For as long as I can remember, music has always been a component of me. I had binged all the music I could get hands on since I was a teenager. I had music in headphones at work or in the metro. At home music was playing endlessly day and night. I had started with hip hop and metal. My old flatmate introduced me to electronic music, which was my bread and butter. As I met people and exchanged tastes a lot of other styles started to creep in. More classical music, a lot of post-rock, R&B and pop regularly hit my playlist. I had multiple shared playlists with co-workers, friends or family to exchange what we found. It was almost like crate digging, but digitally.

I went to as many concerts as I could. Grabbing the tickets at the sale opening. Going once a year to London to see some of my favorite artists. Eagerly awaiting the opera and ballet performance at the ​Paris Opera​, 15E tickets bought in six months before.

Another component of me was books. I had always been attracted to fantasy and science fiction. While I had stayed at my grandparents home a few years back, I had acquired a taste for 19th century Russian and French literature. From that, I branched on to 20th century novels as well. I wrote small stories but I was never satisfied with them. In 2015, I had looked to get an additional diploma in French literature and philosophy because I wanted to sharpen my writing skills. But, the complexity of signing back up to french university and the student debt deterred me from pursuing that.

The last important component was video games. They were part of the reason why I had gone to study programming at ​Epitech​. As a teenager, I played a lot of games and during my last year of high school, when choosing what to do next, I thought that I might as well make money in front of a computer. In 2006, IT, at least in France, was a job where you had a desk in a windowless room with computers but at least you could make some money out of it. How the world has changed since then.

Both books and video games were extremely important to me, but I drifted more to books because the common trope was to shame people that played video games. Video games were bad for you. They were addictive. It was better to go outside and see people. I deeply despised the people who kept saying this. Had they asked me why I was playing games so much they maybe would have understood that the problem was not the games, but for me, the reality itself.

I played for the same reason I read. I needed an escape, I needed a world where the rules were simple, where you were transported and simple actions had a result. Games, and books, both brought me solace, a shield from the world which I had a very hard time navigating through. By saying that video games were bad, these people were denying me my safe haven. One of the places where I felt safe. Where I felt comfortable. Where I enjoyed spending time.

Because I desperately wanted to fit in, to be like other people, I played less and less. I read more. I read longer novels, explored different authors, and different epochs. Every now and then, I switched the computer back on and binged for weeks at the games that I was denying myself the rest of the time. I felt ashamed playing them. Why was I not outside, enjoying my time with other people?

The work I was doing at ​Scaleway​ was worth so much for me because it meant I was accomplishing something. I was delivering code which was assembled into products which were used by the teams and customers. I craved that feeling of accomplishment. I asked for more, more difficulties, more things to work on. Little did I know, I was about to go back to university to go deeper in the tech. To continue my dive.

But for the grit of living, the day to day things, what made me endure? It was these three things. These three things that formed the structure of my soul. Where I resonated. Where I learned. Where I explored. Where I was transported by the melodies, stories and actions. Music. Books. Video Games.

For the Horde. For Azeroth.

To pair with :

• Who Am I (Animatrix Edit) - Peace Orchestra
• L'Étranger (The stranger) by Albert Camus