It's the first week of a new year! And I am not coming to you on Sunday.

Great start, Johnny!

Matter of fact, this won't be up until late on Mondat (PST)—so really, Tuesday.

What can I say, I was tired yesterday. I finished the drive from Ontario to Vancouver late into the eveneing and by the time I unpacked the car, I just wanted to sit down and watch the season finale of His Dark Materials.

I've never given a written review of something before...fuck it, not starting now. It's not great. It feels like there's something there—maybe the source material is great—but the execution is so strange and disjointed. And thus concludes my first written review.

I'm going to be honest: writing feels strange. I think I've cut my output in half over the past two weeks and that's all it took for this to get a little...foreign. There's less flow to it.

When writing goes well, it's fluent—straight from the brain to the page without much commentary. And I think it takes a bit of practice to get to that place. What is that place...one of trust? That might be it. Just...letting what comes, come. It's easy to overthink. Ooh boy it's easy to overthink. It's easy to wonder how much sense this makes. It's easy to question the topic I'm going for. It's easy to search through syllables mid-sentence. But sometimes when you don't...you get something good.

We're getting back into it.

Have I ever mentioned I use "we" when I write? Referring to all the different voices in my head as separate versions of myself, I suppose. It feels more appropriate—like when I'm writing, it's a shared project. Different voices chime in for different parts. Maybe I'm just picturing a writers' room and saying, "that's what it's like in my head," when really there's no form to the process in my head.

Eh, I get to decide what it looks like up there.

So why is that an "I" and not a "we?"

Because the "we" come together to form one outside-facing voice. "I" am the sum of my parts. The narrator that comes through on the page is one, from many.

Sure, that seems fine to me. Agreed? (We agree.)

Anyway!

I made it to Vancouver after a week on the road and ~two weeks stopped-over in Revelstoke.

And I am now overwhelmed. I started to run some errands today aaand I have none of my comfortable routines here. I don't know where to get coffee. I don't know where to get good meats. I don't know where to take Arche. I don't even know how to physically get from one place to another. I don't have my bike, and it's raining too much to skateboard.

There's just...so much to learn. It's by no means the biggest city in the world, but damn am I lost.

Here's a funny thing I thought of today though: I've prepared for this.

By playing video games.

Some video games are really overwhelming. Sometimes it's because there are thirty characters to choose from and you need to learn how all of them work to avoid getting steamrolled by other players. Sometimes it's because every goddamn button on the controller does something different, and pressing two at once does something different, and pressing them in a specific order does something different, meaning you have hundreds of inputs to learn. Sometimes it's because the world itself is big—and you are really, really small.

The best example for my current feeling is the Legend of Zelda, Breath of the Wild. If you've played that game, I think you know the feeling I'm talking about. You don't get much instruction when starting that game. You see where you need to go to eventually save the princess, but you know you're nowhere near ready for that. But you don't even really know what to do to get ready. There's no "levelling up" in this game. There aren't any new powers you need to acquire. When you start, the first goal is to learn how not to get obliterated by everything.

Oh yeah, your character also conveniently has amnesia, and your map is blank. You're plopped into an alien world with a wooden stick for a sword and you just have to explore to survive.

It's overwhelming.

But you don't get anywhere by standing still, so you just start walking.

"Oh, that enemy is twelve times bigger than me?" Walk the other way.

"Oh, this snow-capped mountain saps my health?" Come back with a coat.

"Oh, I can climp?" Climb.

"Oh, those things blow up?" Shoot 'em.

"Ohh, I can stun the big guy like this." Kill 'em.

You quickly learn there aren't many wrong ways to go. Maybe there are things you aren't ready for, but now you know what to look for. Every heart you lose helps paint a picture of the world that was infinitely large back when you started. Eventually, nothing can touch you. Everything you used to run from, you now run towards. And it's not like you actually got bigger or stronger (ok, you gain some health and better weapons) but really, you just figured the game out.

I remember being really stressed when I first played that game. I wanted someone to tell me what to do. I was scared I was going to go the wrong way and either get lost, die, or just waste a lot of time.

Lucky for me, it's just a game; you can always respawn. Plus, it's a beautiful game, so even if you get lost, you get to explore some pretty insane art.

Life isn't a game, but the same shit applies.

Sometimes it'd be nice if it were more linear. Sometimes I just want Super Mario—just keep g0ing right and you'll win eventually.

I mean, I guess you can do that in life: get the easy job, take few chances, vacation at an all inclusive, watch Netflix's most popular, live close to where you grew up...

Sorry—I just made that seem like a bad thing. It's not at all! Hey—Mario is the single most popular franchise of all time.

But you can also explore. You can go full open-world with this life. That's going to be overwhelming and scary. You're going to feel small and ill-equipped. It's going to be stressful. You'll face some decision paralysis with too many options. But as long as you keep moving, you'll figure it out; the scary stuff will become harmless; you'll build your own maps; you'll uncover your mission.

So hey, thanks Nintendo.

PS: I realize how hilarious it is that I moved from one Canadian metropolis to another Canadian metropolis and am talking like I went to South Africa. On the grande scale of how foreign a place can be, this is a two.

But it's all relative. I've never been out of Ontario for longer than fourteen days before. I'm a little sheltered. This is new to me (even though everyone still speaks the same language and there are still Starbucks everywhere). So, while this might not seem like much of a scary jump to you—I'm still freaking out a little!

But I'll get there.

With love,

Johnny