sugarrush-77

So yesterday, I went to a Hatsune Miku convention. And I think I found my people. At first, it was complete sensory overload because of all the bright turquoise cosplays, all various versions of Miku: Minecraft Miku, Furry Miku, and many many normal Mikus. It was insanity and I found myself laughing internally at the people walking by, thinking about how ridiculous and absurd this situation was. Then I watched some vocaloid idol performances, which featured a bunch of cosplayers donning their best Miku outfits and dancing (badly) to Miku vocaloid songs. I wouldn't do much better, but I do think the focus was more on the cosplay aspect than the dancing aspect, which is fair. If you're working a day job to earn money in this economy and then practicing cosplay and Miku dances, I'm not setting a high bar for your performances. I'm just happy you showed up and gave it your all.

More and more, I felt my derisive, ironic mental safeguards fall as I looked at the people around me and realized nobody was doing this for the lulz, or for shits and giggles. They could have been, but nobody was making fun of each other for liking something which is often so looked down on by “normal” people. Their love for Miku was so pure that I couldn't make fun of them anymore.

With that thought in my head, I went to the bathroom, and changed into a shitty Miku costume I bought on Amazon, and watched the performances without talking to a single soul. I should've talked to more people, I know but, the the performances were pretty cool: bands performing vocaloid music (props, that shit is hard as fuck to play and sing live), and people were dancing to Miku songs. I bought an acryllic of an office lady Teto sitting on a rolling desk chair with a cig in her hand, thinking that I was accumulating an alarming amount of anime paneraphilia in my apartment.

I bought the Miku costume and tried it at first because of I just had always wanted to try these things, and I was like, I'd better explore this before I regret it. I knew I wanted to try it, and I hate feeling restricted by societal standards or whatever else. I love to be free. So I did it, praying in my heart to God, “I know this looks and seems extremely sexually deviant, and if it is, show me, and if isn't, I'll know more about myself.” So I did it, and I was pleased to find that I was able to do it, without any feeling of arousal or weird thoughts like that. It was more so like, “This is fun, haha.” And that was pretty much the end of it. A fuckton of people around me being dressed up in the same way helped with that too.

It took me a good while, but I also found my heart opening up to these people. I consider myself such a freak that I probably will never be accepted by normal people. But these people were so pure in the expression of their freak that I felt right at home among them. These kinds of places are great places for the exiles of society to hang out, because the concept of cringe doesn't exist in these spaces. Everything goes as long as nobody's hurting each other. We are all in love with a virtual singer that doesn't, has never, and never will exist, and listening to a bunch of songs that, if you started playing it around most people, they would yell at you to turn that shit off.

So I realized that I want to hang out with these people more and ditch the people in my life I don't think could accept me for the person I am. I didn't feel like I needed to hide my niche interests with these people because we are all niche and happen to like the same thing. It was a wonderful thing.

Then the next day, I went to service at a Korean church, which is a completely different environment. The people here could never accept me for who I am. And that's a fact. Showing someone here a photo of me cosplaying Miku would be equivalent to social suicide. People would be shocked, and probably either disgusted or concerned. This is why I'm trying to go to more in-person events nowadays in a desperate attempt to widen my circle. In-person interaction, meeting with new people is such a magical thing, and opens doors you didn't even know existed.

The sermon today was about how Jesus's revival opens new doors for humanity that didn't exist before. The main points I took away from the sermon was the following

1. Love for God isn't an emotional attraction thing, we cannot love God without knowing Him more. And to know Him means that you need to dive completely into Him, giving Him your all. Knowing Him is not an intellectual act. It is more spiritual in nature.

2. Our ability to live a God-based life where we are in love with Him and is pleasing to us is based on the two factors, which work in tandem together.

   1. God's grace given to us freely through Jesus's death on the cross (not our doing)

   2. Our acceptance, reciprocation, and giving the entirety of yourself up to God (our free will)

I found myself questioning whether God would take away everything I ever liked, like my fascination/obsession with all things virtual (like vocaloid), or an interesting avenue of self-expression I found named cosplay. I found it so hard to wrest those things from my grasp, but then I was reminded of some things once again.

1. There is no meaning apart from God. This is to say, there is no life worth living apart from God. There is this hollowness that follows a life lived without God, that cannot be filled. When you are in God, you will not have the dopamine-induced fever dream life of pleasure you had before, but you can be sure that hole will be filled. It's more boring, but there's more sustainable fun in it. Having ventured down that hole many times, I do want to place my time, energy, resources, everything I have in something that is eternally meaningful, and not just a trifle.

2. I find it difficult to engage with church communities because freaks like me are often rejected from these places. While I need people that accept me for who I am, there is no group of people or person that is perfect, and what matters in the end is God's acceptance and love for you that exists no matter who you are.

So I decided once again to give myself up to God, and cultivate in my heart the things of God. And to do this, I just need to pray and read the Bible. What you consume is often what you cultivate, just like that feeding two wolves Native American parable.

During the season of Lent this year which has already started – March 5th to April 17th. I want to, every single day, read the Bible and pray for a combined period of 30 minutes per day. No matter what happens, I will do that. Starting today.