I’m still stuck in a period of shit where everyone is asking me for money. I go to the accountant and he asks me for money the moment I turn into the street where his office is on my scooter; I go to the bank to close my deceased parents’ accounts and two weeks later I get a letter asking me to settle a balance of 15.50 euros; there’s an insurance policy to redeem and I can’t redeem it because it should have been included in the inheritance, as my mother died after the insured (my father), so I have to integrate it into the succession; some plots of land belonging to a shitty house in the middle of nowhere that’s not worth a damn were valued as agricultural land, but one is valued as building land, so I have to do an integration here too; I discovered that my mother, who died 10 months ago, still had the right of abode for the house in Rome, and I had to pay 200 euros to remove it. And through all this, I wonder, where the hell did I go wrong??? And when I discover that it’s not me who made the mistake, but the bank consultants, the land registry employees, etc. etc., I get a homicidal urge.

If I make a mistake, I take responsibility, pay, and shut up. But why do I have to pay for other people’s mistakes??? And I won’t accept answers like “because that’s just the way the world is!” What the hell kind of answer is that??? I’m livid, especially with one of the two bank consultants who has been supposed to sell the securities and close another of my father’s accounts for two weeks now and she completely forgot! How can I not hate these people? I’m usually a fatalist, so if a situation goes a certain way, I go with the flow because maybe it was meant to be that way, but of course, then I lose faith in certain people. I mean, you’re my bank consultant, why didn’t you tell me that policy needed to be included in the inheritance? Then the nonchalance with which she told me I had to do the integration and sign two more papers to redeem it. And who the hell pays those 248 euros??? That asshole Raffaele, for God’s sake! And these 15.50 euros I have to pay, oh my God, I could punch the wall until my homicidal fury is blocked… which, among other things, I’ve already done without even breaking my hands because I’m used to it by now. Everyone is good at doing crap work; in fact, it seems to be the trend right now. The thinking is: “I’ll just stir up some trouble afterwards, and no one will notice!”… I know very well that one can make mistakes, but this time I hope these guys go fuck themselves!

I’ll lower the tone a bit, I wanted to talk about Otaku and serial hoarders, and I will, maybe it will calm me down. Last time I talked about Hikikomori, superficially of course, but the intention was to talk about it because maybe some people are unaware of the existence of such people. An Otaku is a person with an interest, sometimes even maniacal, in manga, anime, and even related or unrelated video games, and sometimes the term Nerd is also associated. However, they are still people who can lead a peaceful social life, have working, romantic, and friendly relationships, and leave the house without problems. Maybe if there’s the latest episode of their favorite anime out one evening, they stay home to watch it, but it doesn’t necessarily mean a psychopathy or social withdrawal is present; it’s a matter of prioritizing one’s passions, but there is still a desire to interact with the outside world.

Some Otaku are also Hikikomori, so there’s the whole discourse behind it about social isolation and taking refuge in a world where one can build an image of oneself that the subject in question deems more acceptable to others. I’ve never torn my hair out to watch an anime or be the first to enter the cinema to see this or that film about the manga of the moment, maybe I was a while ago when I decided to give up a holiday to buy all the Saint Seiya action figures, but right now I’ve lost interest. I watch anime looking for a story and subject to turn into a song, so the purpose is work-related, and then I also enjoy some of them because they are fun even if they don’t inspire any musical lyrics, but that passion that pushes the Otaku to go to fan gatherings like him is missing, the obsession with seeing a film or an episode as soon as it comes out is missing… I am a casual Otaku.

A while ago I also played Ultima Online. I remember that on a shard called Hyborian Age I had a Bard called Adrian Musgrave; I used to go around dungeons even alone, provoking, “discord-ing” and attacking monsters with a kind of special blowgun. It was anti-roleplaying to the maximum extent, but it was fun. Then there were lists of bardic spells, and with one of these, you took possession of the soul of any non-playable creature; there was a dungeon with a dragon at the end… hahahahahah! I remember once I went with three other low-level characters, we finished the dungeon and came back, and while we were coming back, there were 3 other characters who had just entered and were being arrogant with phrases like “give us everything or you won’t leave alive!” etc. etc. At which point I push my way through from the back and speak up saying: “Okay, disappear and nothing will happen to you…!” They keep being cocky, so I type the command “all come” and the super badass mega dragon arrives, and it was hilarious how they ran away instantly! Oh yes, I could command it after taking possession of its soul. I was a Bard with maximum skills, in addition to the fact that it was very anti-roleplaying, but I also played a lot, morning, afternoon, evening, and then usually my friends would message me to level up, I would log in and take them to level up.

I even remember once I made a lot of hides with sea serpents and krakens. A cool character! I’m talking about 14/15 years ago.

Even now, one evening a week I play a role-playing game on Discord called Girsa, D&D style but the game dynamics and the ways the master manages the game change, as well as the characteristics of the various races and professions. It’s fun, and I essentially play to role-play and joke with friends. My approach has changed there too, and I have more fun; I take everything less seriously and enjoy the time spent fooling around with others more. I’ll talk about serial hoarders next week, I need to go back to watching some anime because I want to compose more songs while my head still works.

See you.