A few different thoughts:
First off, I’ve been feeling a little unhinged lately, and I’ve been reading a lot of Philip K. Dick on top of that, so the other night I turned my thoughts towards paranoia. What is paranoia? I posit that it is an extreme form of narcissism. It is a feeling that everyone, or most everyone, is against you. Why would they be against you? You must be special. Some knowledge, or some characteristic or mutation or difference or whatever. The paranoiac ultimately feels that they are in some way different from everyone else.. a worldview that centers on one’s self. Narcissism. Contrary to belief, narcissism is not just self-love. For examples of this, just look at any conspiracy writings. The theorist is paranoid because he believes he has some sort of knowledge no one else has.
Secondly, a little on music: I’ve been listening to a lot of house again the past few days, and it is again stirring my blood to want to actually go out and dance. I’m a withdrawn person; I don’t feel comfortable at parties or in crowds. But I feel like with the right music I would enjoy going out and dancing. And therein lies the problem.. this is something I couldn’t do alone, even if the opportunity were available. I would feel extremely uncomfortable and inhibited, even if I did have clothes that wouldn’t make me stick out like a sore thumb at a club. But maybe this is just another vain wish to be capable of being social in some way.
And finally, a completely different topic.. roguelike games. I’ve noticed a problem with the stealth skill. I’m primarily referring to Angband variants here, because that’s mainly what I’ve played, but it seems to be present in Crawl and a couple others as well. Stealth helps you avoid being noticed. But once you are noticed, it’s useless. Enemies can track you through walls and anywhere throughout the level, so long as you remain close enough to them. But shouldn’t a higher stealth skill help you escape for notice after you’ve aroused it? Shouldn’t you be able to sneak back up on the enemy, after some time has passed? I’m thinking about something like Metal Gear Solid here. I know nothing of coding, but it would be nice to see a reimplementation of stealth. Maybe it’s already been done, and I’m just not aware of the roguelike; if that’s the case, I’d like you to tell me.
