lightpeak

[lightpeak]

a totally original shower thoughts video - script

I have a personal vendetta against the number 7. It’s the oddest of the odd single digit numbers. It’s just… there. That, and it’s the only single digit number, other than zero, with two syllables. I remember as a kid, hating it when a number was something like seven hundred, seven thousand, seventeen. It just felt crowded. But I suppose it’s a hopeless endeavor to hate it. It’s not like I can change it.

But what about hopeless? I think it’s the most despicable word in the English language.

Not because of some arbitrary linguistic property. But because of what it means, and the fact that humanity has deemed it necessary to express its meaning. That suffering perpetrates life in such a way to extinguish, however temporarily, a person’s hope. 

What about the obviously dumb words? Like how we park on driveways, and drive on parkways. Shipments are carried in trucks or cars, but cargo is carried on ships. 

Or what about discombobulate? Well actually, that one makes sense. It means to stun or confuse, and I pretty much always feel that way when faced with that word.

And then there’s taradiddle. This more or less means that something’s pretentious. Does that mean that my entire personality is taradiddlous? Taradiddleful? Taradiddliousious?

Have you ever looked out your window in the morning and seen canines and felines plummeting from the heavens? No? Then why is “it’s raining cats and dogs” a phrase? And what about buckets, and striking them with our feet, makes us think of death? And is breaking your leg not the worst case scenario during a performance? Why do we wish that upon others?

English is a giant… joke. 

Speaking of falling animals, why do we say we are falling in love? What about a growing fondness for someone, makes us think of helplessly succumbing to gravity? Maybe it’s something to do with the duality of falling. How, thanks to relativity, falling is indistinguishable from floating, other than the air rushing past you. 

This is because gravity is not a force within the universe, but a distortion of the universe itself. All lines are straight lines, except where gravity bends the space those lines occupy. This is also due to how acceleration works, and how movement is irrelevant without a reference frame. Long story short, we say we’re falling in love, because we also feel like we’re floating. We feel free. Yet we’re reminded of how helpless we are in the things we can’t control. Love is not a thought. It’s not something you have conscious control of. You will love, whether you like it or not.

Gravity is all fine and dandy, until someone wants to get off the planet. That someone being a selfish billionaire whose only goal is self preservation and destroying twitter. But I digress. It’s so interesting, how there are so many jobs, whose workers hope for the worst. Phone companies love it when you break your phone. Or when its ability to function correctly suddenly drops, due to no fault of the manufacturer. Or how cops want people to commit crimes to fill their quotas. Mostly people who are already in desperate situations, totally not systemically by design. Mechanics want your car to have problems, so they can charge you extra for repairs you didn’t even know you needed. 

Going back to that billionaire that ruined twitter, he wants to install chips in people’s heads. Supposedly, to allow people to use technology just by thinking about it. Which I guess is cool. Except when you realize that we already have brain to technology interfaces. They’re called our hands, using keyboards, or controllers, or touchscreens. I swear he’s like a League Of Legends player, trying to get his input lag down to zero. 

Speaking of video games, some games can be kind of like therapy for people. Just a way to escape the world, or be a cuddly wholesome environment to make your own. Others, however, might make you need therapy, with how dark and gritty their worlds are. All forms of media can inform us of who we are and what we care about. Others are just fun, and you shouldn’t really think much more about it.

Some may say that getting entrenched in a story can be meaningless. You’re just wasting your time in a fantasy land you’ll never visit. But they forget that these worlds are inspired by our own. Or are idealistic versions of the world we inhabit. Maybe it’s not so bad to hope for our world to look a little more like the one on the screen or between the pages. I don’t think it’s ever a bad thing to hope.

Now if someone can make a world where the number 7 doesn’t exist, you’ll know where to find me.

[lightpeak]

It Isn't Hopeless - Script

Two months ago I made a video called Is It Hopeless. It was my second video essay on this channel. I made it because I was scared. I had this dream - I’ve had it for a while - to make YouTube videos. To make content that made people smile. Or any feeling, really. Just to feel something they might consider good. Or of value.

But it’s scary, to put yourself out there. Especially when I have little care for anonymity, or being vague with how I’m feeling or who I am as a person. Because when I click post, I’m giving you the most fragile parts of me, hoping you won’t break them.

I was also afraid of myself. I was afraid of what I’d do with these fragile parts of me. If I’d see my content as worth it. If I’d have the motivation to keep the IV running, pumping content from the heart on my sleeve.

To answer my previous question, it isn’t hopeless.

Even though it’s taken some time for any of my videos to do marginally well, compared to others, it happened. Last week’s video, as of my time of writing this, has gotten almost 350 views. Which is more than any of my other normal videos. It has 7 comments, all of which are unbelievably nice. It has 20 likes, and I just can’t believe that something I made has made even 20 people happy.

