Random thoughts from James

Horror Games

I never played any horror games until recently. But as part of my self improvement journey I've realized that a lot of my anxiety in life came from an inability to face up to my fears. Horror games provide an environment where you are required to experience extreme fear and keep pushing forward anyway. And I think by playing them not am I only training myself to face up to fear when it comes, but I am also seeing that after facing fears 1) you make forward progress, you are rewarded 2) the thing you were scared of perhaps wasn't so bad as you made out in your head.

I think fear has preventing me from living out my true desires throughout my life - it's prevented me from starting conversations with people, making new friendships, progressing at work as much as I could have. Fear is a big part of the reason I've never been in a relationship and have only approached two girls in my entire life.

Don't get me wrong - I still have a fairly fulfilling life with many friends, I just think that I've definitely "played it safe" for the majority of my life and now the gap between what I have and what I want is becoming painfully clear to me, and the only thing in the middle of that gap is fear.

Obviously the only way I'm going to improve my life is going out there and making changes in real life, which I have been doing. But horror games are a good mental exercise in exploring and reprogramming my feelings and responses to fear. And I think playing them, and pushing through fear, has been helping.

Notes for an article reviewing Soma - ignore