The Existential Rift

Also named TSM Dyrus in my imagination (mirrored perhaps to the SKT Faker one I did a couple of years ago, in spanish), this article or post of blog or whatever is dedicated to him; who will never really know nor read about it. This is a story or a rant or an epilogue of my journey to become a professional league of legends player.

The format is highly experimental, and my english really bad, and i dont really care, so here we go:

i,

i remember.

that one time i was in my childhood home,

and i saw worlds and league of legends was fresh and exciting to me still.

i remember, more that witnessing it myself, explaining an scene to my then girlfriend,

i remember talking about the game, and about that team i hated god knows why,

and about the usually quiet guy i saw crying today in front of a crowd.

i showed her the video, and even she didnt really understood yet what was happening there

she cried too.

and i became instantly fascinated.

i started watching some of his videos, some streams.

and i low key enjoyed it, but nothing too important or like that scene, you where just another player.

and time passed, and life around it evolved.

and some other time after i put on your channel.

i saw you off your team. moved in a retirement home with another guy, a little out of place, a little at home.

kind of streaming, and kind of enjoying the freedom life had brought to you.

but what i really fucked me up,

what i really liked, 

the one single piece of all content i used to consume with compulsion about league i still and will always remember

was kind of an emotional breakdown.

not like the world championship one i talked about at start, this one was quite different.

you where there, just talking.

saying you wanted to learn to sing or at least to learn to use your voice.

(you have been known precisely for not doing that, but i really though you didnt care)

and saying you where amazed by people learning to do those apparently simple things,

like being able to create music,

to speak in front of people,

to actually do things.

and how all that, seemed out of this world for you,

for a guy that for the last years,

all has done is sit and play video games.

those were talents an virtues so mundane compared to the one of playing league of legends, in my eyes

the one i was trying to persue during years

the one for some reason i decided i was going to get, against all odds

with much more intensity i tried anything else in my life

even more than girls, even more than write, 

absolutely more than the fucking physics degree i left halfway through.

and you talked about it like it was nothing compared to those things i had and didnt want.

you see, i was used to getting the things i wanted, 

even when i was not good at them at the beginning

more than being good, being better than all others.

a computer game, it shoulnt be that hard.

after all, i am no other.

i am myself.

you had the magical it, the it that gets you from nothing to be paid to play this computer game.

so valuable

and still

so useless

unless in the perfect stop of space and time for it, 

but isnt this true for most things one man can do?

i think it is.

i quite went the other way you were trying to run from, didn't i? 

it felt like we were crossing.

i had all that you talked about.

confidance, lots of things i was good at, a life.

and i didnt give up all that because of videogames, but we will get to it. the case is that i had it.

in fact being generally good at things was another reason for it all, try if i could be really, really good at something. didnt matter exactly at what.

one more time, time passed and life evolved. i got more and more into the idea of becoming a pro, as i climbed higher and higher. for you everything turned into a new normality, instead of breaking it all like i use to do, you embraced the streaming meme life, the hired editors on youtube, the seventeen games of corki shows, and i stopped watching. none of those things interested me, the dyrus i remember was the dyrus at bottom of the existential drift i was heading myself all-will into. and i wasnt going to stop. maybe i didnt wanted it as the final goal in my life. at that point it wasnt my to succeed or die thing, just another thing i wanted, like a lot of other things i wanted in the past. i knew it was hard, and i knew there was a lot of people into it, and i was only a platinum scrub at the time, but i usually get what i want; or stopping caring midway, and i had a lot of time to either succeed or stop caring ahead.

and a lot of time, quite a lot of elo, and a lot games and efforts after, this season began.

this time, at the beginning of it, i started with a plan.

a last sprint, a last stand, an ultimatum.

if i believed it myself to be the last, i dont really remember.

i gave myself two months, to put my everything into league, and try to reach masters for the first time.

last season peaked diamond one, i though i really had a good chance, i really did. it was the natural progression, the next logical step.

from there, from the finally high elo, i could be able to find a team, or improve even further, or find myself more willing to invest more time and efforts into league, and not seeing it like a sinkhole of the so called by my parents best years of my life. a confirmation that i had what was necessary to become what i wanted. a confirmation i needed because i was hanging on a hair, as i was living in my own with money i have gathered working nighttime as a sailor and my money was running off. i started, once again after a mental reset to prepare myself, studying the game, playing a shitton, day and night, doing training, watching high elo vods, guides, mindfulness,  playing more, playing less, watching replays, over analysing everything, general practice, specific practice, advanced shit, fundamental shit like apm or mouse movement, other games, no other games, fucking the night before, not fucking the night before, playing alone, with a friend, alone again, with a team, alone again.

everything.

and no only this two months, three times two months.

in addition to all the time i spend seriously playing before, almost the three last years of my life. 

and i front smashed to a wall.

like i havent smashed before.

guys,

right now,

i am a jungler.

an euw diamond five hardstuck jungler with more than seven hundred games this season so far.

i even win more autofilled than on my main role.

my smurfs, where i play, not only other roles than my own, but highly offmeta borderline inting shit,

are higher elo right now than my main account.

how did i though at the first place i could do it, and make such a bold move as try to go for it if i am diamond five, you are probably thinking.

wasting, if the term is correct, all this money and time of my life?

but i would make the same decision again with the available information, for my progression seemd clear

in a year from level one to platinum five

in another to diamond four

in another to diamond one

and this one to... where am i stuck again?

its not that im low diamond and not improving. im receding. im retreating.

i wasnt worried about not being a natural at start.

about starting bronze and not climbing if i just mindlessly acumulated games.

because in most games im not spectacular at start, not even average.

in a room with a bunch of people new to a game, the first day i am no one.

its when everybody goes home that i became good, because i keep going.

in three months, out of apparently thin air, im the better one.

but how far can this go? how far can i push it?

maybe this skill, this thing that makes me feel smart sometimes,

this conceptualisation that leads me to a certain understanding of the games,

and to be the best in a room with a bunch of friends,

is inherently flawed,

and means nothing trying to really push the limits,

to became not only the "good enough" i feel often myself comfortable and complacient with, but "really good".

one of the reasons i wanted to really get far in league was to figure it out.

and i think i found out. i was right.

theres something about this game you are either good or not with.

