which only allow for pain either way it's easier for the moment to just not pick but we have to play the role of a realist and understand how our world works pain is inevitable all things end by holding on to all of them we never find one which can grow into our future and we lose them all so if every path has pain we may as well pick one so we can at least determine how we hurt shouldn't we but we don't always think so often decisions are much more complex than just a versus b it's not a question of which side is better but what even are the sides how can we know that before we decide on them if we can't see them with all this confusion we may look to others for guidance those who face such things before those who share maybe even the same goal we want to achieve but have no idea how to personally start this creates a well-needed ease for the mind humans are meant to work together but in this ease we may find reliance for the first time in a while we can look at yormangand the story is relatively simple an arms dealer who hates war coco heck maltiar travels the globe with her personal security amassing insane wealth and gathering the will of friends and foes alike her soldiers follow her without question as she builds a system designed to overtake the world's systems and thus put an end to war as we know it however this comes with a cost the first step is shutting down all methods of trade and transports begin total control which means no matter when it's used people's lives will be lost like those aboard planes she tries to justify this cost saying but that number is insignificant next to those who would otherwise die in the future wars we'll be preventing this doesn't sit well with the other main character jonah a child soldier who was brought under koko's command having known nothing but war for his entire life jonah follows orders without question whatever they may be from security detail to active battlefields he faces death head-on content to complete the mission set out for him by another also despising war he sympathizes with coco he wants an end to the thing which consumed his entire life but he can't abide by the cost of her actions this is where he makes what appears to be the first real decision he ever has he leaves her running away and joining her brother instead but he's just another arms dealer well this ignores part of the issue it doesn't actually change his situation he's still living the same life he hated only now without the warmth and comfort he felt from his old team knowing she has a weak spot for him jonah could have run away to anywhere and coco would have let him go the world is open yet he runs back to the only thing he knows eventually he grows discontent with this and quits her brother's command as well taking another stab at free will but he's unable to throw away his weapons the symbol of everything he hates and the life he's trying to leave behind once again free he simply wanders the desert almost to death after struggling through he finds coco in her team once more where she offers to bring him back on he agrees even though he knows how flippant she is about the cost of her actions but this hate is drowned out by something even greater the pain of choice his stint through the desert is a very metaphorical one he's there surrounded by nothing at all just infinite space to roam the only action which maintains his life is his own and the way he goes this freedom is the pinnacle of uncertainty the thing which humans hate so much he can go anywhere but he has no idea where they lead left right forward back they all bleed together none appears different the only option is to commit because backtracking would lead to a death of attrition we must decide or die it's open dangerous and fully overwhelming anyone in this situation would ask for a guide someone who could direct them out of this hell even if it means giving up free will it guarantees something survival jonah defers to coco for this reason he wasn't always happy under her but he still just is miserable out in the world of which he has no knowledge where he can make mistakes and feel the pain of his own choice going back to coco is acknowledging all of this and saying that if he would be happy either way then why not do so in the most comfortable way where he's guaranteed food and shelter we'll never have to worry about what comes next or why it does the path before him is set and for the cost of physical chains he finds mental relaxation one of the harsh truths we've already discussed is that every decision has pain and as such we'll probably look back at them all through the lens of regret and feel nostalgia for the things which could have gone better this is a constant cycle of being human we doubt our decisions because an unideal world makes them hurt as so through some of our own fault in some of the worlds we're unhappy and we can only ever fix part of that equation our own passing it off is one way to do so so i understand jonah's decision to let someone else decide he may not be happy but at least won't be racked with the guilt and regret which comes with free will an awful future which may come won't be a fault of his own sometimes though we don't have to look to someone but rather to something to make the call for us that thing can be the past each major life decision comes about because something which is yet to come is threatening that which already is when we merely hold on to what once was even when it's passed then did we even really make