third eye or eleventh finger, same thing
I've recently had a funny train of thought while playing a rhythm video game. It starts with how a few months a new coworker introduced me to the ideas of mindfulness meditation.
It's always funny that the explanation has to be lead with "it's not a religious thing, it's an attempt at rational scientific counterpart". That said, the core idea, as I captured it, is taking a pose, trying to shut out the world (but not too hard), and just watching what your mind is doing. Acknowledging when it gets distracted, and leading it back onto the focus (such as your breath). Not faulting it for getting distracted, just moving on from the distraction peacefully. Recognizing that your leg got numb, and accepting that fact and returning the focus.
I know a lot about my leg getting numb. Sitting at my desktop computer, I usually take one of two poses: either one leg crossed over the other, or just sitting on one or both of my legs. Neither of these are very comfortable and you get a little owie from it.
Oh, there you go, new high score. I mean, what?
Turns out that playing a rhythm game with songs that are, on average, 3-4 minutes long, has a funny side effect that you have a lot of time to think and observe. And I noticed that when I play, I may try to intentionally focus very hard, because I want to get a good score. But then I noticed that it doesn't actually help that much, especially in a game where notes come in from two opposite edges of the screen. So it works better for me to keep a "soft focus" (another term I heard in mindfulness), and kind of zoom out my mind. And recognize that my leg got numb, and accept it all the same, and return the focus.
I'm making this sound deeper than it probably is, but I felt quite a bit of similarity between playing a rhythm game and a mindfulness meditation. You're not supposed to actively focus and react to notes, that kind of thing puts a limit on how fast you can actually be. At higher difficulties, I think you're just supposed to harmonize with the flow, and observe how your trained brain and body plays the game. And then you can lightly ponder what is going on, correct the course if you're going slightly too fast or slightly too slow, and continue to let go of the urge to change your posture, because that will definitely mess up that full combo.
That's it, that's the slightly longer tweet.
This post is a thinly veiled attempt to get more of my friends to play UNBEATABLE (steam link, it's currently on a little sale). It's a rhythm game with, in my opinion, fairly simple inputs, and very variable difficulty. It also has about 10 hours worth of story full of very specific type of humour, and artistic pathos, and weird minigames, but if you are receptive to it, it hits you like a truck. It came out in late 2025 and would be my GOTY if I hadn't pre-given that title to Wanderstop. I (also steam link) could use some more friends on the leaderboards to motivate me to push further beyond my human bodily limitations.