“You Died” and Thats OK

“You Died” and that’s OK

Calligraphy and Dark Souls - A comparison and retrospective

JODY FRYE

For forty-five minutes I sit in a side room in my teacher’s house, slowly and methodically writing out kanji stroke by stroke. I make sure that the paper is flat, taut. I make sure that there’s not too much ink on my brush. I double check the spacing of each stroke, and do my best to make sure their thickness is consistent and edges are clean.

For forty-five minutes, I maintain my concentration on each kanji, making sure that each is satisfactory. I’ve already scrapped 3 pages within the first 5 minutes because I can never get the second stroke right: but this submission 76 is good! I’ve finally found that state of flow.

At forty-six minutes I can feel my hand begin to twitch. Three strokes to go. Taking a second to put my brush down and give my hand some relief, I look at the clock: barely ten minutes left, no time for another submission attempt. I pick up my brush again, but my mind is already onto whether or not Itoku will still have discount karaage by the time we get there. While I fight against myself to try and get back in the zone and focus on the final strokes, I miss-space the first, the second is at the wrong angle, and my hand

twitches again on the last one. I heave a sigh as our teacher politely says it’s not that bad.

Another week’s class with seemingly nothing to show.

Every Thursday evening, a number of ALTs in Odate will meet at our wonderful teacher’s house, practice under her guidance, and usually play video games at mine afterwards.

I specifically chose not to say “relax at mine,” because our go-to games have been those from the notoriously difficult Dark Souls series. These are games where the tiniest mistakes can lead to your

THE AKITAN character’s demise. And you will make mistakes. Again, and again, and again. Against regular enemies and bosses alike until you want to throw your controller against the wall and ask “why do I even keep playing this game?”

The game requires your entire focus, and, when you can spend upwards of 15 minutes on an individual boss fight, you can literally be shaking by the end of it. And, when all it takes is one, miss-spaced roll for your character to be knocked off an edge or simply reduce your health to zero, you’re constantly aware of the inherent frailty of your attempt.

Some bosses are easier than others, and there are of course tricks to handling each one, but ultimately the key is patience. There are some on the internet who pride themselves on completing the game without dying or without taking any damage, but they have spent hundreds if not thousands of hours dying to get there.

As we played through Dark Souls 1, 2, and 3, we were forced to play more patiently, taking our time to master our understanding of the tools provided for us, when to put on pressure and when to give space. Most importantly, we accepted that failure is simply a part of the game.

The same can, in a different sense, be said of calligraphy.

Obviously, the pace of calligraphy is much slower and less adrenaline inducing, but it’s a comparison that we have found ourselves making numerous times over the years.

For both, a great deal of concentrated focus and mental stamina is required. In calligraphy, you have to keep track of how much pressure you’re applying to the brush (which therefor also determines how thick your strokes are), the spacing between those strokes, the cleanliness of the lines, and ensure that your brush has neither to much nor two little ink: too much, and it will saturate the sheet, too little and your stroke will simply peter out. In Dark Souls, you have to keep track of your stamina bar, lest you be unable to dodge or attack, being completely vulnerable. You have to keep a safe distance from your enemies, which ensuring that you’re able to close that distance to strike. Obviously, both will test your fine motor capabilities, as well.

In calligraphy, some months are harder than others. You may have the final kanji be 12 strokes one month and 21 the next. So too in Dark Souls, it is not uncommon for an easier enemy or boss to be

followed by an exponentially harder one - a fact you only realize once you’re in the heat of things.

However, there are times when, in spite of the pressure, you do enter a state of flow. You no longer look at the clock or at the boss’s health bar. You simply play, either with a brush or a controller. It’s just you and your opponent: the boss, or the kanji. It’s an ironic, almost zen-like state of mind where you hands seemingly move on their own. You simply think, and reality manifests itself in dodges and changing strokes while time stands by and watches.

But, if you’re distracted in either circumstance, you are guaranteed to make tiny mistakes that will ultimately result in failure.

And fail we have. From week to week and month to month, we’ve tried our best every time and failed and failed again. As time has gone on, both calligraphy and the games got harder, and perfection was what was required. And, every now and again, we are able to do just that.

After over two years of calligraphy, the three of us climbed the ladder of ranks in calligraphy to 初段 Shodan - functionally a black belt rank where we are approved to teach calligraphy to elementary school students. We made endless mistakes, received numerous failing marks on our submitted works. Slowly but surely, we accepted each one of those failures as a natural part of the process - not something to enjoy, but something that was necessary. Failure simply was, and that was ok. All that was left to do was to focus as hard as we could, and buckle down for the next run against boss and kanji alike.

Even after achieving Shodan, and one of our team members returning home, we’re continuing to grind away and see how far we can get in both calligraphy and the games made by the developer of Dark Souls. It’s always tense, and, now that we’ve passed the bar of Shodan, the bosses of kanji are getting harder and harder. We can no longer afford to make mistakes - but we will, and that’s ok. It’s part of the process, and every time we fall we will get back up, wipe the blood from our sword, the sweat from our hands, and keep pushing forward. In the words of our teacher, we are always “getting better.”

Both calligraphy and the Souls games can be tough, demanding, nerve-wracking, and at times zen. They’re not always fun, but when you finally win, there’s no doubt in your mind that you earned it.