Speaking of creating things to make people happy, I’d like to tell you about a show I’ve been keeping my eye on. Dragon Ball Arta is an original fan manga turned podcast that just released its fourth episode. The storytelling is phenomenal, the voice talent is very solid, and the sound effects are very engaging! If you want a refreshing take on dragon ball and fan content as a whole, look no further than DB Arta! Link in the description

Another thing fueling my hopefulness, is the fact that the ceiling has been raised. I think YouTube may see that people do like my content, and then may recommend it to more and more people. And I think this is something that can very well turn into a positive feedback loop. Eventually, every new video may get more views than the last.

Or maybe not. I’m not sure. That’s where the hope comes in. Because I don’t know any of these things. I can’t see the future. I can only make an educated guess, and hope that I’m not too far off.

Will there be bumps in the road? Sure. Will things not always go my way, or continuously grow? Almost definitely. But I know it’s possible, and I just watched myself take my first steps. Maybe someday I’ll learn to run.

[lightpeak]

What Love Isn't - Script

A boy, due to irresolution and self doubt, unfond of calling himself a man, lives a life of treading just above suffocation. Cursed with unhappiness, he seeks moments of content, yet is robbed of a life of it. They take the shape of a mountain, the reasons for his despondency. Only the spike of its peak blessed with the sparkle of snow and hope. 

Forever he reaches out, asking questions. Unaware that nobody is provided answers. He was not born lost more than anyone else was. Perhaps he’s just been burdened with the desire to be found. And yet so many criteria for who should find him. For it shall not be God. Nor hisself. But love. Love should find him. Answer all his questions and send flurries of hope down into the valley of his pain.

He often wonders what love is. Not because he doesn’t know it from its starring role in every other human’s life. But because in action it mends wounds, topples reigns of sorrow. Yet in hindsight, it blinds, and it distracts. Allows feeling wonderful about feeling horrible. We are blinded to other’s flaws when we’re in love. Yet we become blind to our own. Like even mirrors are not immune to rose colored glasses.

Sometimes love is a time bomb. Tick tocking away at the speed of your racing heart. A timer that reaches zero when there’s an imbalance in who loves who. A slip of a tongue, or a fuck-it attitude.

Every new avenue is another trek up his mountain. Speckled with tombstones detailing old mistakes, he wishes he could fly to the peak, rather than trek amongst the dirty gray stones. But it’s the arrival at the summit. The cold. The snow. The shiver down his spine. If he’s here, on top of the world, there’s nothing he can’t do. Nothing he can’t do to make sure he stays happy.

But that’s not fair, nor is it sustainable. He must return to sea level. He must descend back to despondency. Maybe not because he chose to. Or because he had to. But just because that’s the way these things go. Maybe things just didn’t work out. Maybe he’s better off alone. Or off this mountain. Or both.

He begins to wonder if his seemingly permanent string of bad luck has nothing to do with what love is. But more to do with what it isn’t. It won’t cure depression. It will only hint at ingredients, like an incomplete list finished beneath a black light. Only a sample of a life free from this dark looming mountain. 

So what is he to do? Broaden the criteria for who should find him? After all, his definition of love is fairly wide as it is. Or should he be open to finding himself? Putting in the work to turn that irresolute boy into a man? Trekking up that looming mountain, and studying every tombstone he finds?

What if he makes a fool of himself? Or drowns himself in what he learns? Suffocating beneath the pressure and pain of studying his every mistake? 

But how, he wonders, does one learn, if not for this process? When bruised, is healing not the throbbing? When wounded, is ache dissimilar to recovery? Is the knowledge of ignorance not the first step to learning? Is discomfort not the doorstep to growth?

So he treks up the mountain with great care and attention. Reading every tombstone as if it were that of an old friend. Once harboring bitterness for every stone monolith, now he is gracious. Studeus to their painful wisdom. Yes, there is still pain in their presence. But there can also be growth.

“Value,” he says, kneeled before a numberless monolith. “Earned value is key. Not because it’s sad to be without. But because I’d be happy to be with it.”

He stands, and looks to the summit. The sparkle of the snow not muddied by the gray of the painful memories. But it begins to all make sense to him. He cannot keep a future he can’t wait to see, separate from a past he can’t forget fast enough. They must be one and the same. One must inform the other. He is not only a collection of mistakes. Or a void of unspent potential. He is not his pain, or the love he has to offer, or the love he seeks. He is all of these things and more. 