a choice or did we just appear to tricking others and maybe even ourselves into thinking we did this is where we can look at darara kita the best friend of our main character mikado is a young adult haunted by his past inability the leader of a gang that grew out of hand his girlfriend saki was kidnapped by a rival gang and tortured leaving her permanently damaged kido was aware of the situation as it was unfolding but he'd spent too much of his time leading the yellow scarves listening to the device of izaya a local information broker who has his own shady motivations kita became reliant on this advice as such when saki was in danger and keita couldn't reach the source of it he panicked unable to take any action this is a tale of the pitfalls of relying on someone else for choice what happens when they decide to stop now we're not just faced with our own freedom but also our own freedom with no experience of how to deal with it but his story is also more despite wanting to detach from this past leaving his game behind and even breaking up with saki kita is only ever paying lip service to change he's suddenly throwing the world around him out of order as it did to him in claiming that things must be different because of that after being stuck in the view of saki's window for days he finally goes to see her and he keeps going she makes the same speech every time that he'll never really be able to leave her and as it seems she's right he keeps coming back it's a constant cycle with no progression now he's an overt womanizer hitting on or at least wanting to hit on every single woman he passes but he never actually acts on these displays because he's not able to break this cycle he's forever locked in the view of that window he's living a loop of trying to convince himself he's moved on but never taking the action to actually do so never following through you and me are over with finished we're ancient history the illusion of choice for everyone watching but the reality of indecision for himself eventually as he sways back and forth he finds the momentum to finally move only that motion is backwards he returns to lead his old gang seeking the power to protect his friends from the darkness lurking in ikebukuro it seems for a moment that maybe at least this backwards motion could be sprung forward at least he's done something even if it isn't positive at least it's his own pain now right but we witness a past that moved on without him the gang he once knew is gone now it's composed almost entirely of members from the blue squares his old rivals and the ones who hospitalized saki they overthrow kita and seek to wield power of their own accord luckily he's able to resist with the help of some others avoids his close call with death but what we witness is something stunning the one who tries to take power horada is a coward only dealing in underhanded means the actions he takes are fully pitiful but they almost destroy someone much stronger i think this is because kita was going nowhere running in circles given enough time the weak can best the strong and by flipping between past and present keita gave them all the time they needed his story is obviously a bit more complex than a basic a versus b by leaving the yellow scars behind in the first place he made the decision in one to lead a better life but he didn't follow through on it proved that he goes back the door was always open always calling back to him luckily he ends up okay as he firmly decides to move forward but he's a message that decision is even harder than just one moment it's also living with the results of it as they play out and cause us pain it's looking at the guilt that causes us stagnation and knowing we have to push through it even when we want nothing less we can't simplify things down to moments alone decisions are days weeks months and even years but one thing is clear backtracking will only set that clock back only make it longer and allow that pain to build up as i did with our other cases to avoid pain all we can guarantee is to move forward solidly out of the past committing to a path which branches forward but that alone doesn't guarantee progress because some paths that seem to be forward splinter off and may leave you finding yourself lost it's possible to decide on something that really isn't anything to do at all to do so all by yourself but to go nowhere from it to move from the past into a future that simply doesn't exist for that we must turn to nothing itself the void of space naturally it wouldn't be one of these videos without it cowboy bebop but today is jet black's turn looking at his backstory we get a similar story of how the past can lead us to choose a future of nothing once an issp investigator jet black worked on his home planet ganymede as a keeper of the peace the black dog who never let go once he bit his prey there he fell in love with elissa a woman who gave him the warmth he needed to keep going however because of his somewhat controlling nature she leaves him with only a note that says farewell in a pocket watch that will one day stop to avoid the depression he found in this he became consumed in his work growing hot on the heels of the mafia organization that's corrupted the issp too close for comfort they set up an inside job to kill jet succeeding only in taking his arm but leading him to grow disillusioned with the blatant corruption and quit they still accomplished what they wanted now when elissa left him he vowed that once the watch stopped