(probably more than one thing, probably a combination of them)

and thinking can't help you break it. or at least it cant help me.

and thats all i have. my mind. for good or for bad.

maybe not trustful regarding pumping out dopamine, but quite reliable at being smart.

but it doesnt help me winning more game, its almost the opposite.

it used to,

it used.

it bring me all the way from nothing to the top zero point zero two percent of the playerbase.

and if you really think about it,

its probably the best i have been at nothing else in my life.

and i have been apparently good at a bunch of stuff. but not really.

and its not enough.

i reached that place with the only help of a couple of silver friends,

and text based online guides i could read while i worked on the sea with my shitty three hours battery phone.

but now, 

the more knowladgeble i become about the game, the worse i become at playing it.

the more effort i put into it, the more the game rejects it as a spoil it never demanded.

or is that maybe sometimes we are not as smart, or as capable or tenacious as we like to think.

and this is just something i tell myself to feel better.

or... 

or maybe soloq is the problem.

a bad seven hundred games streak, everyone has bad streaks.

or the meta, thats right. this meta sucks.

maybe its all the yasuos on my team.

maybe i decided the role that was going to be me in a day of bad moonlight.

you see, i though this whole jungler mystique, strategic mind, was the one to me.

leading the others, and planning ahead. the mastermind behind the board, the one in real control,

with real impact, not behind the security of being the secondary in a duo lane or behind a line of minions.

its curious how i was convinced to play this role by one of the people i now most hate on this earth.

but i became seduced by it, like i became by the one telling me that, and have been ever since.

but it shouldn't matter.

none of this should matter.

you know it doesnt.

i should be able to do anything in any circumstance, climb in any situation, if i was just good enough.

and i should be already. for i really wanted it, and i really tried it.

after all, i am me.

you know?

an attitude like that can bring you far, but also really break you down if you dont.

used to the first, now at the end of all things, at the end of all opportunities i have given myself,

im beyond lost in the rift,

i transcended lostness.

and the worst is, it doesnt matter.

and i cant almost believe it doesnt matter anymore.

the sunk cost is too high for me to even think about.

i have failed.

irrevocable, unconditionally failed in everything i set for me to succeed this last five years of my life

i just surrender.

and i am done trying to become a profesional league of legends player.

it is over.

i am done.

who knows, maybe i will end up doing something related to the game

or to the kind of life hyperconnected and diversified attention i linked to it

maybe ill do a talkshow about it in fucking catalan, make a team with old friends

enlist on the navy or write articles in broken english as far as i know.

but for the moment, thats it.

i have to reconstruct myself,

and once again,

get out of this place.

about the game itself.

theres a lot to say.

in fact, i could talk non-stop for hours about it.

i actually enjoy more doing that than actually playing.

the same happens with finding new ways to win, inventing cheese strats or new builds. i love that shit.

but its actually hard to tell if i actually enjoy those things,

because quite literally i enjoy almost anything more than playing league right now.

and its been like that for a lot of time.

(happens with almost anything i make it become a duty, but you have to understand about me that taking things too seriously is just how i like to take things in general)

but i dont think the game itself its the issue, or the important one.

the game is fine, or as fine a game like this could be.

overall, the game is great. it has something others dont like i already said.

i really got into it. i really did.

and when you get into it, you dont just play, this game can become your life if you let it happen.

but in me, in my particular case, i think involving with the game as i did, regarding of it was worth or a waste of time,

i think it was in good sense, not like an addiction, non like self harming or scaping from something way.

it really helped me stay focused on something, active, sharp.

not only the game itself, but also its cosmos, its heroes and villains.

in some ways this game is more like real life than real life itself.

its harsh, its unrewarding, its cruel. its true. people fucking care.

nothing feels like it. i have never seen anything like it.

bringing to the best and the worst of everyone to the table.

i never even was into online multiplayer games until league.

i liked it.

or i used to.

in some way, as i became better, i also developed an indulgence to the other players. a hatred, sense of superiority towards them.

in some way, inside my mind, i punished them for the lightness, for the casualty, for the things i despite in people.

now i was in this competition, in this ground,

where they got exposed for things they get away from in your every day life.

for their arrogance, their dumbness, their blaming, their indulgence to themselves, their lack of self-criticism, their incompetence.

because i dont think the gaming community is bad, neither in this game or any other, i think all people are deep down like those raging teenagers.

and in real like they just learn to hide it, they put themselves in comfortable positions where they dont get exposed for it.

but here in the rift, even if it takes a while, the dumb, the braindead, the useless eventually fall.

the smart and strong and talented, at the long term, prevail.

and then i see this post in reddit,

about a toplaner and a jungler duoing to challenger with a eighty percent winrate.

and when asked, the toplaner says he just plays jax and pushes and trades all day. twenty four seven.

and i look at myself.

where am i and where are they.

and i am left in the shadow realm.

how is that possible. how can i be stuck in the same elo i was two years ago, when i had no idea about the game (i climbed from gold to diamond playing zilean mid just clearing waves and ulting people in teamfights, nothing else). and now, conscious of everything, with all the knowledge you can get or earn, sharp of mind, motivated, working my ass off, in my main role, timing fucking enemy wards in my mind, im in the same exact place; and this fucking jax onetrick is splipushing his way to challenger for fun and doing an ama on reddit about it.

i just dont get it.

it makes me doubt everything.

not only about league, but about myself, and how my values are worth nothing.

