Reflections

詩酒且圖今日樂，功名休問幾時成

Poetry and wine are for today’s merriment. Don’t ask when fame and glory will arrive.

今朝有酒今朝醉，莫管門前是與非

If there is wine today, then get drunk today. Don’t worry about the troubles at the door.

Jesus said: Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

We tell you now about two worthies who lived on the banks of the river Jing outside the city of Chang’an: a fisherman by the name of Zhang Shao and a woodman by the name of Li Ding. The two of them were scholars who had passed no official examination, mountain folks who knew how to read. One day in the city of Chang’an, after they had sold the wood on the one’s back and the carp in the other’s basket, they went into a small inn and drank until they were slightly tipsy. Each carrying a bottle, they followed the bank of the Jing River and walked slowly back.

“Brother Li,” said Zhang Shao, “in my opinion those who strive for fame will lose their lives on account of fame; those who live in quest of fortune will perish because of riches; those who have titles sleep embracing a tiger; and those who receive official favors walk with snakes in their sleeves. When you think of it, their lives cannot compare with our carefree existence, close to the blue mountains and fair waters. We cherish poverty and pass our days without having to quarrel with fate.”

Are you enjoying the moment, now-here?

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Believe it or not, it is difficult for me to write one final blog. The energy had started withdrawing from rd2l weeks ago, perhaps when my being felt and understood that this saga would soon be ending.

While I have enjoyed this season and have been blessed tremendously, it has also been a period of tension for me. Before this season, I had been in a state of calm for many many months. Then the season started, and I found I had put myself back into an environment that I could not help being “on” in. As my diligent readers may remember from an early blog, I shared that I immediately questioned why I had thrown myself back into this insanity, when I had known such peace.

…

I will share some observations.

Tension and Relaxation

Before this season, I had not watched any TV for at least half a year. Fiction just didn’t appeal to me anymore, and I thought I was over it. I only watched some non-fiction on youtube, such as travel, meditation, health, etc.

But during this season, I re-found my appreciation for TV. I realized that, at least for me, it was functioning as a way to destress and “wind down”, after being mentally wound-up by dota. It’s like how people drink caffeine in the morning, and alcohol in the evening. I think people have never known peace, or they would see how insane this yoyo-ing is!

And watching these dramas on TV (Psych has been my choice. Really enjoyed Wednesday too), I remembered that life is just a drama too. You were all watching the drama of the 12 seed run, and the final tonight, and so was I watching it play out.

And I enjoyed it very much. I’ve been playing each playoff match from a PC cafe, with the high-end PCs and stabler internet. Before each match, I’ve been getting food at nearby restaurants. Life is a celebration, and each match has been a holiday. Every Sunday I went in to add more time, after winning the prior week. Today I didn’t have much time left, and the hour packages were like 1 hour, 3 hours, or like 15 hours. So I did 15 hours, more than needed for one match, and perhaps that’s why we lost. I thought of more than just the day at hand! 😛

By the way Timber Hearth, if you think you’ve seen glimpses of wrath from me, know it was somewhat intended. I’ve been purposely eating some spicy food before matches, to add some aggression, and caffeine contributes too.

The Mirror

Consider this. If you are offended by the ego in me, but I am unoffended by the ego in you, then who is it that has a bigger ego?

The ego of others is showing you your own ego.

The Conservation of Energy

Back in the day, I used to grind games all day every day. However, this season, I discovered that if I practiced all day, my play got worse. So I had an interesting problem.. I thought that clearly practice was necessary, and yet I couldn’t practice too much.

Getting old? Or just busy with other things in life too. In any case, it let me reflect on “right practice”, which maybe I can apply to things like meditation, or piano practice.

Energy is limited! The days before a match, I just focused on eating enough and sleeping enough. And then match days, I would eat some spicy food and drink some caffeine, to “borrow energy” from the future. After so many weeks of playoffs, I’ve been starting to burn out, and I’m sure the relief that it’s over will kick in.

Energy is limited, my friends! Use it consciously.

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What else is there to say? Many things I already said in the post-match interview.

The surprise for me was that even in losing, I was not in the least bit disturbed. Not that there was relief either. It was as if nothing happened. Throughout this season, I could not maintain my stress-free peace; I saw my ever-present ego, enjoying the glory of winning and the respect of teammates and peers. But in losing at the end, I was not bothered at all.

I think there are 3 factors:

#1 I had teammates I could lose with. Very important, as previously blogged on.

#2 I consciously allowed myself to put energy into dota. I was not “split,” half wanting to play and half not wanting to play. I did all that I could and was willing to do. And I (almost) never blamed anyone, and therefore never planted the seed that would come back to me.

#3 I understood that it was all just a game/drama.

Pneuma, have you been meditating on the flowers of the garden? Let’s say someone is a feeder. What is the problem, maybe he is enjoying it. Why do you want to deny someone his enjoyment. Maybe someone else enjoys flaming people. What is the problem? These are all unique and beautiful flowers. I am enjoying them.

Of course, some flowers should be enjoyed from a distance.. :p

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Let go and let existence sort it out.

There were two cases this season where I just let other people handle things so I could maintain my zen. The first was smashe showing up late. All I said was that maybe he could abandon, but otherwise I just kept quiet. Whether and when he showed up didn’t really matter to me, and it was beautiful to just let existence sort out this trivial matter.

The second situation was the final scheduling. I tried and couldn’t get a time that everyone desired, so I pretended to have a “melty” and let other people handle it. I just didn’t feel like mediating, or deciding.

It’s very beautiful to be useless, and I hope I can have more and more faith in existence going forward.

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Now, if I had won the final, I had intended to do an opponent review and draft review of the playoff matches, just for smashe. I’m done with rd2l so there’s no need to hide my thought processes. But we lost, so I’m excused from that.

What else would people like to read about? Shall I do a season recap?

It was very interesting to be the lowest mmr on the team at the start. Now, I know I’m not really a legend player, but my team doesn’t know yet. And who wants to be bossed around by your low mmr! And really, I have no interest in dominating anyone anymore anyway. If you want to follow me, then that is good and very beautiful. But if you don’t want to follow me, then why should we make things ugly.

And that is why I said Timber Hearth is very rare. He was ready to come with me, from the very beginning!

So anyway, I decided to let teammates draft the first few weeks.

#1 I thought people might see, “we have done things your way, now maybe we can try things my way?”
#2 With 12/16 teams making playoff, the early weeks don’t really matter in swiss format anyway. (This is still true even though we barely made playoffs.)
#3 This way, I could use some deception and “hide strats” for later.

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Having drafted a team with so much mmr, and being the low mmr core, I thought I would just have fun and play things like Centaur and Underlord mid, and other fun things. But my team wasn’t doing so well, and I kind of figured that I had to start stepping up my game. So I started practicing diligently, and by the end I was acting like a more traditional carry-the-game-from-mid mid-laner.

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It was interesting to see the transition of the “meta” from legend to ancient pubs. In legend, people would pick lineups like pudge and centaur or whatever, and not really do anything, and I would play Underlord mid and win just by existing. I won so much that dota smurf-marked me and I shot up the ranks quickly. In ancient, people started trying to “outplay” you, and suddenly Underlord mid every game wasn’t working anymore. It was quite a stark change.

So I started watching a lot of Quinn replays, to update my game, and yada yada, I owe a lot to that for our playoff run. What a player, and what a team.

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Really, what is there to say? I am just enjoying the flowers in my garden.