he'd leave ganymede for good eventually it does and he follows through on his word he buys the bebop and begins his work as a bounty hunter drifting through space from job to job with no true direction we need to look at his course a bit creatively like we did with jonah the young boy of yeoman gone ends up in a vast nothingness by accident the realization of choice led him to this spot jet however knows exactly what this space is he doesn't stumble upon emptiness he goes to it because it lacks direction he doesn't find fear in this he finds the kind of comfort which leads one to stop their search it's like choosing another to decide for you but making that someone no one at all the choice to drift across space is the choice to stop choosing i don't think this is a fully active decision but it's more like a learned behavior a lack of commitment because commitment never led him anywhere stable the organization he gave his life to tossed him aside for money the one person he loved left him with nothing more than a few simple words on a piece of paper standing firm has never improved his life so why willingly do so drifting is avoiding the pain that's associated with locking oneself out of every option that isn't chosen by choosing none of them knowing that one won't be happy either way but at least they won't be in pain with no commitment though any happiness one somehow finds can be destroyed at any moment and this is what we see eventually the foul family jet gathered falls apart and by the end we can only assume he's right where he started years ago alone when spike leaves jet has no way to convince him to stay they understand the reality of the situation too well by the end he has no words for a man who chooses the same situation if one isn't deciding drifting aimlessly are they even alive if we don't exercise will over the things around us to prove we exist then did we ever exist spike is the one who eventually commits for this reason it leads him to his death choosing isn't always good but spike dies with a smile on his face jet doesn't get the same grace for a reason [Music] sometimes we recognize all of this everything we've covered and yet we still don't think ourselves worthy of decision we witness the walls of our world our societies and our own minds around us shrink down and we reject our impact and as such never chews this is where we find simone in gurren lagan a meek boy digging tunnels for his underground village where humans have lived for enough time they believe the surface to be a myth simone is content trapped in these walls digging tunnels and keeping a few treasures he finds for himself as he describes drilling simply following the path of least resistance his tool decides we can see that he doesn't even find choice in that he's simply following and for the most part that is him in full however his pseudo-older brother kamina is the opposite a man bursting with passion who believes wholeheartedly in the surface he saw as a child knowing the true power simone holds comedy ropes him into all of his failed schemes to escape until a giant mecca falls through the roof and the sky reveals itself defeating this foe with the help of their own mecha simone found they reached the amazing view kamina dreamed of simone from the mech to the one supplying the power is who made this all possible but this is unknown to him even as kamina recognizes and directs it his older brother does what he needs to for someone with no confidence in the moment he steals the spotlight a weak man inspiring those who are actually strong to fight in ways they never imagined as he eventually goes on to lead humanity in a war against the beastmen who forced them onto ground so long ago but eventually he's killed in action leaving simone without the means to direct his energy and never knowing that it was his to begin with he's lost everything which has happened has actually been his doing not communist but because simon never chose to take his own actions he doesn't see this he's just been following the path of another he feels himself useless even as he saves humanity eventually he breaks this funk with the help of nia a new addition who never met kamina as she says you'll never be your bro i think you should always be yourself this is where we start to see the complexity of the human mind how each situation has no one fit how our negative cases very well could have been positive what follows this scene on doing exactly what comedy has sought to do and winning humanity's war for the surface he only follows like some of our examples but what changes is why he's doing so before he was following to follow now he's doing that following the path set before him for his own sake so he can one day make better decisions of his own it's entirely possible that what someone else decides could be the best thing for us and we could find happiness in that this is what communion was all about he was giving himself to others his whole being allowing them to better themselves even if they didn't recognize it i think what's important here is that kind of awareness it's not just about choosing something but also why we are or aren't is it fear that makes us follow orders or is it trust in someone we love the world in our situations within it especially human ones are complex no formula will fit all of them we have order and structures of power for a reason times to make our grand achievements possible like common and taking back the surface we follow the people who are