He is not only the collection of all his atoms and cells. Every hair on his head or every thought in his mind. He is the culmination of these things. He is how these things step into the unknown and take it on with open hands and his heart on his sleeve. Because as passionate he is about his own pain, he’s even more so in others’. The thought of anyone else cowering beneath a dark looming mountain. It brings him no joy.

And so as he watches his own mountain turn white as snow avalanches from it speak. He sees the gray mix with the sparkles. He sees his mistakes with new eyes. Not ones behind rose colored glasses. But ones that seek to see not what is, and what was, but what could be.

Not what love is. Not what love isn’t. But what love hasn’t been. Who it could come from. The novel idea that maybe some of it could come from him. Maybe he would become worthy of loving because he would make himself so. Not because love would feel pity for him.

And as the past contaminates the future, he watches the world glow. Every little morsel of existence appears to be glad to be there. But maybe it’s the man that’s glad to be here. Maybe he finally sees worth in himself, and in turn sees worth wherever he goes.

He’s always loved and trusted others more so than he did himself. But that’s beginning to change. Maybe now he can believe that others perceive him with love and respect. Especially now that he’s expecting himself to earn it.

Maybe he is I. Perhaps he is you, or some stranger on the street. Remember, as much as you are your own twisting, winding story, as is everyone else. Each with their own mountain of guilt, and sources of insecurity.

As much as it may feel sometimes. You are not alone. Never. Because you will always, always have yourself. And that can be enough, if you make it enough.

Love is not about what it is, or what it isn’t. It’s not about some destination. It’s about a journey. A voyage you take with someone you love. And no matter how beautiful, or worthy of your love your future partner may be. The person you will always take on this journey with you, is you. So show that person some love. Or the whole thing will suffer for it.

Treat yourself with love this year. I will try to do the same.

[lightpeak]

Why 99.997% Play Games Like This

What do you think drives people to video games? Yes, they’re not for everyone, and yes, there are people that can’t play them. But for the people that can and do. Why?

Is it the rush of just barely making it through a level? Is it the rich, powerful stories we’re experiencing? What about the challenge? The feeling of having a whole new world with a whole new set of rules at your fingertips? Is it escapism? Escaping your job or school, your friends and family drama? Escaping a world that might not understand you the way a fictional one does? But what about escaping the very lens you’re seeing the game through? Is that possible? Would you, and should I, want that?

Percentages and statistics. Love them or hate them, they help us to put things in perspective. They help us better understand adverse effects of things. Inequalities and suffering. But they also help us quantify experiences. The differences between people that lead them to vastly different perspectives or ways of being and seeing. I have one of those differences. If you’ve been with the channel for long enough, you’ll have seen my video on my visual disability. Achromatopsia. To give you a brief rundown: it’s a congenital defect of the cone cells in the retina, rendering them useless. Cone cells are responsible for the perception of color, light filtering, and higher detailed vision. As a result, my eyes do none of these things. I see absolutely no color, my pupils do not filter light, and my vision is just extremely poor overall.

And from what I could gather, based on how common Achromatopsia is, and how many people there are in the world, the percentage of people that have this same condition is around 0.003%. That tells me that 99.997% of people don’t experience the world the way I do, and don’t experience video games the same way either.

Though from a young age, this did not stop me from playing video games. From the original LEGO Star Wars on the PS2, to God of War Ragnarok on the PS5, I’ve tried my best to enjoy games, however I could. And don’t get me wrong, I’m very lucky to have good enough vision to enjoy these games. I’ve known plenty of other people that can’t play games as comfortably as I can. Whether they would need to get closer to their screen than their noses would allow, or they simply wouldn’t be able to take in enough of the screen quick enough to play effectively. Though this hasn’t stopped many people with arguably worse vision from playing more difficult games than I do, and better than I ever could. Like Adam, otherwise known as Lo0p__, who plays CSGO, and is an absolute boss. It’s insane. Check out this video about him and what he does. Show him some love.

One of my favorite games growing up was The Sims 3. Though in all the time that I had played it, I never actually played it. My brother was the one at the keyboard, and I just watched. It was something him and I bonded over, and is still one of my fondest memories of my childhood. Looking back, could I have played it if I weren’t so impatient and young? Maybe. It’s not that much of a struggle to play it now, visually. But I still credit my vision for my inability to play it at the time, and for generating so many nice memories between my brother and myself.

Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 was another game that my brother played, and I just watched. Mostly because I was only 8 at the time, so I wasn’t allowed to play it. Little did my parents know that I was being traumatized anyway! Fuck you, Shepherd. You said fuck in front of an 8 year old. Dick.

