I ain't slept in 8 days,
I could go for 8 weeks,
Ain't nothing to me,
Cause I am the streets.
All I want is my paper, I don't care what they say.
Well, now that we have that out of the way, I'm here to drop some analytic truth bombs on you all, straight from the hood. While working on my thesis, listening to my hood-hop, and taking intermittent breaks to play through some JRPGs I realized something: I'm literally doing the same thing regardless of what activity I'm involved in.
It has been about a week straight now of alternating between doing reading and analysis on sources for my thesis, playing a combination of Persona 4 Golden, Final Fantasy XIII, Destiny, Monster Hunter Tri, and Sword Art Online, and listening to some straight up hood mixes, but it was not until last night that I realized I was never truly taking a break from any of these activities, because they all shared so much in common.
Here go another motherfucker who don't understand the concept of puttin in work, boy.
I'm out here grinding, fools. I won't explain any more about what my thesis is about, because I'm sure you're all tired about hearing about it for now. The process I'm currently working through involves reading through my hundreds of sources and picking out their theses and core arguments, providing a succinct analytic summary, and fitting it within the parameters of my paper. Rinse, Repeat. Literally after only 2-3 hours of this I can start feeling my eyes drying out. Alright, time to take a break and play some video games.
We all know I've been going through P4G lately, but for some reason I decided lately to start playing Final Fantasy XIII again. My last save had about 22 hours in it, so I figured “Hey, that's about halfway. Let's push through and beat this game.” Why out of the hundreds of games at my disposal did I gravitate towards this game? Hell, I have 10 other Final Fantasy games I could have chosen from. The only logical conclusion I came to was because it was a slow and simple grind, and something I could do repetitively to make progress in the overall narrative. Alright, well if it's that simple while I'm grinding, I should probably drop some beats while I play.
I get high with my baby, I be in the kitchen cookin pies with my baby!
It wasn't until my Hip-Hip playlist on Youtube came around to DJ Khaled I'm Out Here Grinding that the revelation finally hit me. Holy shit Matt, you may as well be slinging dope on the street corner. I mean, I am a pretty huge fan of hip-hop, especially newer gangster rap, but this past week I've really been on a huge kick. And all the tracks have the same general theme: grinding in the hood, making mad stacks on stacks, popping bands at the club, and chillin with your harem at the Trap House. It was like the music was narrating my life. I mean...I was only making stacks and chilling with harems virtually, but at least it's something.
Hmm...Harems eh? I should probably purchase Sword Art Online: Hollow Fragment if I'm thinking about harems. Why not work on Asuna & Sinon, and Chie & Marie at the same time? Oh you devious hoodrat you, what if Ashleigh finds out? Well, luckily my fiancee doesn't know about the harem-nature of these games, otherwise she may not be hugely impressed. So I'm building my harem on the DL, what's more gangster than that?
God damn I got bitches, damn I got bitches, damn I got bitches: wifey, girlfriend, and mistress!
Well fuck. I'm in pretty deep now. Sword Art Online is a lot of fun for a fan of the show, but is a pretty tedious grind, which can be best described as a single-player MMO, including all of the annoyances associated with your typical MMOs. This is entertaining, but frustrating, and I'm making less credit than on the corner. Fuck again. Alright, my homies been hittin up my digits, should probably hit em back and drop in on Venus with my Warlock and actually make some progress in a game.....
Oh, right. This is Destiny you're playing now, maybe you should consider the offline MMO again. Did you think you were going to be able to level up today? Ahahahaha, yeah right. Grind out some Strikes and Crucible for marks and just maybe you can upgrade your helmet once today. Ok, no I'm just getting annoyed. Back to the hip-hop...it calms my nerves down, reminds me of the good times...
Hannah Montana, Hannah Montana! I've got Miley, I've got white, I be twerking, twerking, twerking, twerking, all damn night!
Orrrrrrr not. So, that has pretty much been my life for the past week, and I fully expect it to remain this way for the coming month as I set my thesis up to actually start writing it, and try painstakingly to finish at least 2 of these games. Not counting Destiny...much like the grind of life, it will never end until I die. At least on the corner, I'd maybe get shot and NOT respawn.
So I should probably get back to my thesis now, because its the one thing out of all of these that I actually HAVE to grind through. At least at the end of this grind, there is a nice piece of paper in it for me. Hmph. I'd much rather that Exotic Weapon everyone's been talking about...
Game Grindy. Grind Gamey.
TSG