Writer Ferret at Large

I have a dirty little secret… don’t tell anyone, but I like to play online computer roleplaying games. Yes, that’s right, Everquest, DAoC, City of Heroes… those kinds of games. I also have to admit I played a lot of desktop RPG’s (D&D, Rolemaster, Aftermath, etc) when I was younger. There, I said it, now everyone knows I’m not just a geek but also a nerd.

Whew, glad to get that off my chest. I’m not ashamed of it, but I do know that a lot of people don’t understand the draw of these types of games and consequently end up classifying and labelling people who do play them. What they don’t realize is there are as many different reasons people play as there are people who play. When taken in moderation, these games can be quite fun and can provide a good social outlet.

Why do people play online games? Everyone who games has their own reasons for doing so but for me it’s the social interaction that means so much. I like people. I like the give and take of good social discussions, teasing each other, yelling at each other, relying on your teammates and friends, or just soaking up the atmosphere of being in a group of friends that “gets” you. These types of games, for me anyway, are a good way to expand my circle of friends and to get that social fix that I so crave. I’m not into the bar scene, I can’t go skating when it’s wet and cold and I can’t spend every day skiing in the winter so I use these games as a means to stay connected to a little bit larger chunk of the world than just my couch, refrigerator and television.

I know some people who game for the competitive aspect. They need to be the first to get some item, the first to max out in level or belong to the biggest uberguild. Sometimes these people turn to these games as a means to achieve status, power or even some measure of fame. They may be completely unknown in the meat world but when they log on everyone knows them and respects their accomplishments. They get the respect all of us need, they just get it in a different venue.

Other people like to solo. They consume the content of games in one huge gulp, racing from start to finish and trying to solve all the puzzles, raid all the content and finish every single quest. For them, these games are more like a single player CRPG, sort of a Morrowind that they have to log on to the internet to play instead of playing locally. Sometimes these people even go to the point of being annoyed when they have to rely on someone else (or worse yet an entire group of someones) to finish a specific piece of the game.

There’s also the classic explorers. These people relish in the thrill of discovering all the little bits of buried information, lore, experiences or adventures in the game. They may take forever to advance in levels but they will also end up knowing every tiny little nook and cranny of the game world like the back of their hands. They may be gregarious in nature and share the exploration with a group of friends or they may be solo but invariably their reasons for gaming revolve around the sheer thrill of discovery.

At times I dip into each of these categories. Some of them I may only brush the surface of and others I may get really deep into, but in general my reasons for gaming revolve around my own social and gregarious nature. It’s odd, though, because while my main reason for playing these games revolves around being involved with friends I also don’t go out of my way to make a lot of new friends this way. I’m not antisocial to new people, I just in general won’t go too terribly far out of my way to meet a lot of new people. This usually means that when my circle of friends shrinks or moves on (either they quit the game or move to a new one) I usually end up being through with the game as well.

It’s funny… I can sit down in any cafe or truckstop in America and within 30 mins be deeply involved in conversations with any number of people around me. I meet people easily, I enjoy people and can find something interesting about anyone. I love talking with new people, or just sitting back and watching them and being an observer of human nature. When I log on, though, I generally find myself a lot LESS likely to approach someone than I would if we were face-to-face. The anonymity of a keyboard usually encourages people to interact more freely but I find it works the opposite for me. I’m not sure why, but I do recognize that it happens.

Anyway, as usual I’ve gotten completely off the original topic I wanted to discuss but hey, that’s what’s fun about doing things like this! I guess if I had to find a point in here somewhere I would end up saying something trite like “Don’t be so quick to discount these games” or “non-nerds play these games too” but in actuality I’d just have to say do what makes you happy, reach out to people around you and above all try and stay balanced in everything you do. Life’s fun… live it to the fullest!

The last few years have been miserable… personally, professionally, for myself as an individual and (in my opinion) for society as a whole. The new year is here, though, and it has the slightest hint of promise to it; the faintest whiff of healing, recovery and renewal. If you stop, remain very quiet and listen very closely you can hear that faint sound of laughter creeping back into the world on little cat feet.

We’re still embroiled in a horrible situation in Iraq. We have another four years of a lunatic president in office, and the country has undergone a rather massive tilt to the right. A tsunami has ended the lives, fortunes and hopes of hundreds of thousands of people. Hungry and homeless people live right outside my apartment building.

All these tragedies still exist, yet I really do believe we’re reaching the end of the slow ponderous swing of the pendulum and are poised to bring things back from the brink. I can’t really put my finger on why, nothing specific leaps to my mind except an overall feel to the air and the first faint hints of a pattern coalescing out of the chaos that our world has been as of late.

Maybe I’m just happy because my long draught of unemployment is over. Maybe the fact that my own agonizing trainwreck over the last three years has finally come to an end and I’m finally feeling like a normal human being again. I’d like to think, though, that my own personal recovery is just an internal reflection of the external forces that seem to be working towards fixing things in the world. It’s time for me to be healthy and whole again and Lord knows it’s time for the world to be healthy and whole again as well. I don’t think the latter hinges on the former, of course, I’m certainly not significant enough to reflect the hurts of society. I do think, though, that many of the things I have undergone in the last few years are symptoms of things that have gone wrong with society at large… unemployment, economic downturns, failures in life, love, loss of dreams and of hope.