(nor that i had much appreciation for that stuff anyway, but still)

i dont think my rank its unfair.

im just not good enough, i havent been playing good enough to be anywhere else.

i dont deserve better.

but it still baffles me.

i dont try to deny it. this is not a rant trying to explain why im unfairly stucked in one particular elo.

its just me trying to understand why,

and why i havent improved, after all this time and effort.

or maybe i actually improved, but the player base did too, and i didnt improve enough.

or maybe i actually improved a lot, but i cant materialise my improvements into well, playing better.

or at least not in soloq.

but anyway the problem still remains.

because, again, none of those things (the meta, the state of the game, my mental, the exact training methods...)

can be the only explanation for it.

i should be crushing it anyway.

and its not like i havent tried to play "convenient shit just to climb" because my pride gets in my way.

im on for improvement, but free elo is free. (and higher elo means better quality practice)

i did everything im supposed to do, and well beyond that.

it wasnt only playing a lot, accumulating games like that would solve anything.

i was actually trying to improve, making an active effort about it. god knows i was really trying fucking hard.

did i mistake this game as halfway between chess and the basketball i used to love to play as a teenager, but the reality is that the strategic part of this moba its actually just a glorified minigame on top of a fighting-shooter? is the strategic way to look at the game doomed by start, meant to just make good team decisions from a group of already really good players for other more important reasons? relegated to be just a skill learned by someone with a staff position in the organisation? is all the coaching content in the world a really well organised scam? (well, thats probably close to the truth)

am i just failing to found, not the knowledge, but the approach in which i apply it to actually win?

because i tried a lot of them. hoping one would give me the edge.

because im used to being smarter than other people.

or at least at feeling smarter than other people.

say it in any way you find comfortable about me saying it.

the case is i find solutions better or faster than most others,

but i cant find this one.

as much criticism i put into myself (and i put a lot, because my self-stem can usually handle it) i cant find it.

and even if im not that better nor smart than anyone, putting in the effort should make the difference.

not only plain effort, plain accumulation of games, but smart administration of practice and time.

maybe, after all, are my mental state and behavioural problems what affect my cognitive capabilities to the point of unreliability,

and im not anymore the guy i used to be.

but it shouldnt matter, that much, i should be able to go through it.

i have to be able.

i even wrote a couple of articles (never published) about how league was a total game,

a game that allowed you to shine your own capabilities in many forms, adapting them to a way that eventually, in the appropiate shape or form, could make you a really good player. you just have to find it. mechanics, you can make it work, brains, you can make it work, learning, you can make it work, attitude, eventually you can make it work. you just have to find the approach. and my experience on league had corroborated that idea until this moment. but now i feel like, well, like i said, smashing to a solid concrete wall. i am not good enough, and i will never be. and i dont really know why.

i try to take this whole thing as an experience, try to learn something throgh it about

i dont know,

myself, my own limits, or the world, or the futility of human endaviour.

and dont just as having wasted life five years of my life.

but in some way, i think i deserve it.

i think i deserve the total failure.

i think i could use another one.

maybe this one is big enough.

a solid enough wake up call.

even if theres nothing to wake up on.

i learned the hard way its a huge mistake to try to play soloq like you would do in a professional game,

and i learned it waaay too late.

and i still have problems with internalising it.

because it hurts my mind to accept, because its like i have to play, every time i queue up, two parallel games at once. the game i would play if this was a serious professional match, and the game we are stuck in with those animals. making choices i know are bad in one and good in the other, but choices i know i have to do. this is a game of five versus five, and you dont have control over what other people do even if you are in the same team. sometimes you have to do what is better in the situation and not what you know its the right play. i know it. i really know it. but its really daunting to do over and over. because its not every now and then, its all the time, the whole conception on how to play.

did any of you tried to play two different games of at once? read two books at once? watch two movies?

i did. its quite inconvenient to your concentration.

and was i was trying to play was control.

as a style, almost as a trademark.

if you ever had seen me play any kind of strategic game you'll know i am mostly a control player.

sometimes a creative one, but a control player nonetheless.

for example i tried to play nocturne lately, play it being extremely efficient (to the point of paranoid about camp spawns), timing everything, no mistakes allowed to myself, only good plays, very clean, around very clear windows of opportunity, full conscious about every wave, about every lane desired fucking back timing and powerspikes and every player in the game. and it seemed to work, at the start, but eventually just fell apart. an array of people crying or playing too chaotic, or just better botlane winning, and my mental is eventually gone. puf. not obviously tilting or raging nor anything like that, at least not verbally. the thing with control is that really good control includes the drawback of possible unpredictable things happening into a net of (even if its statistically, at the long run) benefiting situations for yourself. but you dont play in the realm of the statistically good. your conscious lives withing the realm of the close victories and defeats. so when things go south i start shattering my control based playstyle into something almost obsessive that has to handle right now and right here every possible negative situation. i start playing sub-optimally, adding mistakes in a process i cant really stop. and all those things i can be conscious off and make me a really good player when i am in full capacity, are as time passes just layers over layers of useless complexity, that maybe are right but that dont help me at finding solutions, at finding about what to actually do or how to play certain situations if i dont have a minute to think about them. and in league you hardly ever have a minute for that. one by one i turn them off, until i could be a robot randomly moving across the rift mumbling things about "lane priority" or "winning conditions" and nobody could tell the difference. not even myself.

you can only stand a certain amount of intellectual activity a day, and eventually, especially in league, if you try to take it to the maximum, and be one hundred percent into every game, especially if you are emotionally involved to the result of the game you either start autopiloting to protect yourself, or you crack. and i am the one who cracks.

then i enter those bad streaks. i think to myself "i cant control the teams i get with, i will improve and climb as long as i remain constantly playing good", which is true, but instead of playing better and better every time along i get more and more experience with a champion or a patch, i get worse and worse. once i understand the champion, or the meta, or the general optimal way to play the game, what i see in front of me is not just "better opportunities" or "edges i can take adventatge of" but from almost the start of the game a clear path to win it, and i just try to follow the trail as i become eventually limited and trapped by it. a perfect series of steps i become seduced by. i make up this giant abstract flowchart of situations, and fight not necessarily to win but to maintain its integrity. but chaos is chaos, and people on my team seem, as they play, to fight against my greater scheme. even when they play good, even when they play at the best of their intentions, their chaotic behaviour makes them emotionally to me another problem to deal with, instead of teammates that also want to win the game. its like they are also my opponents in my mind, their personal identities stones in my path to the granted and secure success. and its exhausting.