working to do so rather than plugging away at our own solutions ourselves a scene the anime directly shows to us as team gurren tries to free itself from a stone prison no one directing their efforts so they get nowhere deferring choice can be a good thing but we must be aware of why we do so we can't let negative emotions like simone's initial fear be what drives us whether we choose to or not we can see another realist based yet still positive case of all this in the fantastic death parade the story takes place in a sort of purgatory when two people die at the same time they're sent to a mysterious bar where certain games and the results determine whether they become reincarnated or have their souls sent to the void never to be seen again this decision is made by arbiters the one we follow being decum a stoic creature we can't really say he decides on souls even though it's the sole reason he was created the choices he makes are guided entirely by the games and the rules set out to him to bring out the worst of people's souls he's merely following his orders in reacting to the situation which unfolds making a quantitative decision on matters of quality this makes quite the ironic situation the judgment of souls being passed down by someone who has no capacity for decision now this is an extreme case as an arbiter decam is not supposed to have emotion he was crafted without it to make objective judgments however can one really be objective about matters of the human soul something which follows no pattern the first episode we witnessed him make a decision and in the second we witness it once again from shiyuki's point of view a woman who arrived to deck him alone choose a ploy from another in this world to introduce dekum to human emotion and see what happens chiuki looks at the judgment he made and points out a critical flaw deckham never even considered people lie it's something which makes no logical sense the pair in question was a newlywed couple who died because the husband tried to look at his wife's text while driving believing her to be cheating on him after being pushed to their limits she snaps admitting yes she did cheat their child isn't his he doesn't have to feel bad about hating her but chiuki believes her to be lying to spare his soul making herself out to be the one deserving of the voids that he can be reincarnated and that's exactly how it ends this is something deckham never even considered because the workings of human emotion make no sense to him and they make no sense because he doesn't know what pain is as the series progresses we witness more and more cases like this until eventually decam is forced to judge shiyuki herself after he's become emotionally invested in her she passes his final and most daring test one which pitted her against the most basic human desire to live sending her off to be reincarnated left with a deckham who now offers his guests a small smile a note of the emotion he's gained from this point on we can be sure his judgments will be more accurate better for humanity overall but this comes with pain it comes with the pain not just of witnessing others and being aware of how they hurt but the suffering he had to go through to reach this point to understand choice what we learned from decam is that pain is a definitive necessity of human emotion making a choice is seeking something new whether forced by the world around us or not and pain is what motivates us to seek something that we don't have to better our situation one which is hurting us without that there is no motivation to make a good pick or even to make one at all without pain we're like deck vaguely following what was laid out before us wrecked not with indecision with a downright rejection of our own will it's an awful fate that pain is a necessity to find the best option but we have no other way the world created it for a reason trigon's bash the stampede gives us a hopeful look at splitting the difference and how maybe it can work kind of vash begins as your typical good guy he's a complete goofball who refuses to kill because killing is simply bad he scarfs down donuts drinks himself stupid and hits on almost every woman he sees but slowly the veil begins to drop we witness a different side to vash as his plot armor is revealed not to be the illogical whims of a writer but rather the immense amounts of effort of an essential superhuman vash is an alien taking human form but having lived for over hundreds of years even with the ability to fire an immense amount of energy from his body enough to destroy part of the moon he's able to third option every situation and never choose between good and evil because he isn't human his body and mind can take the kind of torture that regular beings simply wouldn't be able to withstand we witness this with nicholas d wolf wood his sometimes companion who serves as the realist if killing one person saves three he believes you take that cost eventually he comes to see vash's way of doing things cursing himself for his morally great deeds because it really was possible to save everyone but is this actually true when he has to die having only done it once to split the difference one time he pays with his life like wolfhood is forced not to kill vash is eventually forced to kill and after a period of turmoil he finds his resolve to live purely once again but he does so with a hopeful resignation he understands the path before him will be awful that it'll be a lifelong pain to do what he wants to do he