I’m seeing things change, though. I’m seeing people working at coming together instead of tearing each other apart. I’m seeing people focus on issues and problems bigger than themselves. There’s a quietness about it that defies an easy analysis, though. Maybe it’s a reflection of society or maybe it’s just a reflection of my own wishful thinking but I’m really beginning to see a resurgance of people simply “caring” about things outside of themselves.

In the long run, the greatest thing we can do as a society is to care for each other. When we place someone else’s needs at least equal to our own we grow ourselves. We stretch our limits and we begin to see how much we have in common instead of how different we are.

I watched an interesting television show last week that focused on interviews with teens and young twenty-somethings in the Middle East. These kids were just like our own kids; they had dreams, fears, ambitions, goals and desires that closely mirrored us as a society. One shot showed a young Iranian girl studying the play Hamlet, and I couldn’t help but think how appropriate it was to see that Shakespeare and his keen insight into the human condition could be food for thought no matter the culture.

The show taught me an important lesson in understanding and in compassion. It reminded me that we are all laboring to get through this life the best way we know how and we all face many of the same big questions. It really helped punch home to me the awareness that we are so badly in need of compassion and acceptance.

One of the problems we face, though, is entrenched ideologies interfering with our need to reach out to one another. Our governments across the world don’t generally encourage us to view each other as the same so much as they encourage us to focus on our differences. We look at someone from another region or culture and we focus on their different skin color or religion instead. We view them as our “enemy” or as a commodity to be dominated or exploited instead of as a fellow human being who when push comes to shove is probably a lot like us.

I’m hoping that 2005 will bring a resurgance of compassion. I’m hoping that we as a nation will begin to rebuild some of the bridges we’ve burnt down over the last few years. I’m hoping that some of the countries that hate us so passionately can also learn to put aside their hate. It has to start somewhere; someone has to be the first one to put down the guns and the whips. Someone has to be big enough to turn the other cheek and seek out healing instead of hatred. I’m hoping that someone will be us and I’m hoping that it will be soon.

Well I’ve finally taken the plunge and done something I’ve been wanting to do for a while… I’ve moved my blog off of a hosted provider and onto my own server. I’m using WordPress as my platform of choice and am hoping to give it a good workout. If you’re looking to start your own blog and don’t want the overhead of running your own software you definitely should give Mo’time a look. I was very happy with their system and I think they beat all the big name hosted providers hands-down.

Anyone new to this site might want to hit the above link and surf through some of my back posts to get a feel for what I’m about. There’s a huge amount of columns there on far ranging subjects. I’m not sure I’ll keep up the 800-1000 words a day posting pace here and will probably scale back to a few of those a week but the jury is still out and we’ll just have to wait and see.

This will not be a traditional ‘blog’ per se, and I won’t be writing angst-filled poetry and ranting about my neighbors (well, not always anyway) but I will instead be trying to post thoughtful commentary on life, the people that make it interesting, and some of the issues and questions we all face. Of course, all the LiveJournal crowd and the rest of the “blogosphere” (oh how I despise that word) like to snicker and make disparaging remarks about those types of blogs so if you feel that way, you’re cordially invited to go snicker elsewhere.

This is a community… feedback, disagreements, arguments, side thoughts and commentary are encouraged! Believe it or not, I don’t think I’m always right and I learn an incredible amount when people take the time to thoughtfully discuss issues with me. The things you might read here are most definitely not set in stone.

All I ask is that you please try and keep it civil when you do comment. It’s ok to disagree, it’s not ok to be rude or disparaging about it. Courtesy is a big thing to me and I invite you to please play nice with each other (and me) while we’re here.

So for now, all I can say is buenos dias, welcome to the new blog, and here’s hoping it is as fun and successful as my old one!

– WF

I’m back in California now… back in the bay area, a region of the country that I have grown to love. I don’t feel completely reconnected yet, but truthfully I don’t think I’d necessarily feel connected no matter where I was. Part of the things that connect us to an area are missing for me at the moment, and it’s simply a matter of time and effort before I manage to get those things back in my life.

One of the big things that connect us to some place, that makes us feel as if we’re at home and we belong, is a job. Unfortunately, I still don’t have one of those, but I’ve only been back for two weeks or so. I’ve been looking diligently, and have sent out quite a few resumes already. I’ve even managed to have an interview already, something that eluded me for the longest time.

The interview I had was for a company that I’ve always admired. My best friend helped get my resume onto the right desk, in front of the right set of eyeballs, and I took it from there. In actuality, I’m sure I did well in the interview. It was conducted over the phone, so I missed out on the all-important body language and eye contact, but by the end it was less of an interview and more like two friends chatting on the phone. I felt like I connected with the other person and that I had reached through the phone and made an impression. He mentioned that he would be moving forward on the process and sending my resume up to the next guy in the hiring chain. so that’s always a good sign.

