I love good open world video games. I spent 150+ hours into Elden Ring. One thing I love about that game is that it doesn’t have any official narrative—you have to figure out what happened in that world by collecting in-game items and piecing together the texts written in them. You have to guess everything, much like in the real world.
When we piece the texts together to form plausible narratives, we give extra meaning to each items. When it becomes a part of your narrative, its meaning becomes richer, although the text stays the same. Items both don't change yet do change at the same time.
The deeper you go into the game, the more meanings each items will assume, and your narratives will get more complicated. And it’s reflexive—items are building blocks for your narratives, although it’s the narratives that dictate what to look for in items (and which items to look for). It’s always the narratives that precede. [1]
So when collecting in-game items, you’re figuring out your narratives in two directions. One is forward-looking: what new narratives can I create with these? Another is self-reflective and often unconscious: what made me pick this item’s this part in text, over that part (or that item)? The good news is that you don’t have to think about this to enjoy the game. I don’t even do the collecting part to do the guessing—I just watch other people making theories on YouTube, which I enjoy as much as the gameplay itself. [2]
But in real life anything can count as items. There’s no equivalent of in-game and not-in-game distinction in real life because everything is in-life—watching other people’s theories can count as collecting items. But your narratives must precede. You have to define your items before start collecting—otherwise you’ll be collecting clutter.
My notes are such constraints—they are my in-life items. They’re concise by design—most of them consist of one or two sentences. It’s easy to piece them together to create new ones. When I’m forward-looking, my essays will combine them to discuss new ideas and new narratives.
But sometimes I will be self-reflective—and my essays will question why I created this or that specific note. Such essays will go deeper than notes—they are attempts to articulate what’s already articulated. It’s an occasional check-in: am I collecting the right stuff? Such essays will cut through my unconscious narratives—they’ll be longer and more roundabout, but they’ll be the most effective, like all rivers in nature.
Notes
[1] In philosophical terms: Elden Ring understands Popper, and players are forced to engage with Popperian epistemology during the gameplay due to its lack of official narratives. No wonder I spent so much time on that game.
[2] The gameplay itself is great without any narratives.
If you are interested, you can find my notes and essays here:
