The rain was coming down in sheets against my apartment window, the kind of gloomy afternoon that felt perfect for getting lost in something dark and atmospheric. I’d been stuck for weeks, not in the game I was playing, but in my own life. A project at work had stalled, a personal goal I’d been chasing felt more distant than ever, and that general sense of inertia was starting to feel permanent. On a whim, I booted up the recently released Silent Hill f. I’ve always had a complicated relationship with horror games—love the mood, often hate the janky combat that pulls me right out of the fear. But as I guided my character through those eerily quiet, rain-slicked streets, something shifted. It wasn’t just the masterful atmosphere; it was the fight. Fortunately, Silent Hill f alleviates some of the annoyance these moments stir up with remarkably fun close-quarters combat. I found myself, a person who usually panics and button-mashes, actually learning the rhythm. A monster lurched forward, I timed a dodge just right, felt that satisfying whoosh of air as I slipped past its claws, and countered with a heavy attack that felt impactful. It was tense, it was demanding, but for the first time in a long time, it made me feel capable within the chaos. That’s when it hit me, this weirdly profound thought as I parried another grotesque creature: achieving a big, daunting dream feels a lot less like a grand, cinematic cutscene and a whole lot more like mastering the combat loop in a good horror game.
Think about it. Our deepest aspirations, what I like to call our Dream Jili—that’s not a typo, it’s a concept I’ve been mulling over, a state of focused, almost flow-like pursuit of a core desire—often feel terrifying. They loom in the mental fog like the monsters in Silent Hill, shaped by our own fears and insecurities. For years, the Silent Hill series, and horror games in general, treated combat as a necessary evil, something clunky and desperate to emphasize vulnerability. You survived, but you rarely felt skilled. That was my approach to my own goals: a frantic, defensive scramble. But Silent Hill f dared to change the formula. Compared to previous entries in the series, Silent Hill f is more action-oriented, relying on executing perfect dodges and parrying at the correct time to dish out damage to enemies. It demands precision and presence. You can’t just swing wildly and hope for the best; you have to watch, learn the patterns, and commit at the exact right moment. Translating that to my stalled project, I realized I’d been swinging wildly—sending out half-baked emails, jumping on every tangential task—instead of studying the pattern of the problem and looking for the perfect moment to parry, to make a decisive, effective move.
There’s an undeniable rhythm to it, a dance between aggression and evasion. Though the studio has shied away from comparisons to soulslikes, there is an undeniably familiar feeling as you bounce back and forth between light- and heavy-attacks before quickly dodging out of harm’s way. This is the granular reality of chasing a Dream Jili. It’s not one monumental effort. It’s the light-attack of sending a single, well-crafted query email. It’s the heavy-attack of dedicating two uninterrupted hours to deep work. And it’s the essential dodge—knowing when to step back, to rest, to avoid burnout, which is just as crucial as the advance. I’d been trying to heavy-attack my way through everything, no dodges, no rhythm, and I was perpetually out of stamina, getting knocked down by the smallest setbacks. The game was teaching me balance in a way no productivity blog ever had.
The real genius, and the lesson I’ve taken to heart, is in the integration. And whereas some horror games stumble when they lean too far into action, Silent Hill f manages to do so to great success, creating a fluid and engaging system that enhances the game rather than detracts from it. The action doesn’t replace the horror; it intensifies it. Because you feel more capable, the moments when you are overwhelmed, when a dodge fails or you’re cornered by multiple foes, are that much more terrifying. Your competence raises the stakes. This is the secret to unlocking your Dream Jili. The pursuit isn’t about eliminating fear or doubt—those are the ever-present fog and the creepy soundtrack of your journey. It’s about building a system of competence, a “fluid and engaging system” of habits and skills, so that you can engage with the challenge directly. The fear of failure is still there, but now you have tools to face it. You’re not just running; you’re fighting, with intention.
Sitting back after a particularly intense session, having finally beaten a boss that had killed me maybe seven times, I didn’t just feel relief. I felt a quiet confidence. The game hadn’t gotten easier; I had gotten better. I’d learned its language. That’s the shift. Unlocking your Dream Jili is about shifting your relationship with the challenge itself. It’s about studying the patterns of your industry (maybe that’s analyzing 50 successful projects in your field to spot trends), practicing your parries (like doing daily skill drills, even 20 minutes a day adds up to over 120 hours a year), and knowing that a failed dodge isn’t a game over—it’s a data point. You respawn. You try again, armed with more knowledge. The fog of your aspiration doesn’t clear; you simply learn to navigate through it with a surer step and a sharper eye. The goal isn’t to reach a destination where the monsters are gone. It’s to become the kind of person who can walk through that town, heart pounding but hands steady, capable of facing whatever emerges from the mist. That’s the real achievement. That’s the state of Dream Jili.