sometimes i have trouble going with the flow.

i mean, there are some clear things i can obviously go with the flow in league with, like a laner smashing a lane. thats easy and obvious. as time passed, playing more and more and in higher elos has made me much better at getting along with flow. for example i think i play much better in high diamond than when im smurfing in platinum or gold, not because i get punished more or less, and either because i dont tryhard there (because i always tryhard), but because the flow in high diamond is much more fluid to me, more familiar even if ive only been there for a couple of hundred games, smarter overall. but when i start jumping divisions between diamond and touch even slightly the realm of four and five i implode. it makes me look first and effectively be a diamond five player for entire weeks and straight cuts my personal progression. because i cant rely in something like picking jax and rolfstomping lanes to smash my way back, i ironically who can't easily adapt to it, am who need the flow the most to actually win. so i have to change my playstyle everytime i am in a noticeably lower elo, and as i adapt to that to be able to climb, i forget about the other flow, and about my own, and get used to low elo dynamics, and stop learning the game because i have adapting to do. overall i and become a worse player trying to climb back, one that gets kicked if i somehow accomplishes it, or just stops learning if just stays.

in an attempt to try regain my own way to do things that-i-know-its-the-right-because-thats-how-you-play-in-higher-elo slowly through the games i become even more strict with my style, more selective to the plays i go for, because i desperately try to keep control.

i try to be consistent but the rift doesnt look like the right place to do that, and that leads to emotional playing. we will lose if we have to but i will remain the king. that wicked consistency leads to me not being adaptable, not taking good risks, and it ends up being just bad, and worse, and worse, and learning bad patterns from plays that shouldnt be good or refusing to do certain things because once turned out to be really bad (even if its because the enemy autofilled jungler had the most ridiculous path ever and caught me off-guard). those things accumulate and every game im playing not only against my opponent, but against all the possible bad moves they could do, against the ghosts of all bad situations of the past. no, i cant do my own krugs there because im low and amumu could be level two waiting for me. i cant gank because once i made that gank and a level two rengar was waiting for it in the bush. it loads and loads, and eventually i feel tied to, although sometimes optimal, safe and often inconsequential plays that never directly lose, but either lead me to actually win the game.

hitting play again more and more times, and eventually the lack of sugar in my blood starts to make effect, and the only thing i can do is continue playing. because i know that if i stop now, i may never will be able to hit that button again tomorrow. i can lose more than three hundred lp in one of those nights and days, and takes me weeks to recover. like, every time i break with a girl you can see in my history a couple of divisions drop. or five. more like five. i can be surprisingly more of a emotional-based-performance guy than most people give me credit for.

i know the right play but i just dont do it.

i even say it aloud to my teammates on teamspeak.

and then i just dont do it.

i fail for the play i was warning them about a second ago. and the emotional and mental state of my team is something i cant control, not that i should be controlling, and when something fails, at any level, it shatters not my focus, not my concentration, (because i dont allow them to) but my mental finesse, that optimal frame of mind i need to make really good decisions.

and without that, im really just a regular normal diamond five player.

without that, im just another guy.

so i though, "lets play in an organized team", where i can shotcall and have everything controlled.

but those have their own pack of problems.

the worse to me being the inconsistency of the player base.

it wasnt difficult to gather twelve people four times of the week to a certain point of the town to play a sport during a year, i just dont get why its so difficult to do the same to play this game each one in his own home for more than a couple of weeks.

the organizations suck, the coaches suck, and we the players suck.

after being almost a month in an organization looking for "long term success" and after surviving a couple of times almost the whole team run from there and stayed loyal, i was kicked out because i played bad in a couple of scrims the day i ended a more-than-a-year relationship with a girl, and also because i liked to argue about league with the new stupid and meganomaliac (dangerous combination) coach.

i swear, almost every coach i ever met in this tiny world is either stupid, irrelevant, a tryrant, doesnt know shit about the game, or a combination of those.

maybe with the time, and the right people, i could make a team play like i want to play, and i will be alright and in a position to really improve on the many things i need to improve. or even maybe not so perfect or high level but with a couple of competitive friends, that would be enough. but the inconsistency of these "made up of thin air" teams eats me alive. i would train eight, ten hours a day, no problem, every day, if i was having the sensation of really making some minimal progress. but theres no non-professional team that does that, and to get a chance with the professional ones, you have to be really high in soloq, what defeats the whole idea of "being in a team so i dont have to be playing soloq". so i get in a mediocre one, they either run out, or i run out, or we become friends and nobody improves or really takes it seriously anymore, and either thing i start to play soloq again until the next breakdown.

and its a shame that i cant really get along with teams or find the right one, because i think im far better as a shotcaller, or team-member, or player-coach, than as a player-player itself. i still think i could be useful even as a player in a really high level team, the problem is getting inside.

obviously the state of the game itself affects the whole thing. i dont deny it.

the community can say whatever they want about a player not being able to carry himself. but i dont think thats true, and it it were i dont think thats problematic as i think about the game. i think the playerbase is just a disguised crowd of hashinshins, just fighting-game players trapped for some reason into league. because nowadays i feel like none of my knowledge of lanes matters anymore because, at least in soloq, looks like everything is a skill matchup and fucking irelia and yasuos. i feel the game would be so better if i could remove, no question asked, like ten champions from the game. i feel like any lane can lose at any time, or that it doesnt matter if i influence them early because eventually the best player will find a way back (if not directly the best player just doesnt let me influence their lane, which by the way, its literaly like half of their job), or that every champion can be an explosion of damage or utility at any time and therefore a win condition i cant really play around. that lanes that should be gankable arent because of players choosing to play a certain way i cant possibly predict, or lanes that shouldnt be (because everyone and their mother has a dash or whatever now, looking at you camille) suddenly are because they are madly overextend or get baited, and im at fault for not being there to, and i quote, "countergank". it makes me really difficult to really plan what will happen, and the returns from that daunting and time consuming task are really really small, a gamble i could only notice statistically, like if i was playing poker or hearthstone. i seem to have almost the same success just ganking at random lanes i happen to be around by than if i condictionate all my early route to be able to be there in an unexpected timing; and i dont think it should be that way. it feels unrewarding, i feel not in control, i feel like i depend on others playing bad much more than others or myself playing good. like if everything is a flipcoin. and im not good at flipping coins, and even if i was, i dont want to flip coins, i didnt came league to flip coins.

toplaners pick carries, making the matchups super snowbally, midlaners fight to death with no vision all day, randomly throwing, losing, not using, lane priority like if thats not important to the jungler. botlaners do the same and cry for ganks when pushed, when its incredibly dangerous to gank a position like that especially if they are being out traded and cant respond due to low hp or have no kill pottential. supports have forgotten how to ward because they swim in gold, experience, damage or utility and have therefore better things to do. deep wards, baron baits or teleport engages are a mystery to them, which leads to much more fifty fifty situations i get either praised or blamed for, but i dont get nearly the same enjoyment for one that loath for the other. because its beyond my control, even if goes well. if i invest my time in shutting down the other jungler i playing perfect control over him, i have no impact over the rest of the game, and somehow the enmy underleveled yi jungle can gank my laners even if he has no red, no flash, and they are playing ezreal. toplaners are sometimes different regarding impact, i feel i have a say there. unlucky that affecting toplane is essentially a waste of time and me ganking there means the inminent death of my botlane, making it borderline inting and enssuring two reports at the endgame screen (sidelaners have no object permanence memory, like if i go to gank top and their jungler doesnt appear, that does not mean he is somewhere else in the map). so i have to impact lanes other than top, but i feel like even if i get midlane or botlane ahead, on the long run, if i sacrifice farm or any resources for myself, and therefore agency, to be able to do that, the better player on those positions will prevail anyway. the worse will eventually die doing something really stupid, throw their lead, not positioning, surrendering sidelane farm to a tower forver after laning phase, not dpsing in teamfights, picking the wrong ones; and the better one will not do any of that so, even if eventually behind, will come back.

i feel like i have this one same game over and over.

i ping the cooldown of my ultimate, twenty seconds to come back, so i will go do a camp and then gank mid. but mid isnt having any of that, sees an opportunity, goes in, gets jebaited and dies, i get blamed, i mute all. i go to cover mid tower and to catch the double wave of exp. mid uses teleport to deny me the last two casters. meanwhile i was covering mid and enemy jungler were going down the river, spotted by a ward. they four man the botlane, someone types better jungler wins. they take the double, the tower, the dragon, they swap, our toplaner dies, types omg three people top like he couldnt see that coming, we lose another tower, the herald, they reset and use it mid. we try to surrender / open for five to ten minutes, until someone get caugh in a sidelane or our jungle, they baron, they push, they end, and i get reported.

thats the game. thats league on its worst. like a movie on repeat.

i mute all at start and still, i can hear what they are saying by how they move. by how they behave.

maybe all of this would be all good at the end, if i was part of the chaos, if i trully enjoyed the game.

that would just be a bad game, just details, nothing to worry about.

but i dont anymore.

i dont enjoy it.

maybe, after all, theres nothing wrong with it or with myself, maybe league its just not the right game for me.

it felt like it was.

or i think it did.

a canvas for my genius.

the battlefield i chose for it.

i used to think that the only thing i needed to do whatever was a real reason for it

a reason, a motivation, anything, something, desperately something.

and i created my own dramatic reasons to reach my goals, and i was convinced they were real. they are, i made them be. enjoying the actual thing was in theory just secondary to my ambitions.

because, to be fair, the only times it really felt like i was enjoying the game, when i though this was really going to be my thing, was when i could be and talk, physically, to the people i was playing with in a lan party. that was the time i really felt like that was my thing. no playing casually with friends, not climbing soloq. being there, in the field, facing my opponents, jumping to the screen to my right just after a scrim to point something. some of them were my friends, and we wanted to win. that was something. that was something different. something i could be a part of. but i cant replicate that drive with random teams, nor find people that both share my enthusiasm when i have it and contaminate theirs when i dont. i need people around me, smart people that i dont hate to really function during large periods of time, or at least people to lead i feel sympathetic for, or share a drive or fucking energy with. but its really, really hard to find all those things. especially in league. especially the "people i dont hate" part.

and i still watch sometimes some pro jungler or streamer. most of them i just cant survive more than a couple of minutes. they pick some shit, go into the opposite jungle, or make a play with highly incomplete information or say "oh, theres an enemy!" and just jump to them. no second thoughts. and im not talking about the kind of situations or matchups you clearly have to play aggresive, like if i am xin zhao and i see amumu for sure i am too jumping it. im talking they do it randomly. they dont even check lane prio, they just go in. they go camp to camp not thinking unless its in a pro game, like that imqutpie playing lee sin just wanking around with lost dead eyes laughing at the camera. no win conditions, no timing summoners, no pathing, no tracking, no pink ward, nothing at all. thats how im supposed to play? do i have to have chaos into me and just like, propagate it? isnt this the role about thinking and strategy? even if i master that, thats really what i want to do, the game i signed up for? because little that style will help me if i really make it to the top of the top. i should have to play my strengths, right?

i cant even handle watching most streams or recreational videos because i see those things, and the indulgence they react to those deaths with "oh, i died there" and i fucking can't. if that was me, i would be thinking to myself: what the fuck am i doing, am i inting? what the fuck is wrong with me!