does it anyway because he's the only one who can sometimes it is possible to not make choices which change your life or the world around you and still live happily still grow and change from that but you have to be willing to take on everything that entails whether it's solitude or physical and emotional pain alike or a constant and grueling effort the harsh world requires with such decisions while trigun is hopeful that hope is rooted in realism and cost can humans really follow the path of a walking ideal i want to end on the most unique case however psychopaths is my favorite series of all time and its protagonist akane sunimori has provided us a wealth of life lessons already she lives in a society which has acknowledged everything we've covered here so far the stress in tormarulla of free will which plagues us so as such they eliminated it humanity created the civil system a means of determining intent without witnessing action this allows them to prevent crimes before they happen while also scoring citizens aptitudes placing them in careers and places and everything where they best fit essentially predetermining their course of their entire lives they have to accept what they get but they're also exceptionally safe and for a large majority perfectly happy they never consider a will which they've never known akane is a standout scoring high enough on her aptitude test to actually have a choice of where to work while all her friends and classmates are being placed she's told to choose for herself she picks the ministry of welfare for one reason she was the only student in her class to get an a ranking for it she took her decision instead turned back to sybil's judgment seeking direction over free will she wanted to avoid the blessings she received and be like everyone else around her at peace with her situation and not wondering where she was supposed to be her time in the nwpsb changes this however as right off the bat she begins to go against the civil system judgment of criminals and then later against it itself in a society which says yes she begins to say no where she refused before she goes against the dominators against her superior and those under her alike like her love interest and co-worker kogami who abandons society even against the villain who seeks to tear it all down she learns the truth of her world that the supposedly unbiased and fair machine called sybil is anything but it's comprised of human minds which reveal their own ulterior motives and biases her life is a lie everyone's lives are lies she now recognizes her blessing that because the system is flawed people should make their own decisions she takes the villain makashima's lesson to heart that free will is crucial to being human but doesn't seek to force that pain of choice onto those who don't want it she's a realist she knows without civil society wouldn't just be pained it would collapse we need structure and order it has become a necessary evil and as such she begins to fight it from the inside she protects it from being destroyed but seeks to change it to be something better and to one day remove it entirely once society has evolved she decides to seek a future which may or may not exist but commits to it anyway she looks for something on the whole a feeling a state of being more so than a certain goal even if she has one in mind to accomplish that state she's making the best choice from within her bounds exercising will within context i think it's obvious that i once again see her as the ideal case we'll be told what to do and other times we'll wish we were we'll look to our past to shape the future but might also get lost in it our opportunities will be limited but we'll always have a range within it freedom in context and we can always decide to go against what limits us if the pain of not being able to choose by outside forces grows greater than the ease of being told what to do as akane famously says i feel like it was to think about yourself agonize over it and accept it existence sucks it's full of pain and suffering and that's something we'll never be able to fix the most we can do is choose how we're going to feel that pain direct that energy on a forward path of change because at least then there's a chance there is no guarantee but what if we look at that will itself as the end and draw a part of our happiness from it it's easier said than done to tell ourselves every day at least i tried but as i'm about to explain i think that's a far better option than eventually realizing why didn't i try [Music] this is where i reveal i'm a liar akane wasn't our last case like every other one this is my excuse for some internet therapy my experience with today's topic is limited i've made very few major decisions in my life that's how i've always tried to keep it i hate the pain of free will when it comes to the direction of my life knowing it's all my fault if it goes wrong i just want to exist i've known this for my entire life even if i couldn't put the same words to it as i can now after years of feeling it the first time i really had to face a life-changing decision was when i was 18. college was upon me and i'd always been told i had to go so i never even considered not the choice was simply where and why but i never actually cared about it so i didn't really decide in a school or a major i went to the university my brother did two years earlier and i went for the degree my parents told me i should one application one tour and nothing more until i started i hated it in the courses it required i still hate that i took them to this day it was depressing and difficult work and i never had a college life because i spent the entire time studying for something i didn't even want to do because i kept telling myself that i just have to do good this and i'll fix things later just focus on now really it was just that i didn't want the stress of taking my life into my own hands so i distracted myself with the very thing i hated i graduated top of my major in something i didn't even want to do now faced with the reality of my indecision i had spent five years and tens of thousands of dollars to get a piece of paper that said i could hate waking up every day for the next 40 years i knew other things i liked i was already editing and acting and working on different productions at the time i knew other day jobs existed and that i could have done well in any of them ones maybe i could at least deal with a little bit better than the thing i hated so much but i didn't have the mental strength to face the idea that the rest of my life was going to be dictated by the lines i filled out on a few pieces of paper so instead of choosing i ignored it i went with what other people thought would be best it kind of destroyed my life i'd have to use my degree for work because nothing else is going to pay well enough for me to live since i have to deal with student debt and i can't go back to school for the same reason i write cover letters claiming my passion for the job as my fingers hurt from every single falsehood i type i go to interviews and lie through my teeth knowing i'm not what they want but having to act like i am anyway i eventually get exhausted and settle somewhere to stop that process but find no peace in that then i just wake up every day sitting at a desk feeling my soul slip away as i learn pointless information that pushes what i actually care about further and further back i drive home thinking about how much of my passion project i can get done tonight only to lie down in complete exhaustion and depression when i arrived i found no escape from the stress i felt as an underdeveloped 18 year old i simply pushed it further back and now i'm aware of it i know it how much of my life those few lines of paper decided how many chances to fix it i simply passed up because i told myself we'll deal with it later the pain is now tenfold listening to others splitting the difference refusing the future everything which is the rejection of choice only led to a much greater pain i finally felt all that pain release all at once it was one of the most terrifying moments of my life i was driving to a friend's house an hour away at 10 30 at night after a day of anxious back and forthing on it because i couldn't decide what to do i thought just relax have fun but i was spending the whole drive dreading the fact that i had to work tomorrow to stay on track with uploads i loved doing it but i needed some time to relax my brain after starting a new job which required me to cram the equivalent of a college course into one week they lied on the listing and it turns out i had no way to be qualified for the work expected of me and this was an opportunity i took that i turned down others for because it was closer and because i thought it would be something i wouldn't have to exhaust myself doing and i found myself just exhausted to look for anything different i'd somewhat come to terms with the mistake of my degree but now remembering the better opportunities i missed i learned i never changed from that 18 year old kid i realized why i really turned down better chances i said it was distance but i'd never even considered moving for them even a distance short enough that my life wouldn't change and i wanted my own place anyway it would just be some extra driving on fridays who cares once i thought about it i became obsessed with the idea being on my own would sucka times but i started to imagine making a crappy apartment of my own finally having a full studio instead of just the bedroom you see every single video i thought of the meals i could cook and the drinks i could mix i could finally make that video about drinks from anime and i could do all of this whenever i wanted these thoughts swirled into a storm when the hot air of progression met the cold front of stagnation that it existed for so long my brain started kicking the floor of my skull stupid stupid stupid how didn't you think of it the guy said it was easy work you knew it was how did you [ __ ] this up so much you used to do the other one the thing that other drow would have needed every single day but instead you took the one that's now stressing you to the point of [ __ ] tears every day i was finally seeing just how much my choices were anything but that word they were all playing the middle all letting someone else decide all trying to end nowhere so that i was never committed so my life was never in my own hands i was stuck in a loop of these same unproductive thoughts the whole drive with each wind in the road i felt something rising in my throat my legs tensed instinctively pressing my foot more on the pedal my arms followed gripping the wheel until my knuckles turned white and i found what was in my throat as it leaped forward out came the loudest longest scream of my entire life i already heard like hell after just one but another followed and another and another until finally a cascade of curses finished it off and those led into direct claims about the