My colorblindness has a tendency to get in my way in subtle and unexpected ways. Like, way back in the day, the WWE games’ UI had a red and black color scheme. So I could not for the life of me figure out what option I had selected, since the red was often indistinguishable from the black, and vice versa. This also got in the way of me making custom characters in these games, which is something I’ve always loved. 

Going back to my brother, who I’ve realized was a pretty strong driving force for me and what I watched and played when I was younger. I have a distinct memory of him going out of his way to get me Soulcaliber III for my birthday one year. Specifically because it had a character creator, and I loved that at the time. Still do, to be honest with you.

My love of creativity has always shined through a lot in the things that I enjoy and the things I care about. And I think there’s something special about sitting down at your console and PC and setting yourself loose on a video game world. Whether that means freeing a nondescript island nation from a tyrannical dictatorship in Far Cry, building your perfect island home in Animal Crossing, or burning a city to the ground in Just Cause. Video games mean something to a lot of people, in a lot of different ways. And I’m honored, and grateful, that I’ve been able to share in that experience in one way or another throughout the years. 

Not to mention seeing the implementation of significantly improved accessibility options in games. Having just the smallest opportunity to not add to my future back problems is a great feeling for me.

Maybe one day VR will become so powerful that it could circumvent our eyes, or our other sensory organs. Sounds a lot like Elon’s new brain chip bullshit. As long as Twitter isn’t preloaded I’ll be fine.

Even though I’m a small part of the 0.003% of people that experience video games the way I do. I hope that one day nobody will answer the question “Do you play video games?” with the answer “No, because I can’t”

Hopefully one day people will only be bad at games because of a skill issue. Not a disability issue.

[lightpeak]

The Impact Of Death - Script

I’m going to ask you a question you may not like.

How long do you think you have? Twenty, thirty, forty years? What about just until tomorrow, or when you go to sleep tonight? What if you died, right now?

It’s something you may tend to shy away from acknowledging, but you will die one day. Everyone will. Everyone you have ever known, loved, or cared about, will be dead one day. And now having this knowledge fresh in your mind, how do you deal with that? How do you continue on, being a nervous system telling a heart to beat? Being finely tuned flesh wrapped up in slightly more appealing dead flesh?

I don’t mean to make you uncomfortable. But it’s unsettling, isn’t it? To become so viscerally aware of yourself, your fragility, and your mortality? Why do we hide from these thoughts? Why do we run from them? Avoid them like the plague? Because death isn’t a plague. Living is. Death is just the universe curing it.

Death is something we all must contend with at some point. Whether it’s in the loss of a loved one. Or the acknowledgement that our loved ones will lose us. Being healthy is a direct response to the knowledge of our mortality. You just might not think of it that way. You scratch at the surface of a dark ocean, seeing only droplets of the water that extends forever below you. Though there does not have to be fear, here. You do not have to feel helpless.

This video is a direct response to my mortality. In making this, I leave a legacy. I leave these messages in bottles so they may float across the world wide web for long after I’m gone. There are many other forms of this. Writing books, writing music, creativity as a whole. Having children; creating offspring and instilling your values into them. Reproduction is the passing on of genetics. The very system that made you the way you are. In a way, you will never die. If your genetics, however diluted over time, keep being passed on.

You are made up of countless systems working in tandem. Your respiratory system brings oxygen into the lungs. Your cardiovascular system delivers nutrients and oxygen to all other parts of the body. These and all the other systems in your body are subject to many opportunities to fail. Diseases, genetic disorders, outside invaders or traumatic injuries. All the things that keep you alive are fragile. And when these systems fail, and your brain shuts down, you die. All the things that made you “you” will be gone. 

You may still look like you, when you’re given a funeral. But you’ll only be an outside. A puppet dressed up so that it conjures the memory of a time it had a puppetmaster. People will cry. They’ll talk about you. They may even share a few laughs. But you won’t be there for that. Only your body will.

As you may have been able to tell from my last video, I’m not particularly religious. I don’t believe we have souls. But I do believe there is something within us that serves the purpose of a soul. Likely, it’s something to do with our brains, and how complex they are. After all, they’re complex enough to form consciousness. A level of awareness above simple sensory intake. A part of you that is aware of its own awareness.

This is what is missed the most when we die. Not necessarily the rise and fall of our chest. Or the way our lips curl into smiles. Or the glimmer that sits inside our eyes. It’s us. Our words, our interactions with others. Our capacity to know, and listen, and understand. To care, and love, and be with people. This is what matters to people. When you’re here. And even more so when you’re gone.

Life is, in part, the ability to have conscious impact, and to be impacted. Not just on the surface, like an abrasion to skin; a meteor to a planet’s surface. But deeper, without any scars or marks left over. An impact onto who you are, what you think, and what you feel. That leaves you, when you die. 