ultimately theres always some point in the game i have no real power. and i despise that. i played a perfect game of sejuani, but its now mid to late minutes and my carries straight up refuse to do dmg in teamfights. i play graves and i can do dmg in teamfights but i cant control laning, or people splitting, or whatever. theres always a hole in my plan where i have no influence, or not control, and rather than trying to exploit the moments i have to pacify my style more and more to just cover the weakness. i try to cover my influence in playing safer and safer and more risk adverting and therefore exploiting less and less my direct impact on the game, losing more and more oportunity costs.

one time i played a perfect game on ivern. not a good game, a perfect one. zero skillshots missed, near hundred percent kill participation, ganks, counterganks, counterjungling, two infernals. six and zero and twelve entering the midgame. and i lost that game. and the single lose means nothing in the scale of the climb, or in the scale or improving from high diamond to challenger level. but losing that precise single game hurts the way i play in the future. it just feels wrong. i know i am not being, but i feel punished for trying to play perfectly instead of just playing to whatever happens. because even if i played perfect up to that point, in the future i will try to adapt for a game like that never happening again. and i either stop playing ivern altogether or i start going for stupid uncertain plays im not good at dealing with.

a lot of the pressure or impact in the game does not come from thin air. its a balance between risk and reward, like a portfolio. the guy pushing is not "winning his lane", creating pressure or a lead from nowhere, he is taking a risk (calculated or not) in balance with certain potential gains. i, instinctively, try to avoid risks, maybe because im too afraid to lose games, maybe because who i am as a player, and therefore that lowers my impact. and that also lowers the amount of dangerous situations i put myself into, slowing my learning curve. it took me a couple of years to realize that, and when i did i worked on that the best i could. i lost my fear to die, i played a lot to put me in limit breaking situations so im able to make risky plays. it doesnt come naturally to me, but i learned it, again and again. i have to though myself those things over and over, and its exhausting.

the whole "league as a total game" idea is fine, but actually being the best of the best at something...

even if you can patch up certain things you are not good at, that constant effort you have to put into it

is effort you cant direct to something else.

finding a game that just fits with the exact things you are naturally good at is like a lottery

and sure you can adjust a little, but everything is, at the end, another display of (this time genetic) rng.

even chess, that can be seen as from the outside as the perfect place for a pure display of intelect,

and although you can become really good by learning it and being smart,

maybe as good as the top zero point zero two top percent i was in league at one point.

needs a particular set of qualities like an outstanding memory to really really reach the top or the top.

and thats something you can improve at, sure,

and lots of people will want to to buy their books about it, but you cant learn to have a photografic memory, or an absolute pitch.

but if you dont have it,

you will see yourself against the equivalent of people capable of winning not two but twenty blindfolded games of chess at once when you have trouble remembering a phone number.

even if the quality doesnt give you a life of success or the whole capacity of doing soemthing so complex as chess for free,

i think you can agree with me its an outstanding ground start.

because even enjoying grinding something like league years after years is a highly valuable skill.

because even hard work, often seen as a pure display of force of will, deep reasons, or motivation;

the capacity to endure or withstand (or enjoy, like workaholic players do)

insane amounts of preparation and practice without diminishing returns in mental or physic performance

can be seen itself as a talent.

a capacity that can be sometimes covered with conviction or will, but not for a undetermined amount time,

maybe not a perfect one, although maybe a huge inconvience for the talented to display in all its might,

but a talent nontheless.

and because enjoying or not enjoying is basically how the reward system of the brain works, and thats exactly the mechanism we humans use to subconsciously learn things; maybe the "this is just a job" approach to league of legends playing is ultimately destined to fail from start if you arent deeply passionate about the game, enjoy your victories and loath your defeats. and maybe even if you can convice yourself to put in the hours to pursue of some future career or e-girl pussy, you are wasting your time because you wont be able to truly learn the same way other players do.

because i try to think rationally about risk and reward, and i feel like natural players balance those things by instinct, by grinding, by playing, by enjoying when things go well, and feeling bad then things go bad. not knowing why they are or they arent actually good at the game. and it fucking works in some of them, in the blessed ones. who can later learn about the strategic part of the game by other people if they want to. and i feel like even if i totally understand the game, that doesnt mean i can really play it. i feel like my effort to counsciously think about the game gets into the way of that subconscious process of instinctive learning. what i though was my biggest advantage, feels now like a handicap i have to carry around.

but this whole thing is maybe only a rationalisation.

again, i am playing bad. and i need to understand why.

some of those things i was already aware. the whole risk adversity thing, the whole fear to die thing (you cure that by playing singed by the way) the whole "i need to make good reactive decisions fast enough to unexpected situations" thing. some of those things i already worked out, some barriers in my mind i though i had already solved. for example i started playing a lot of camille jungle, not because the pick was strong or i enjoyed it, but because it made me come up with fast reactions and a more aggresive playstyle, and more calculated engages (because if you dont you get blown up). i did that for weeks, and i succeeded, for a time. but eventually a lot of the things i learned fade away as i lowed my guard to try focus on other things and stopped playing the champion.

and i should be able to climb against those low diamond monkeys by just not doing stupid mistakes, punishing obvious mistakes, and playing around my own obvious powerspikes and window opportunities. getting nunu and derping my way back to high elo with zero mechanics involved and just good ol' plain good decision making. but, somehow, im not able to. maybe if i could regain my confidance, put myself in shape, get again in my best form, after a ton of grinding, willpower, cofee and soul i could be able to get back to diamond two or one. but if after all this time, thats all i can do, its time to stop.

maybe the game is not what i though it to be. maybe league does not reward knowing or learning shit at all, those things just make yourself feel more comfortable and thats why it sells and has a minimum but limited effect. in fact, its usually the contrary. i feel like the game punishes me for it, because i have to be thinking, be tracking more things just to be at the same level that other players. i can try to automate myself to dont wast much mindwidth, but even if i put the effort to also do that, i feel unrewarded for it, worse than playing as who the hell cares if ekko has flash.

maybe no number of skillcapped videos can make you into something you are not.

i can teach others to play.

i can teach others to teach others to play.

