I Am the Framing Narrative
The flash of inspiration arrived last night—the explanation, finally, for why I never give certain situations the energy they actually deserve. Why I laugh instead of letting myself cry. Why I fixate on the edges rather than the center: the spider on the wall instead of the main character, the bonus levels instead of the critical path, the small recurring melody instead of the lyrics everyone worships. Because games run on rules, and the fact that they do proves life is a game, which means there are hidden gaps everywhere waiting to be found—routes that make sense only to me and no one else—and that the whole larger structure, the way it all operates, is far more interesting to me than actually playing. I am the framing narrative.
I don’t hear songs for what they are. I hear them already imagining the exact extreme situation in which I’d play them for someone else, to transmit something of myself. I sketch out intros and closing credits in my head, each one more opulent and final than the last, designed to leave the audience breathless with their hearts knocking. The characters in those imagined films love and hate and die. But the actual content I follow only loosely—it’s secondary, meant to be produced by someone else. The story leading up to the moment doesn’t interest me. What matters is making the moment itself last forever.
Does that make me shallow? Is that why I prefer to stand above things—always testing limits, always pushing to see how far I can go—because if I keep moving forward, eventually an explanation must appear? A warp zone. A message from whoever is running this thing, something that clears the fog and finally lets me see clearly. An answer I can actually use. Something that leads me to that specific place beyond everything, where nothing should exist, where no one else has access, and where I’ve left everything behind—where I can turn around and look back at this whole microcosm and just smile.
Walking down a street in Mitte, a group of small children run toward me, laughing, chasing each other. Playing a game—one that operates within a frame, with timeouts and rules, one they can quit at any moment. I watch them go, a strange ache in it, and then the words come. I’d rather create games than play them. I’d rather create lives than live them. I am the framing narrative. And somehow that feels like a relief.