the catharsis of comms

I almost feel like I reference counter-strike too much as an influence in my life, but when you are locked in your room most of the time, save for school, math competitions, and science olympiad, you only have so many options.

anyways.

There really, truly is a catharsis of comms, and I think guys who play high volume and accuracy of communication games will feel this as well. When you’re in the server, there’s no emotion, only pressure; no fears, only doubts; no anguish, only potential for counterplay. You are locked in a mental match of skill and wit, and you, at least for those 45 minutes, are a unit with the people around you. The words you say are like neural impulses, communication whereabouts of the enemy as fast and as well as possible. You are aligned with 4 people over a common goal, to defeat 5 similarly aligned people.

It’s beautiful in how simple it is. Games like this are a refuge from the emotional toll of interpersonal relations. Sometimes you just want to say something and have it be neutrally accepted and understood without judgment. Sometimes you want to feel at home in your unemotional seriousness, free to joke around in absurd but subtle ways during the breaks in intensity.

Sometimes you want your actions to speak louder than your words, but with your words being actions of themselves. Every correct call you make is an assist. Every correct call you act on from someone else is a small victory for your teamwork.

Someday I’ll return to FACE-IT and try to achieve that euphoria of existing in a well oiled machine again, free from the emotional tribulations of life, stuck in a polygonal world where all that matters is winning and my words only have to assist that one goal as efficiently and expediently as possible. It’s like a mental palette cleanser, entering the zone of sport and leaving with a refreshed taste of teamwork and a marginally higher elo. Even if you lose, you can lose gracefully, not scapegoating people or griefing, continuing to have hope as you at least practice reading the other teams strategy.

The catharsis of comms is that they are beautifully unemotional, they tell you exactly what you need to hear when you need to hear it, and if done well, they can help you achieve what you could never do alone.

Originally published on Substack. View the source version ↗