I’ve been meaning to follow up on my posting from November 30 “Free time and hearing voices.” I’m starting to get used to clarifying myself, if you can call it that. For that matter, I think it’s probably one of my less than desirable habits. I have an issue with qualifying what I’m thinking in writing, at least not in one short little post. I have a habit of going back and editing and then re-editing what I’ve written, which usually causes more problems in the areas of grammar and logical flow. There is also the fact that I prefer to use metaphor or symbolism over a simple explanation. I’ll get to that in a minute; that being, symbolism over concrete reasoning in some areas.

In the previous posting, the one that this is a follow up to, I talked about why I had been drawn to animation and anime specifically. For the most part, now, anime is a simple distraction from a life that is filled mostly with school and a full time job (that really isn’t a career). What it was before was a crutch, something that let me stand up and muddle along. There were other things that I used in the same manner art, literature, television, and people.

Don’t get me wrong, I have great respect for the art form and I don’t plan on stopping my anime viewing habits any time soon. It’s just that this hobby occupies another role, one that it originally did not.

Why did I bring this up? Honestly, the previous post had a lot to do with Michael taking an indefinite hiatus from blogging “Like Water.” [I’m going to use you as an example Micheal, I hope you don’t mind.] Reading Michael, it becomes apparent that we aren’t simply fanboying around. We are looking for a meaning in the medium. His last post mentions this outright. He expressed his dislike for anime that panders to certain niche taste but does not progress the art form (I’m paraphrasing). Where are the deeper meanings and thoughts, the movements and melodies?

Basically, when Anime Traveler decided to stop posting I thought a bit about what I was doing. I’m prone to reflection. I wondered about the benefits of blogging and if I was gaining anything from doing this. More importantly, I began to examine why I had started this blog in the first place.

About a year ago I was reading a forum thread asking why the readers liked anime. There were the usual responses in the replies. What caught me by surprise in this particular thread was the strange amount (rather large number) of people saying that “anime saved their life.” Many of them stated flat out that they wouldn’t be alive if not for anime. Was it anime or was it something else? The question we should be asking is if something else could have replaced “anime” with some other word or phrase. Keep in mind, some people can be a bit overdramatic sometimes.

Some people are content to live and let live. Simply living has never really entailed much benefit for me. What’s the point in breathing, walking, talking, thinking with no purpose? More important, what’s the point if you’re not at least looking for a “point” or a purpose? Those who say that anime saved their life where never really in danger of anything but their own salvation in something else. If not anime, it would have been some other convenient thing.

I suppose it doesn’t diminish the impact though. There are certain reasons that only we can give to ourselves, one of those is the reason why we keep moving.

Life has become a search for meaning mostly because it was a void for a long time. Anime didn’t save me from anything but it did offer short breaths when I thought I was drowning, it along with other things.

I would have survived without it.

I still want that feeling though. The insight I received from watching those first series. They allowed me to think in an area that I had not thought before. That is what anime is now. Movies, books, anime, work, school, life…they’re all for a single purpose. I want to learn about myself and enhance my sight, my view of the world.

These things that move us. They are tools; they don’t necessarily convey meaning or knowledge as much as they allow us to release constraints put upon us by the past.

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I prefer the uneven meaning of symbolic language and the less discrete phrases of prose or poetry. In some ways it makes it easier to express things but sometimes comes off a little confusing.

I promise, my next post will return to irrelevant fanboying as usual.

Later.