Your mind can begin to die before your body, though. Dementia and Alzheimer’s are examples of a decaying mind within an otherwise living body. It’s a terrifying thing to experience. And an arguably equally horrible thing to watch happen. Watching someone die, from any illness, is horrendous to experience. 

Depression and suicidal ideation is another example of a mind dying before a body. Not because it dies of illness or any external cause. But because it is scared to death of the pain it’s in. That’s something I have experience with. I don’t think there’s much hyperbole when I say that it felt like I was dying. Not in the same way that someone dies of an illness of the body. But in that I was inching closer to death anyway. 

I don’t think I always understood why people who survive illnesses are called fighters, and strong. Their bodies did most of the work. It’s not like their mind could’ve just given up, and their body would’ve followed suit. But then I realized, it could. Just like it did for me. Even though my body wasn’t sick. Only my mind was.

It’s easy to feel hopeless when you’re reminded of how temporary you are. But it’s all a matter of perspective. Because you can also feel hopeful when reminded of how temporary you are. Because you have a finite amount of time to do what you love. So you’d better fill that time with as much love as you can. Death is a natural part of life. It is the very thing that gives life meaning. To die is to have lived. To live is to one day die. 

If you asked me if I wanted to live forever, I’d say no. Not just because life is pain, which it is in part. But because what point is there in a friendly sporting event, if the timer and scores can go on forever.

That old adage in every pop song is right, no matter how cliche it sounds. Live as though tomorrow is your last day. Not in case it is, but in case it isn’t. 

[lightpeak]

The Illusion Of Choice | Words vs Action - Script

We may not think of it, but it is strange to be human. We go through life figuring out who we are. Discovering what this means on the backdrop of existence. This may make things more confusing when we realize that everyone experiences these oddities. And in turn, are just as lost. Many misunderstandings between people may boil down to lapses in existential understanding. Even people that seem to flow through life with such little consideration of this, are still affected by it. How strange it must be, to be you, or anyone at all.

When interacting with others, lost in this haze of existential quandary, how do we quantify good actions from bad? Even when acting in solitude, are there such things as right and wrong? Where do these ideals come from? The reality is, that this question is as old as time. There doesn’t seem to be a satisfying answer. Perhaps there never will be. There most definitely won’t be in this video. But let’s talk about it anyway.

Right and wrong seems to remain largely based on cultural perspective. One that does not change much from person to person among a single population. But does have outliers, and extremists, as does everything. As a people, we tend to ostracize these moral radicals, imprisoning them, and otherwise shunning them from society. 

But where do these morals come from? God? Or is there something about us, or the way we’re raised, that implants these ideals into us? What about the concept of crime and punishment, actions of value and praise? Who makes the decision of what’s right and wrong? Who decides what is a punishment, and what is praise? Why is hell punishment, and why is heaven reward? Nirvana and freedom, prison and damnation. What about embracing the darker sides of us, like in The Purge series, and why the concept makes so much sense? 

Why is it so easy for people to become corrupted as they grow older? Is it the lead that was in the atmosphere when they were young? Is it just a change in the times? Or is it simply just an ache that wears us down?

It is to be assumed that there is purity in birth. A newborn infant is without bias, prejudice, or more complex ideals. Do they experience morality? Are they capable of understanding their own impact? Or is there something about becoming a member of the strangeness that imbues the concept of right and wrong? 

We are typically raised with fantastical words and stories, but tragically imperfect lives. What is a child to decide, when they hear mommy and daddy shouting while they watch Disney? Which are they to believe? The wholesome and fantastical stories they’re told or the cynical and depressing reality that starkly contrasts them?

Let’s dive deeper here. 

Children’s media promotes love and good nature, right? Well, let’s see. “Girl’s” toys are covered in hearts, and are either a baby doll, or a pristinely inaccurate depiction of female beauty standards. “Boy’s” toys are just guns and mothers’ soon-to-be dead sons. Real good natured, if you ask me. Is it good that we’re taught differently? Is it good that these ideals are baked into us so early? Is there a deeper, manipulative, for-profit ulterior motive here?

What about all the points where bad things are promoted, baked into us at a young age? The phrase “boys will be boys” is dangerous, as women around the world are very well aware of. And what about the concept of gossip being promoted among young girls? Heartless rumors and lies spread because it’s baked into us. Where do these things fall in our designations of right and wrong? And why are there no punishments for these things? And even if there are punishments, why not nip these problems at the source?

It is even more interesting, the fact that religions and first world governments largely promote free will and will of the people. Except in the cases that these things produce an outcome those powers don’t like.