i can spot non-obvious mistakes in world tier teams that the commentators dont mention.

but sure as hell i cant teach myself to play better anymore.

maybe im just being complacent with myself. try to soften it. maybe i dont really want to put the effort. i think thats true, i dont want.

maybe jungle is not the control role.

maybe i should try to play like dopa, like the almost hypnotic vods of dopa i sleep everyday through.

i find myself half-conscious watching them, like you would watch stoned a lava lamp in the dark.

i dont know.

i really

really

really

dont know at all.

the non improvement, especially when i have the feeling that i have been learning massively through all this unprecedented effort, wasted more than three years of my life, and all the excuses for it, make me doubt myself and everything i am or stand for. and it just breaks my hearth. it really does.

i noticed something, dyrus. 

sometimes lack of information is information itself.

two months into the season, i noticed you weren't streaming league.

i didn't even watched you anymore, and im almost sorry for that, but i dont follow many people on twitch, and i was used to see you at the sidebar while looking and consuming during hours, with desperation, any piece of information that would help me improve, somehow, at this game.

so i eventually noticed you wheren't there.

the one day i saw you again, i automatically entered, eondering what happened, and til then, i enter once in a while.

i often hear the same phrase, between all the stuff you say now (compared to before)

"when you have played as long as i have played league..."

followed by whatever.

and i can see it.

you are fucking done with league of legends, again.

you are again the dyrus i remember.

video editors cant hide it to my eyes.

and now, at the other side of the breach.

i am too, my friend.

we are not crossing paths this time.

strange directionless ways land this world.

although, even if not opposite now.

our situations are quite different. 

abysmaly different.

four, three, eight years into it, the number doesnt matter, once you are past it its just a number.

you have done something with it, the league of legends part of your life. you have made a name or even just money to do your own. you have succeed, and now you are done. and you can allow yourself to be. you could retire to a small town at the side of the fucking mediterranean and do nothing for the rest of your life. even if thats not what you want, even if i dont want that either, even if thats not the answer to literally anything, you can.

but what the hell do i do?

do i have to, at this stage, keep going another five or more years to succeed and be able to retire?

and i can continue playing, i can still put effort into it, its not like i literally cant play one more game.

motivations and keep going messages are good.

but i have to stop somewhere, i have given myself enough last opportunities.

if i dont, the sunk cost just keeps growing and growing.

i dont enjoy league anymore. 

i dont get even close of the same satisfaction for a win that sadness for a loss. 

winning a game is what i should be doing, its the expected. part of the plan on what should be happening.

losing is a crushing defeat.

in my head, the game is won almost by start. we have our shit, they have their shit, we play our things smartly, we win the fucking game. but eventually, something happens i have no control over, it ruins my mental, and everything goes to shit. "if we only not overextend there", "if we only just reset here", "if we only dont contest this". i put effort, i put time, i put focus, i put everything and myself on the line. spent my money in a quiet place to be able play all the time and with all the quietness and internet i needed. i have thrown myself in a pit because i though either the availability and the calmness at first, or the pressure, the sheer need, the survival instinct of the last times, would lead me to the only thing that could save me from hell; having success.

but it hasn't.

and im still here.

theres no excuse, i was trying with everything i got

i think i was, i mean, it has to be, for elimination.

because if i dont enjoy playing, and i was playing anyway,

it must be because i was pursuing something, right?

for elimination, its either one or the other, right?

non enjoying it makes it almost noble.

an herculean display of force of will?

but was it really?

well, maybe.

i think it was. at times. certanly not all times, but quite a lot of them.

maybe i should feel bad for all the moments i wasnt actually trying my absolute best.

but its masochism at this point.

and not the only thing happening here.

you see, conformity often plots against me. and sometimes wins.

it has been two days since i stopped actually playing and watching league.

im kind of back into the real world. i have time to spare, things i remember i used to do.

conversations adjourned i have to restart, talents to explore. plans to be planned.

but, i remember.

i already had that.

and i didnt liked it.

i didnt want it.

i dont want it.

life was... inconclusive.

boring.

so damn boring.

sure i can make things like, art. 

but the inherent ethereal nature of it eats me apart.

with writing its neither a win or a lose, and it never ends.

its a grey area in a mind that cant no longer stand grey areas.

in league, its different.

have i succeeded, have i not.

am i dead, am i alive.

is my kda acceptable, was that engage ok, did we got baron, do i have an exp lead.

yes, or no.

do you see the difference?

i can also just go and find a work, pay a few bills, get tired at home at the end of the day.

thats usually the price the people in our society wants us to pay to be able to be part of it.

and its fair.

but whats the point to put effort into things when you dont get so see the payback from them?

at least here i can sleep all i want. wait for the next lck split.

be alone, on my own. not depend much on anyone.

remember, i didnt really quit a life to go and play league of legends. i had a life, and i quit. then, after that, i found league, which turned out an ok substitute for it. i though i could chose to make a living off it, just because i was me. because i would be able to choose what matters and what not, make it real as long as i was able to frame it correctly inside my mind and put a plate on the table. everything would be fine if i was able to do that, if i didnt had a time horizon limit in which i have to leave this bedroom because my money is running of. even with all the problems it has, i could make that work. but i cant have it, it wasnt a choice for me to make. i made the transformation that naturally good players do to become great players, the leap to become better. but i wasnt good to start with, so when i though myself how to be good, i had no tricks left. i cant even boost, and for sure i cant make content.

but quitting league havent bring me anything back,

only remembering why i left in the first place.

maybe i dont enjoy league, but its better than the void,

and maybe i should just go on with it. and on. and on.

i may not enjoy playing league in the same sense i enjoy a pack of malboro and a chapter of horsing around, but i can get into it. i can go the day through it. lose myself into a kind of concentration that can make me forget to eat. i could even hide into this game if you want it to, but to me its not about hiding from my life, this is my life, i use other things to hide from league and not feel guilty for not being playing it when i should. drive all my being into something so deep i forget about anything else. and its not about forgetting, its the competition, the total concentration i used to get doing things like reading books or listening to music that now i cant get off anything else than league. because everything else has turned so... disperse, so inconsistent, so insubstantial. for an hour, or two, or twelve, the only thing that matters is that nidalee stealing your camps. i wake up in the middle of the afternoon, its a thursday and i have nothing to do; and although i dont enjoy playing, and i dont want to start, i know that if i start with just one game and then force myself to keep going for a bit, i will pass the day with no major uncertainty or boredom until im tired enough to crash again in my bed and call it a day.

and maybe thats good enough for me.

