On Loving

On Loving is an interpretation of an endless cycle proposed by the YouTuber BREADSWORD to characterize the work of renowned Japanese director and animator Satoshi Kon. This cycle parodies Empedocles' famous cosmic battle between love and strife, which in the context of Kon's work becomes: The possession of love, the loss of love, the absence of love, and the pursuit of love. My interpretation of love in the context of this piece is something to have for something or someone as opposed to something to have from something or someone. As a neurodivergent individual, possession of this love often manifests as hyperfixation or obsession, sometimes mania; and the absence of it is numbing, aching emptiness. Understimulation, restlessness, burnout; these are all parts of this vicious cycle revolving around consumption, whether that be consumption of media, of someone else's time and attention, or something else.