Despite my dislike for random strangers online, mine involves playing Call of Duty with them
Though nothing I do will intrigue as much as Lizzie Hazeldean appalling Wharton's fictionalized New York high society with her affair, "running out of the Fifth Avenue Hotel on New Year's Day with all those dressed-up women," I've taken the simplicity of that first appalled statement to heart—I see myself as bad, always, so I usually avoid making New Year's resolutions.
But, you know, video games don't make me feel quite as existential, so I'll make an exception.
In general, on my twisting route to emotional growth, I set a moving standard for myself and accept that I will always fall short of my highest goals, as humans do. New Year's resolutions—making substantial life changes primarily because it's January—usually seem impulsive, unstable, and quickly unenthusiastic. I don't enjoy boxing myself in with a new, stringent workout regimen or unrealistic desire to entirely flip my personality just because I discovered, amid another ice-dusted winter, that we're all going to die.
Yeah. Because I'm Slavic, I become depressed throughout the winter. However, computer games, which provide us with unlimited lives and worlds to occupy, encourage me to take resolutions less seriously. And my major resolution for video games is to utilize them to help me take myself less seriously.
Against all logic, common reason, and God's will, I will most likely vow to play more online multiplayer games with random people...using voice chat.
I know. However, random strangers are the source of my gaming Achilles heel. I enjoy Dead by Daylight and fighting games like Guilty Gear Strive, but I don't play them very much since I am frightened of other people. I have crippling gamer stage fear even without utilizing any chat functions—teabagging video on YouTube don't help. Neither does having a particularly high-pitched girl voice, which can lead to gender-based harassment in online gaming.
But lately, I've been wondering why I care. Is a 15-year-old Warzone gamer grinning at me about "sandwiches" and "the kitchen" going to shake and break my core like a Coke can? No, I don't believe so.
I don't want to allow little pain keep me from playing games I enjoy, so in 2023, I'll attempt to scale the wall I've erected around multiplayers. I'll make an attempt to converse and play games with strange people online, and I'll accept the risk that I'll become flustered, make a mistake, or need to block someone.
Staff writer Zack Zwiezen told me his gaming New Year's resolution is the perennial one, "Stop buying games you don't finish." Staff writer Levi Winslow echoed this and added another I'd like to steal—"play more indie games." Famous fashion police officer and Kotaku senior editor Alyssa Mercante has also promised to play Warzone with me and "terrorize the boys."
More than the first line of "New Year's Day," the closing lines of Rainer Maria Rilke's poem "Archaic Torso of Apollo" come to mind—"for here there is no spot / that does not see you. "You must change your life." The immediacy of those sentences is startling. Rilke, I thought we were discussing a monument, and now you're telling me I need to change my life?
My longing for statuesque sameness frequently clashes with my yearly instinct to restart. It feels like we've been chipping away at stone our entire lives, hoping that one day its shape would make sense to us. We may never see it—all we have is this unyielding rock. But we also can't disregard the instruments at our disposal, can we?
So, do you enjoy making New Year's resolutions? What video game resolutions do you have? Do you feel existential at this time of year? Please let me know, and have a wonderful New Year.
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