Nobody asked to be born, yet we are all faced with the same ultimatum eventually. We’re all human, experiencing this same strangeness, yet we still all must fall in line. Be a human, like all the other humans, for fear of being an individual. Be like everyone else, or wish you were nobody.  Not to mention it’s all meaninglessly complex. We’re all teetering on the edges of freedom and jail, nirvana or damnation. This all fringes on the idea of good and evil. Or perhaps simply more on control.

We believe hell to be bad, and heaven or other interpretations of the afterlife to be good. But are they just simply impossible to get to? Are the qualifications imposed too strict? Like presented in The Good Place? I highly recommend it, by the way.

Are we provided these moral ideals by God, or by a natural facet of our existence? And are God or the government bastardizing these facets for control? And if God or those in power didn’t impose these rules, would we still follow them simply by our own volition? Are our tenets communal and powerful enough to withstand anarchy?

Why do we rely on the ideals of religion to shape our morals? Thou shall not kill, thou shall not proform adultery. These are rudimentary rules in pretty much every religion. But they are also easily gleamed from common sense. No one would want to be killed or be a victim of any kind. Then why are religions providing us with ideals we already have? What if they didn’t? What if religion didn't hold the afterlife over our heads like candy over a naughty child’s head? Would we still think these things are bad? Or would people go out killing and fucking whatever and whomever they want?

In the end, I cannot answer any of these questions. Nor should I try to. They are far too large, and at the same time, far too personal. Though, it is possible, should enough people agree on something, for change to be enacted. So please feel free to use this video as a starting point for a conversation. In the comments, with your loved ones, random people on the street, or even your local government officials. 

Life is so endlessly complicated, with themes and characters, like a never-ending story full of repeating climaxes and resolutions. But don’t let that make you lose yourself, or the ideals you hold dear. Even if they’re contrary to what people want you to think. And as long as they don’t harm anyone. That’s important too.

There really isn’t a solid answer for any of this. Only what you believe. We are born a blank slate. We are not born good or evil. We are all born human.

[lightpeak]

We Won't Watch The Sunrise - Script

Someone out there will decide it’s a good choice to love me. I’m not gonna tell you whether I think that’s congruent with their happiness or not. What I will say is that you will be disappointed in some way. For example, we won’t stay up all night to watch the sunrise. The sun blinds me.

I was born, like most people, beneath blinding lights; thrust into a world that was huge and boundlessly intimidating. The only difference for me, is that the lights never stopped being blinding, and the colors never came into view.

They call it Achromatopsia. Etymologically, its origins are Greek. A, for without, chroma, for color, and opsia, for vision. Without color vision. Though there is much more to this condition than meets the eye. 

Moving on from that horrific pun. Achromatopsia is characterized by a lack of functioning cones in the retina. Cone cells being the photoreceptors that are responsible for color vision. They also provide the means to effectively filter light based on intensity. This is the reason your pupils dilate or constrict depending on your surroundings. Once you remove the cones, or their ability to function correctly, the pupils remain rather wide, or can react oppositely to what is expected. This can be a rather alarming symptom to the uninitiated, as this can be a sign of significant brain trauma, tumor, or stroke. 

The tangible experience of this, when exposed to bright light, is white-out. I’d like to set the scene for likely the closest analog a non-sufferer would experience. Imagine it’s the middle of the night. It’s pitch black in your home, and you wake up to go use the bathroom. You switch on the bathroom light, and your eyes become overwhelmed, and you’re blind for a moment, only seeing white. That’s what I would experience, perpetually, should I walk outside during the day without my specialized sunglasses.

There’s also the fact that I can’t see color. At all. I am completely colorblind. I only see in shades of black, white, and gray. Or at least, that’s the only comparison that can be made. Because that’s what makes sense to you. But that’s more going into a philosophical view on the matter.

All of this is to say that I’m not normal. Though there are many more reasons for this notion, this is the one that feels the most visceral in my life. I have a rare visual disability that dictates many facets of my life. I can’t drive, because my vision is too poor, even with the specialized sunglasses. The possibility of losing my sunglasses during the day is effectively a death sentence. Or at least an inability to live for myself. I would need to ask someone for help until I either find them, or make it home. 

I wouldn’t be able to pick someone up on our way to our date. I wouldn’t be able to watch the sun set or rise with them. Only just after, or just before. I romanticize dusk and dawn like they’re the only times I feel comfortable. Because they are. Just after the sun has gone down, but its influence still radiates across the sky, it is just dark enough that I can take off my glasses, but not so dark that it’s fallen into night. That’s my favorite time of day. That’s when I’d want to spend my time with whoever it is that decides to love me.

I experience the world inherently differently than pretty much anyone else. Other than people who also have Achromatopsia. But it’s still lonely. After all, when I describe my lack of color vision, I simply state three names that mean nothing to me. Just names, the same as there are names of dead presidents, or countries that no longer exist, or superheroes. They are just names that mean nothing to me. Yet I still speak them, because I find myself colorless in a colorful world.

Someone out there will decide it’s a good idea to love me. Although they will be disappointed. Because while they’re watching the sunset, I’ll only be watching them. And I suppose that’ll have to be good enough.

[lightpeak]

The Value In Feeling Bad - Script

I’m a rather creative person. I write poetry, I make videos, I dabble in making music with a friend of mine. And I pride myself in trying my best to be unique in some way. My poetry is unique in that it’s poetry, and nobody reads that shit anymore. My videos are unique because I am not afraid to be honest with you, and be as genuine with my feelings as I can. And my music is unique, because it doesn’t sound good, by design. 

I can’t sing. I cannot hold a tune, and my voice just doesn’t listen to me when I tell it to do things. Talking, and writing words that are aesthetically pleasing, are really the only talents I have that could be anywhere near applicable to music. And so, I started making music where it’s really just me talking over rock music. And it’s kinda horrible, in a beautiful kind of way. It’s very raw, and very emotional, and is designed to make you feel.

Though this sentiment I feel for it, the idea that negativity can be beautiful, is not widely shared among the circle of people I’ve shared it with. They regularly attribute the negative feelings they have when listening to the music, to the music itself. Yes, the music, by some standard, is not good. That does not, in my opinion, strip it of its value.

I have a rather potent example of the emotional content of a product being attributed to its value. A product that was so viscerally upsetting to experience, many people hate it with an unbridled passion.

The video game The Last Of Us Part II. Naughty Dog’s 2020 sequel to the near perfect 2013 game, The Last Of Us. 

The Last Of Us Part II is so depressing. It’s so uncomfortable to play in so many ways. It’s trauma porn, and it’s a terrible thing to experience. And that’s why it’s amazing. It makes you uncomfortable in every step of the way, reminding you that the people you’re killing are people. They’re not, but that’s the commentary the game is going for. In some ways, it’s a game against video games. 

In every step of the way, you’re forced to follow the main characters as they do terrible things, and you have to do it for them. You are the player, yet you are being played. You are being made to feel things. Instead of enacting your will on the world, like in a Grand Theft Auto, the world’s will is being enacted on you. And it’s such a beautifully painful thing to experience.

You could attribute all of this to the opinion that the game is bad, and it’s poorly written, and it’s bad for people’s mental health. And you would be, in some part, right in all of these statements. But I still genuinely believe that all of these things are what give the game its value. Because it makes you feel. It isn’t foregoing its message by giving you any levity. It isn’t succumbing to your wishes and making you feel good. It isn’t fooling itself into the notion that feeling good is the only feeling that has value. It isn’t.

There is value in feeling bad. There is value in being sad. In being angry. In fear, anguish, grief, resentment, hate, love, lust. There is value in all of this. Because it makes you human. It makes you a living, breathing, feeling person. With feelings that are valid. Feelings that are worth feeling. Because if you didn’t feel them, would that really be living?

Listen to music that makes you sad, or makes you cringe. Play games that make you want to turn it off or burn the console and any remaining essence of such a vile experience. Feel things. No matter what they are. Feel things. Because it makes you human. Allows you to contain multitudes. There aren’t layers to happiness. It is just a layer.

Be like an onion. And ogres. Have layers.

[lightpeak]

Is It Hopeless - Script

Honestly, I don’t know if this video will ever get made. Motivation is weird like that. I could be dead set to put in the work to make this happen. And then within the time between writing this script and making the video, it could just be gone.

I told a friend of mine the other day that motivation is a flakey bitch. And even through all my years of being pretentiously well worded, I think that’s the best phrase I’ve ever put to writing. Because for every story of heroism, of an underdog overcoming odds, what have you, I’m still just here. Waiting for some grand revelation to befall me.

Is it hopeless? The idea that I could just throw caution to the wind and work day in and day out on making videos like this one. Like, what would be the point of that? What goal am I striving for? What “happiness” am I hoping to unlock?

But I don’t know if that’s the right way to think about it. I mean, nobody else that’s found that contentment thinks like that. Maybe it’d be too pretentious to think that those people don’t think, but that’s where my mind goes.

Thinking seems to be my problem. Thinking about the nature of what I want, and how in the end, it won’t bring me happiness, and thus nothing will. And it might seem so easy to just shut up and work. But that’s not how my brain works. That’s not how I seem to be living right now. Though one could argue this by asking the question: “Is that really living, then?”

