Revelations from a game- CAUTION! Very Wordy

Well, who says games doesn't teach you good human triads? The recent game i completed twice in a straight row, Persona 4, taught me how to face all the different faces and facades of my other selves and to accept them. All the bad sides to me which i will not reveal all of, like my Hypocritical side and so on.
From this, I figured out that to change yourself, the very first step is to accept all your bad qualities first, which people often deny. This will let you see your own bad qualities much more clearly in a different light and put yourself slightly in a more neutral position to judge your own actions and unwanted qualities.

In a nutshell, in the game, the characters are being thrown into the TV world and their other selves are all made to manifest in the form of a doppelganger like character looking exactly like them, which they all deny being part of them when their other selves reveal their often suppressed and bad thoughts to everyone else. After the doppelganger have voiced out the characters' inner thoughts, the characters will reply with a common sentence "You are not me!" and the fight begins. After the fight, they will come to realise that that is the other parts of their own self they must learn to accept to live on.

Characters in the game and their suppressed thoughts:

Yukiko- Makes use of her friend to get popular, wants to date guys but do not have the guts to
Yosuke- Harbours some selfish thoughts (I cannot rememeber clearly)
Rise (Idol) - Wants a good figure to showoff to the public
Kanji- Cannot handle girls and would stick to guys, Feminine-ish punklike character
Naoto-Wants her body to be altered to a guys to fit her Detective image, and to grow up
Teddie-Self denial, in search of his true identity

Those above will not really be understood by people who have not played the game but its basically just saying that all of them have different parts of themselves they want to change and cannot accept at first.


On a completely different note, It is very hard to keep friendships as I came to realise. A LOT of effort is required to inquire about your friend, keep in constant contact, meet up often and various other activities I cannot think of right now. Of course everybody are very busy with their own lives but it is a simple and frequent sms or phone call from time to time that will make that big difference to sustain the friendship, and of cause, to show that you are being appreciated and remembered as a friend and that you care.

This brings me to the concept of Reciprocity Norms which I have learnt in my Psychology classes in school this afternoon. It's just like if your friend appreciates you, treat them well. If they have forgotten about you, forget about them, which is kind of like "an eye for an eye" type of concept. Nobody is stupid enough to give more than they expect to receive, at least not the Me now ( though there is still this small shred of altruism in me left)

Well, It's the start of a new Year so make your resolutions and abide by them. I wish you all the best in 2009!