stupid job how they lied to me how messed up it was they could [ __ ] my life up like that how i was an idiot for falling for it and not taking the safe easy option because i was a mindless fearful child who never even considered choice because that's how little i knew of it how i flushed all my thoughts out with constant media to the point i couldn't even recognize my own damn feelings to know all of this these followed into everything else that was behind the damn years of self-loathing and failed relationships inaction dysphoria secrecy family friends all pouring out at once i stopped pulled over on the side of the road as i felt my body begin to loosen it was as if the cords which were holding me together so tightly for years had finally split and i sat there like my muscles no longer existed eventually i texted my friends i couldn't come over for the final get-together at their house where i had made some of the best memories of my life i'd never see it again i turned back and redrove the almost full hour to my house there i walked around listening to willows forever the repetitive lyric this can't last forever tearing me apart inside as i knew i couldn't keep holding on to a life that was holding me back i walked half the time crying about anything and everything all my fears whether they were related to work or not but all stemming from the same place my inaction the pain i was feeling how it was able to build up to such an extent it physically wore out my body was because i was like our characters here today i avoided a few moments of discomfort in my past by never taking my life into my own hands and i paid for that by feeling seven years of anguish all at once i've always wondered why i never seem to have the life-changing moments as my friend i watch them all leave for different jobs and visit new places and get married and take trips and do all of this well i sat at home for years and called it the smart decision the moments that would change my life were there i just wasn't acting on them i think i'm finally different now i'm finally considering moving i really want to have my own place so i can express myself as much as i want and have people over for the first time and meet someone and make a place with them and set up new things and i'm basically finally dictating my life starting years late at these same desires people normally much younger than i have i don't regret my past because it led me to be able to do what i am right now and this is something i would never trade it's my rock the bit of stability i return to to know that things will be okay that i'm working to something i find valuable within three or four years it'll more than likely be financially viable enough at least for me to survive but until then i pay for my mistakes in the 70-hour weeks on 40 hours of pay that i put in i'll more or less truly be starting my life at 30. that's what i have to deal with because i never decided on how it should actually start and now have to manage it in the context of what others decided i say this not to ask for pity but to stress how costly fixing the mistake of inaction is i highlight how much work this is because i want to show the toilet takes on one's very soul because i don't want others to make the same mistake i see kids in the same spot i was unaware of just how much life builds on the current moment you're feeling it sucks to decide your whole life before you even know who you are before you've even experienced the world and what it is where you want to fall into it and everything that is human it is an impossible decision but it should at least be one it shouldn't just be impossible you may have a little input or a lot but whatever you have use it take a bit of struggle right now to save a lot of it later if i can teach anything one thing throughout any video i've ever made this is the one i care most about if one person finds betterment from this pain then it was worthwhile at least to some degree maybe since i'm trying to get better it already was i can't tell you the meaning of life or yours or mine or any in general but i can tell you this for sure make the choices you have to make them your own you may not know what direction you want to go in but you can make a better guess than everyone else you live in your own head you deal with the pain of your choices so make them your own when possible if nothing else that's the only way we move forward this got depressing as hell if i'm being honest but i don't want you to worry about me i keep fighting through the result of my indecision because i know it can be fixed i see the recent success i've had the channel just had its largest spike ever amidst some of the worst moments of my life there's always this endlessly bright spark because of how wonderful you all are that timeline i mentioned is probably getting shorter my dream is within reach however long it takes one day you'll be seeing a lot more of me of that i'm fully certain so i hope i'll keep seeing a lot of you as always a big thank you to the lovely patrons who are directly helping this fight but to everyone in general for allowing me to take up a small moment of your life i hope you'll allow me the honor to do that again sometime soon

Channel: ProfessorViral

Views: 190,030

Keywords: tokyo ghoul, jormungand, durarara, cowboy bebop, gurren lagann, death parade, trigun, psycho pass, anime, manga, analysis

Id: fEY1a06_V_w

Length: 44min 15sec (2655 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 25 2022