I write a lot. A lot of stuff that I don't particularly put out into the world. I put out a lot of stuff that just kind of spills out and it feels right, and I don't playtest, or worry about it too much. I don't try to make money from it. I just want to get it out of me. If somebody else can amuse themselves for a spell with something I wrote, then terrific. I wake up almost every morning to RPGNow telling me that some unwitting person is taking a chance to download something I put on there, and maybe that's a good way to start the day. Also, coffee. I hope they don't see the flaws I see and that their fun continues relatively unabated without clarity or insight.
I feel a little adrift without G+ and the people in there. I struggled a lot with the commercialization of it. I'm a little anti-capitalist, I guess. I'm not saying artists shouldnt eat, I'm saying that turning play into art into a job is a regretful process. Play can be art. Art can be play. They don't have to be work. They ought not to come with a price tag, maybe. I don't know. I'm sure someone will lean in and give me a hard time about it but fuck it.
I'm glad I said it. For a while, it seemed as if it (Google Plus) was a perfect storm of people being creative and supportive, playing for play's sake. Then within the past 4 or 5 years or so, shortly after my kid was born, it seemed mostly like a thing to share Kickstarters on, and shelfies. Like conspicuous consumption.
I don't know where I'm going.
Every year around this time, I gotta slog out of the winter gloom. I found myself actually sighing in discomfort today. Not like exertion, I mean my back hurts a little from all the weight I put on during the holidays. But like legitimate existential ache. Like FUCK THIS IS WHAT A DEPRESSION FEELS LIKE. I been shaking my head about it since I was 9 or 10, crying about some girl whose name I can't even recall, her leaving the school, or that other girl that was mean to me. The fuck her name was? Who knows? Then, at that time, it was nice to hang my depression on the intricate social blunders and losses that every kid undergoes. But now, I see that my fascination for dungeons arose in tandem with my depression: correlated (I hope!) and not causative, but now I'm getting suspicious. At what point do you shrug off the internal mythology of the Archetypal Darkness, find The Treasure, and call it a day? Hang your gear on the wall and be like I USED TO BE AN ADVENTURER LIKE YOU BUT NOW I AM AT PEACE? I'm not saying I'm AT PEACE, what I am saying is that the filthy grime down here, and trying to delve it and conquer it, does not have the same appeal as it did when I wasn't seeing the connection clearly. I SAW THINGS YOU ... HUMANS WOULD NOT BELIEVE
You know when I want to think about D&D the most? After listening to the news. I mean, at least in an imaginary fantasy realm, I can come up from the depths and be like FUCK YEAH I BEAT THAT SHIT. Biweekly, on Fridays, I can really and truly say WE KICKED THE SHIT OUT OF THOSE EXISTENTIAL DEPTHS and get back to the day-to-day business of living and breathing and making sure my kid doesn't succumb to the same sorts of problems that have ridden me. Like, the spectre of depression flits around my house like a snarling dog inside a cute puppy and man I don't want her to be bit. Man, when we are all out of this collective dungeon of history, it's going to be nice to get to the tavern and be like FUCK THOSE DRAGONS WE FUCKED THEM UP GOOD
Anyway, now that I've vomited this out, maybe my brain can be at peace for the afternoon while I listen to peoples' awful emotional bugbears and minotaurs. I'm safe, emotionally, and sound. No need for worry. I am writing and programming and noodling with the guitar. Thinking about music. Watching my kid grow. Taking pleasure in my marriage.
It's good to write and share. If you choose to make a buck off it, God Bless You. I made some really cool Tablesmith stuff last night, which maybe I will share it or not, but fuck it was fun to make it and see it do its thing. The mere creation of the dungeon seems more a thing than to beat it into submission. I guess I'm an Evil Wizard or something. I used to be an adventurer like you. Maybe still am.
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