Not only do I find this GM hilarious, but I think that his very well-formed thoughts on RPG games relate equally well to a majority of characters in fiction.

The personal lives of Adventurers are an interesting case of sociology. In my experience, the vast majority of adventurers in fantasy worlds are unmarried, childless and homeless. They are philosophically aligned with “ends justify means” and use violence as a means to an end. They are constantly armed, often paranoid and generally incredibly rich compared to the peasantry, although their wealth is invested heavily in arms. They are generally vigilantes who make their own rules, although some are religious or political zealots who follow someone else’s rules.

Please click here to read the entire discussion over on Save Vs. Blog.

There is some anchor to the cold, when breath dissolves like apparitions, when I am isolated under layers of separation and false warmth. It’s happening again right now. This feeling in my chest that is so powerful I can barely breathe. It feels like I’m being crushed by the world. I’ll understand if that sounds cliché. But I know, from the depths of my being, the meaning of that overused phrase: there is a sensation of physical pain, like being trapped under a heavy rock, slowly lowering in bone crushing inevitability; there is a mental fog, through which even thought is exhausting; there is a sensation of everything that was once familiar, intimate, proximate, suddenly becoming alien, distant, distorted as if seen through shower glass.

Once every few years, the world spits me out. Oh, we fit for a while, mesh. Then suddenly, some unseen force forms a wrinkle in the space I consume. Pressure builds, squeezes, and finally ejects me. Spiraling into space, I stare at this giant, blue eye that is looking anywhere but at me, and wonder: What happened? Why has everything that was once simple become veiled? Did I cause this?

We’re like two people from different cultures who love each other with burning intensity, but understand absolutely nothing about the other. Every touch cuts; every word chafes. And every experience is at once treasured and invokes the cyclic question: “Why do I bother? What do I hope to get out of this?”

Once, this was not a problem. I just let go, drifted with the current. But now I’m tied to this place: family, job, commitments, promises. These are not so easily discarded. So here I float, obtuse, staring at this ethereal, blue eye moving away from me in space, tethered to it by the searing hooks of responsibility, slowly imploding under a mountain of pressure, paradoxically generated by what seems to me a vacuum of interaction.

It is here in the cycle that the demon of uncertainty rises from the back of my mind: These things are not for you. This family is better off without you. You will not be missed when you’re gone. This is not your world. Hard words to ingest because they are true in small ways and ambiguous in others. They remind that the world is not about me. They remind that my place is small and that I can be scrubbed indifferently from existence with little consequence. They remind that I am not in control of much, if anything.

I am comforted only by the thought that this too will pass. It always has. It’s something that has come and gone since I was little, when things are hard and I’m feeling stuck somewhere I don’t want to be. But there is unacknowledged fear lurking in this thought: When it does pass, what small connection with this unforgiving and impervious reality will be lost, never to recover? When will I eventually be so foreign to this place and it to me, that our polarities no longer attract?

This is candid speaking. I share it here because I think the deeper, core questions and issues this cycle of my life raises are the sort of stuff people are made of. It’s hard to share because it’s easy to fear that people will take this sort of free speaking as a sign of deep personal trouble (or just think I’m weird). So I encourage you to speak with the same freedom. Feel free to criticize; speak openly about your doubts; send a signal that, somewhere in that deep inky black, another life form is is staring down at this Earth and wondering if they might also be a square peg in a round hole.

In regards to your post…I think churches and museums are places for our minds and spirits to exercise.

I had a lot of thoughts on this; too many to fit in the comments section. So, without further introduction…

Sharon,

In a gym, you perform repetitious exercises, physical actions that passively improve your body. In a museum, you observe, although you are occasionally inspired to think, which is positive.

While I will grant that catholic mass does involve some repetitious exercise of thought and can–if you make it so–involve movement of spirit, most churches are simply observation. The purpose is worship and often education, but not fitness. Some involve a good deal of singing and there are exceptional branches which understand the need for participation, but this is child’s play for your mind and spirit. It’s like doing five pushups a day and calling your body fit. It’s like reciting your phone number and considering your memory healthy.

There are ways to exercise the mind and spirit if you search for them, but it is not a widely recognized need to do so. Even among the non-spiritual and supposedly practical belief patterns, there is no common pursuit of mental fitness. How often have you been reminded the importance of strengthening your memory? How often have you been presented with analytical problems or puzzles for the sake of expanding your reasoning and non-linear thinking? When was the last time someone suggested that understanding communication and practicing things like rapport, listening skills, or word choice could propel your personal relationships to a whole new level? Why is this stuff relegated to the realm of self help and fringe society? Why isn’t the need to upkeep you body, mind, and spirit part of high school curricula?

My suspicion is that our need to tell everyone they are okay just as they are has surpassed our thirst for excellence, or even a moderate capacity as functional people.  That our society has become so media, consumerist driven that the idea of thinking for oneself, seeking excellence, or–dare I even say it–wishing physical, mental, and spiritual growth and excellence has become foreign, implies some sort of deficiency or problem. (And we know that none of us have deficiencies or problems!)

It baffles me that more people are not engrossed with these aspects of their lives and the vast, vast world that is opened by pursuit of personal development and excellence of being. But then, being from a martial arts upbringing, there are many things about the goals and practices of others that baffle me.

I had a great deal of fun playing around with this tool, which generates random disorders for characters. It’s very simple, not pretty, and horribly addicting. My only worry is that my entire cast of characters I’ve created since messing around with this will never go on any adventure, but spend all their time locked up in the psych ward : )

Click here to try it out