(except for the money, of course)

this game fails at providing you a balanced sense of pride and accomplishment according to either your effort or your success, and it kind of fails as a hobby for that reason, specially compared to a lot of other things you could be doing with your time that require the same amount of effort. you cant really tell other people about your league accomplishment because they can't understand unless also deep into the game or involves money. you are not constructing anything with your bare hands that you can admire, either during the process of it growing, nor the end result. if you learn to play the piano, you can eventually play a beautiful symphony that anyone with ears can appreciate even if they are not experts of music. but with league, the only thing you can do is play league, and even in the inside world nobody really appreciates that. nobody appreciates gold players, even if the equivalent (the how good you are compared to other people of your surroundings is) to that into any other activity you could do in your ordinary life would mark you as really good. you would be one of the best players in your local football team, or quite remarkable member of whatever community activity you get into, or people would label you as an artist in social meetings. and even if you dont "search for" recognition, those are important things that let you realise how far you come, or how much you are improving. but here, you see nothing. only that cursed league points number that you shouldnt be looking at anyway. here, you are nothing. 

when i lose, lets say, a football game. the first thing i hate is that i cant play another time right after and emend my mistakes. the sense of impotence is what tears me apart. and thats good. thats something i have to channel into becoming better and living to fight another day. but in league theres always another game. and another. and another. and another. every failure comes with the promise of another endless steam of new games and therefore, new opportunities to prove how good can i play, or to redeem myself, and that could be good. players improve a lot. but its also dangerous. people self-sabotage (more than you can imagine), people have space to anger freely, to tilt and delude themselves and others.

and i do that. fuelled more and by by every loss. until i eventually cant hit play anymore.

ranked anxiety, normal anxiety, smurf anxiety, aram anxiety, just like sometimes i can't write a single word.

for entire months i cant play a single game, just thinking about it makes me lose blood pressure.

and i dont know why is that.

maybe is a byproduct to what i do when i play again and again through failure and success, same as you dont create pressure in the map from thin air, sometimes no will power comes at no risk or no price. i accumulate distress, try to be too strong, and eventually my emotional investment towards the game goes boom, blockades all sources of possible anxiety, and i need a while to reset. 

sometimes i take giant breaks from league and pretend to myself im doing something meaningful like write a book or hire hookers in la habana, but in fact im just waiting to come back to league. i wait i wait and eventually naturally or forcefully some revelation or epiphany arrives that lets me come back stronger and with more drive. and sometimes i believe it. and sometimes it works. for a while.

some other times i dont fully get away from league, and i just pretend i am doing work watching a shitton of lcs, lpl, lck, repeated old worlds games, content videos, podcast or talkshows, reddit, and everything i can get my hands into, and i dont think that helps at all at becoming a better player, but the flow keeps me going, pumping blood to my in-constant-need-for-stimulation brain that an introverted social life can never fill. and i like that. the game itself interests me more than actually playing, so maybe thats what i should do. or maybe its just the security of being at the other side of the bench what i enjoy, a refined to the point of apparent form of intellectualism what in reality is cowardy and fear of failure.

but theres nothing to fear now, right?

i have already failed.

now i could just play whenever or watch whatever and enjoy it,

and try to pursue something else without renouncing at league.

and i know i failed, but i dont know if i can really know it.

i dont know if i have internalised that i have to find something else to do,

i dont really feel defeated, nor relieved, nor im freaking out. and i should.

i feel exactly the same, just with nothing to do with my time.

because its not only league, its the whole conception,

that i am able to create a functioning reality for myself.

in which something that is just a game stops to be just a game to be whatever i want.

to be something i can do to live.

something whos success or not success i tie to my emotional state of mind,

not because i "just take it too seriously",

but because thats something i choose to do.

a way to live my life by my own rules, far from the usual conceptions of society of what a life must be.

(even it its just to reject living like that).

maybe im not ready to surrender that yet.

or maybe its that i just dont want to. 

maybe its just not acceptable to me to renounce to that. 

maybe im not willing to it after all, maybe ill rather live in the fucking forest or homeless with a guitar.

maybe i still have to abandon the idea (after all this time still) that i have to be or do something.

and then i'll be free.

but even then ill still have to eat something.

and im getting out of ideas on what else to surrender.

in some ways, ironically or maybe not that ironically;

this futuristic, reclusive and surrounded of technology lifestyle,

reminds me of the one i had when i was in a daunting full time job,

the only life i had that seemed acceptable by the common folk,

much more than it resembles the early days of my unapproved college times.

just go and work hard and not exist and go on another day.

good day, bad day, who really cares, just come back tomorrow and press play again.

and everything will be alright.

the obvious and painful exception that this is one job im not getting paid for.

but i want to be able to sleep when i want.

and i dont reject the idea of paying an effort.

but the whole masquerade is too much for me.

and i cant stay without three screens constantly pumping lights into my veins.

or i can, i just dont want.

life is right now what you do to make time for the internet to regenerate itself

with new brand pieces of memes and information to consume at your arrive.

and all this,

is just another chapter of my spiritual search for constant and instant low-effort gratification.

i have nothing to do.

things that vaguely interest me, sure.

but nothing worth pursue.

its boring.

so boring.

its slow.

and even worse than being slow, it is not fast.

i wander through the internet looking for something to hold my attention

or entertains me for another half an hour.

there is nothing to do.

its boring.

its like before.