Sometimes a deal with the devil is better than no deal at all.
— The Book of Negroes

There was once a Part of me that was really into game development. A clever, passionate fellow. He had downloaded something called ‘Unity’ on my computer, and decided to create a game, involving glowing geometric shapes representing enemies and very slippery protagonist. It was nice, but he vyed for more. Something a few degrees harder. Like puzzle games. Or story games. He would watch those game dev puzzle design youtube channels of course, even ones you never heard of.

It’s always been my experience that it is difficult to kill your Parts through the knife head on. Slow suffocation and starvation are the surest ways to end.

I never did figure out how he died. The final blow might have been when the old project data was finally corrupted. Or maybe another Part needing the same resources ate him up. Or maybe I did, you can’t really tell with corpses these days, not with everything gnawing for your attention and time. My circumstances may be the ones that construct the scarcity of these resources in the first place but I am the one who pulls the trigger.

We’ve heard of the exceptions that prove the rule: eclectics, polymaths, multi-hyphenates. Don’t kid yourself: resurrection of a Part is impossible without sacrifice. From statistics alone I can guarantee you, dear reader, that the best way to get ahead of the Naturals in your ambition of choice, is to kill yourself. You make a deal with Mr Scratch, saw off limbs orthogonal to your utility function, drop them off in His cauldron, and hope to eke out the aerodynamics from your remaining whittled shell.

Or you could give up. Admit your punishment for what happens when you pretend to be something you are not, and give up. Hope whatever path you locked yourself into does not require any more cannibalism of the self.

And I say to any man or woman, Let your soul stand cool and composed before a million universes.
Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself
I am large, I contain multitudes
— Walt Whitman

I try not to like it. The killing and the eating. Sometimes you need to cut limbs to save the body but you shouldn’t get used to it; you don’t want to be the type of person who known mostly and only for cutting their own limbs. It’s easy to get into the habit of this.

I dream of circumstances where I do not feel it necessary to kill myself. One where my Parts can honourably end their own lives after a ripening maturity. Or, if you can forgive me for dreaming bolder: a life without death, whatever that means, if that’s even possible. One with all the time in the world in a world that’s simultaneously not devoid of purpose or meaning. My sanity water line, rising coolly to encompass the earth, slowly, at first, then suddenly.

…

How’s Rust for game dev, anyway?