And I could round out this video with a sappy, well worded answer that wouldn’t have any tangible affect on how I feel. Just a sure-fire way to make sure viewers leave satisfied. But I don’t think I’m gonna do that. Not in this video, and not ever again. Because I’m me, I’m here, writing this, and feeling how I feel. And that should be the extent of our relationship. I shouldn’t lie to you for your satisfaction. I shouldn’t prophesize an underdog story I won’t live out. I shouldn’t tell you you can expect another video next week, cause you can’t. Because being me is scary and uncomfortable and unpredictable. So I won’t try to predict it.

All I can tell you, that might soothe that pit in your stomach. Is that there is a lot of time available to me, and the majority of you watching this. These feelings don’t last forever. And if I hold true to this channel the way I want to, someday this video will be a distant memory. A mile marker, for a better me, a better channel, and a better you.

Is it hopeless? Only if you expect to fix everything by tomorrow. 

Because hope isn’t some intangible religious mumbo jumbo. It’s not seeing an angel, or feeling a spirit. It is prediction. It is prophesizing. It is fortune telling. Because we all have an image of the future, a tangible idea of the way things could be further down the road. A goal we know we can achieve. We just need to act.

Though you can’t always know you are acting the right way. You can’t always know you’re doing the right thing. You can’t always see the future from exactly where you’re standing. So sometimes, this blindness, it paralyzes you. It stops you in your tracks, and then there isn’t much of a future waiting for you after all. 

Is it hopeless?

Only if you aren’t willing to walk out into the unknown, and do what you can with whatever it is that you find.

[lightpeak]

How My Depression Got Its Name - Script

If you asked me ten years ago what I want to be when I grow up, I’d probably have a pretty concise answer for you. “I wanna be a writer!” My naive eleven year old self would say. And I suppose that answer has always held true. Though, for reasons I’ll explain, the prospect of growing up seemed more life fantasy to me later on. For that reason, my answer isn’t the same anymore. And it all has to do with my depression, and how and why I named it.

They say blood is thicker than water. I suppose that’s why no matter what I did, I couldn’t escape that depression and mental illness runs in my family. But early on, I coulda fooled you. I was a happy kid, as far as I remember. Sure, life wasn’t perfect, but I was fooled into thinking it was. But I don’t think I’m writing this script, or making this video to tell you all the intricacies of why my life sucks, or sucked. I’m doing it to tell you about how in some part, I overcame it.

My mind is not a very fun place to be. This very fact is what drives people to do what they do. We are all master escape artists. Escaping our own thoughts, and escaping the accountability of avoiding ourselves. This is why, I suspect, many people avoid therapy. You’re basically voluntarily spending an hour paying someone to hold up the most vivid mirror there is. Accountability.

But everyone needs some form of therapy. Turns out mine, however, has been writing deeply personal and honestly dark poetry. For the last five years, I’ve been doing just that. It started out as a new way to express myself and my frustrations. Harmless fun. Although at some point it became a siphon for my darkest feelings towards myself and the world at large. Others found it deeply upsetting to read, and even more disturbing, my willingness to share it with the world. I was creating something I thought was beautiful. Turns out I was just giving a platform to a monster.

I should probably backpedal and describe the scene. I’m 16 years old. I’m in the worst time of my life mentally. And I’m giving a platform to my pain. But this pain sounded like hate. I don’t think I could quantify who it was for. Maybe me. Maybe my parents for creating a vessel for pain to inhabit. Maybe the world. But it was hate, and it was above all else, embarrassing.

I couldn’t have my name be associated with these words. Even then, I knew I’d look back and see this darkness, and my name, and cringe. So I created a pseudonym to scapegoat all of it. Nathan. And he continued to write, and still does. And I feel safe from my words.

Although as time went on, and my feelings began to get larger, and more raw, I needed somewhere to offload those too. After all, up until this point, if I’m fighting my depression, I’m fighting me. So Nathan soon became a name for my depression. An alter ego of sorts. Someone to fight. Someone to hate. Someone to beat.

This helps sometimes. And although sometimes isn’t always enough, especially when looking back, or from the outside. It helps anyway. When I’m alone with nothing but my thoughts, I’m really just alone with Nathan. And at that point, it’s just a matter of who will. And don’t we all just wanna beat the shit outta someone named Nathan every once in a while?

In the end, I’m not the same kid I was ten years ago. I’m also not the same lost cause I was five years ago. I’m someone new. Someone carrying a little less of existence’s problems on his shoulders.

If you learn anything from me today, or ever, let it be this:

Don’t give up. If you need to fight to survive, make sure you fight like hell. Pretend you’re fighting some asshole named Nathan. I promise you’ll win.