Joy Hunt - R.A. Young - July 23, 2024
Seven months of working to see if ADHD medication would help me didn’t work out. This last month of ADHD meds has been especially trying, disrupting parts of my life that I very much didn’t want to disrupt. Now that I’m winding down my dosage, and reflecting on how my ADHD medication has impacted me, I want to focus on a positive transition back to (a relative) normalcy. I want to take back my joy.
My time on increasing dosages of Adderall XR wasn’t joyless, to be clear. But it’s one thing to seek out things that give one joy as opposed to simply finding joy in things as they are. I want to prioritize and choose where I find my joy, I want to hunt it out and claim it. This past month I’ve felt so passive and disconnected. I want to spend this next month reconnecting with the things I’d put aside for this ADHD experiment.
I want to read more, go to sleep early, take naps, pick out and complete games quickly, exercise in the afternoon, watch movies and TV shows I’ve missed, and overall be productive in pursuing joy. I’ve already started, too! It hasn’t been a smooth start. Cutting my ADHD med dosage in half has been rough. But it’s worth the effort to get back to a good place.
Enho’s Return
I mentioned in the last newsletter that the July basho had started for sumo wrestling in Japan. I’ve been watching it day to day, and have been absolutely loving it. In each 15-day basho there are hundreds upon hundreds of rikishi battling to be promoted by earning a winning overall record. It’s not exactly a Swiss-system bracket, but it’s similar. Every match has stakes, and every wrestler has a unique journey leading to where they are. Learning who the best are, who is struggling, who is a rising star, and who has something to prove, is compelling in a way unique to sumo.
The returns of two of my favorite rikishi have made my return to sumo particularly exciting. Enho and Kawazoe are both small wrestlers who heavily depend on a mixture of technical ability and athletic talent. They are clever and quick in combination. They frequently win not through brute strength or dominance through height and weight, but rather through throws, trips, or tactical positioning. Both have been out with long injury recoveries and thus have fallen into the lowest of sumo’s rankings. They’re competing against children and fresh young talent starting their careers, but that only adds an extra element of excitement to the competition. They’ve both even lost against these supposedly inexperienced competitors! But even the best sumo wrestler can lose unexpectedly on any given day.
Sumo isn’t for everyone, I’ll warn. It’s heavily rooted in tradition, ritual, and ceremony, which creates a lot of downtime between matches. And, frankly, it’s a lot of big dudes pushing other big dudes! But with some familiarity with the art of the sport and its wrestlers, there’s nothing else like it. It is a rich and complex sport where a 5’6'“ 200lb dude can throw a 6’5” 400lb dude in the blink of an eye. There are just three days of competition left, and I can’t wait to see who finishes strong.
Kill the Gods
As far as indie takes on Souls-like action RPGs go, Ashen is one of my favorites. It’s difficult and strange and lonely and unsettlingly dark. So when developer A44 announced its next game, Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn, I expected something like Ashen only bigger and better. I was terribly wrong.
Flintlock does retain some core Souls-like systems, like gathering a currency through defeating enemies. But in many ways it’s more like the God of War reboots, with a largely linear critical path, heavy narrative voicework including the game’s protagonist, and strict builds rather than diverse gameplay options. Ultimately, Flintlock isn’t going to make fans of either Souls or God of War-like action RPGs happy, myself included, but I’ve been waiting for this game so long I’ve decided to play it all the way through just for the full experience.
The more I’ve played of Flintlock, the more I think there’s something worth experiencing in it. It’s not necessarily the story, which is mundane and focuses on killing a wave of gods that have invaded the land of Dawn. Rather, like with From Software RPGs, it’s more about the lore and its strangeness and mystery. How were the gods really able to invade Dawn in the first place? Why did they choose to do so? What do these gods want? And what’s really the purpose of stopping them?
Is that enough to recommend it to others? I don’t think so. But I’m enjoying it for what it is, and happy to play something I decided on playing some time ago.
Punk Breaks the Curse
This past weekend was Evo 2024, the annual iteration of the world’s largest fighting game tournament. While I do love watching competitive fighting games of all types, I adore watching Street Fighter tournaments more than other games. Lucky me, this year’s tournament was outstanding even compared to years prior.
Like with sumo, Street Fighter 6 tournaments scratch a mental itch in a way few things do. I can track wins and losses on an online bracket, follow players I love even when they aren’t on-stream, get hype over upsets, and speculate out potential future exciting matchups. Actually watching Street Fighter 6 matches is awesome, too! But competitive structures that I can nerd out delving into enhance my fun tremendously.
The Grand Final of the Street Fighter 6 tournament featured one of my favorite players, Punk. Punk plays Cammy mostly, which is a rushdown character known for their aggression and strong neutral game. Punk is well-known for being one of the best Street Fighter players in the world, but he struggles with on-stage pressure. He frequently loses before reaching the Grand Final, but has been on a hell of a streak in 2024. At Evo 2024, Punk managed to stay without a loss all the way through the tournament, up until the final matchup. The pressure got to him once again and he allowed his opponent to reset the bracket and then push Punk to a final round. In that moment, when the pressure must have been debilitating, Punk held strong. He won Evo 2024, the biggest tournament of the year and earned the biggest prize of his career. He cried as he won, hugged his opponent, and smiled like a tremendous weight was off his shoulders.
It was such a special moment. There’s nothing like Evo. Hopefully, that specialness isn’t lost as it expands to four Evo tournaments a year including two in the United States.
Lightning Round
Here are some other topics I have a bit to say on, split into easily digestible bullet points!
NJPW G1 Climax — I’ve been watching matches from NJPW’s G1 Climax tournament with a good friend and it’s been healing. For a variety of reasons being an AEW fan has been nothing but stressful, and it doesn’t bring me happiness right now. The G1 Climax does, though. Takeshita vs. Jeff Cobb does, though.
Marvel QR Code Comics — Apparently, in the first issue of each of Marvel’s new X-Men comic line there’s a “bonus page” that can only be accessed via QR code. Yes, a printed comic requires an internet connection to access the final page of the issue. If you trust Marvel, this page is intended to be extraneous, but readers don’t seem to agree so far. It’s hard to imagine a rational reason to cut content out of a $4.99 comic, especially given Marvel’s history for removing similar content from the internet after time. Brilliant.
Olympics — The Olympics are already starting. I watched a couple of U23 soccer games today. I always love the Olympics and can’t wait to watch Curling, BMX, Tennis, Basketball, Gymnastics, Swimming, and more. Gold medals? National pride? Eh. Gimme some crazy competition and surprises.
Final Fantasy 14 — I’ve entered that stage where I know I should quit Final Fantasy 14 but can’t admit it to myself. I want to play more, but I don’t want to play what’s available. The grind of farming tokens from raids or Duty queues is exhausting. Leveling an alt is exhausting. Can we bring back the Island Sanctuary? Can I have some story DLC already?
I suppose that’s all for now. Writing this newsletter was a bit of a struggle and I’m not sure why. Is it because my higher-dose meds were helping? Is it because I’m wrestling with the lower dosage? Is it unrelated? Regardless, thanks as always for taking the time to read. It means more than I can say. Big love, until next time — Rory.