After careful consideration, though, I had to email the guy and tell him that I couldn’t in good conscience move forward on the process. Now, for someone who has been out of a job for as long as I have, that’s a pretty difficult thing to do, but I do not regret doing it, nor do I think I made the wrong decision. The job required up to 60% travel time, being on the road both domestically and internationally. The job itself was as a technical instructor, something I would love to do and a job I think I could excel at. However, I have reached a point in my life where I do not relish the thought of half my life being spent in hotels and airports in strange cities. I also have a dog and a cat that wouldn’t react well to traveling that much or being left alone. I absolutely refuse to kennel my dog for half his life, so leaving him behind isn’t an option.

I know some people would say “oh, it’s a dog, it’s not that important and if he gets in the way you need to get rid of him” but those people aren’t dog people. Those people aren’t animal lovers and those people don’t understand nor do they comprehend the commitment you make when you bring an animal into your life. They aren’t just part of your life when it’s convenient. I have never understood people that take a dog to the pound or sell it because “oh, well, we moved and our new place doesn’t allow dogs” or “oh it just wasn’t convenient anymore.”

There is, of course, much more to my decision than just my dog. Part of what I missed about being home is my connection to the community, my feeling of being plugged in and a part of the local scene. I have been to every state in the Union throughout my life, I have been to about a dozen foreign countries, and I have never felt connected and plugged in no matter where I went… until I moved to the bay area. This is the first place I’ve ever felt roots, the first place I’ve ever felt like I truly belonged and I want to keep that in my life. Being on the road, bouncing between Detroit and Toledo and Boston and Denver in an infinite loop of travel takes you completely away from that, prevents you from sinking roots and doesn’t really give you time to settle.

I’m 38 years old now, which admittedly isn’t old but I’m sure not 22 anymore either. I’ve grown to appreciate the comforts of sleeping in my own bed every night, of knowing where everything is around me and drawing comfort from routine. I spent a couple of years as an over-the-road longhaul truckdriver and I am not interested in being a gypsy anymore. I also eventually want a stable committed relationship, and being constantly on the road isn’t exactly confidence-building when it comes time to convince a woman that you’ll be there whenever and wherever she needs you. Lord knows I have enough other baggage to bring to the table when I finally am ready for that commitment, the last thing I need is to add being away from home half my life to the mix. Any sane woman would run away from me waving her arms in the air and screaming if I were to bring all that to the table.

I eventually will find what I want and need. I have to have confidence in that. In the interim, I’m just going to enjoy being back home, in the only place I’ve ever felt like I truly belonged.

A friend of mine is going through some difficulties lately, and I have had the opportunity to listen to his thoughts and fears, as well as to offer a small amount of counsel. He is having problems in his relationship; after 14 years of marriage he and his wife have reached a crisis point and he is lost, scared and confused.

Having been through my own set of issues, I hope that I have been (and will continue to be) able to offer him some useful insight, free of the usual “oh yeah, you’re totally right and she’s totally wrong” sort of false advice that so many people fall victim to in this day and age. A friend isn’t someone who simply tells you what you want to hear; a friend is someone who puts your friendship on the line and risks alienating you in order to tell you the hard truth, to tell you what they really think in a loving and caring manner even if it’s something you don’t really want to hear.

In my friend’s case, I really believe that one of the fundamental issues at stake is his intensity. He is an extremely focused and intense man which, in today’s society, normally equates to success and accolades. However, in a relationship such intensity, such single-minded focus can do more harm than good. One thing that I have learned about relationships is that intensity on either part to the point of obsession can drive a stake right through the heart of the relationship.

My friend, let’s call him Bill (not his real name, of course) truly loves his wife. In fact, he’s so in love with his wife that he absolutely cannot accept failure or defeat. He has stated that he will do “whatever it takes” to fix this. On the surface, that sounds exactly like the attitude he needs to adopt, but in reality it’s actually the opposite. Bill needs to accept the fact that sometimes, despite what we may truly want, we’re just not going to get it and focusing so hard on it may in fact push it forever out of our grasp. We have to turn over control and accept that life happens and it is frequently messy and out of control.

When you say you will do “whatever it takes” to fix something, where do you draw the line? Will you lie? Will you cheat and steal? Will you rip away the very bedrock of your own character, that part of you that makes you fundamentally “you” and unique? Will you completely give up every iota of yourself in order to hold on to something or someone? If the answer to that is yes, you need to seriously reconsider your answer. There are limits to our giving, or there should be, and no person should ever give up the absolute bedrock fundamentals that they hold dear. The problem lies in defining what those fundamentals are and knowing when and where to draw the line and say “enough.”

Another telling thing that Bill said to me was that without his wife, he felt like his anchor was ripped out and he was being cast adrift on a storm swept sea. This brings up another fundamental point… you cannot expect someone else to be your Alpha and Omega, your anchor that keeps you firmly grounded and sane. This anchor has to come from within yourself and from God or whatever supreme deity you hold dear. Forcing this responsibility onto another person is unrealistic, unfair, and sets you up for failure when that other person inevitably turns out to be a fallible human instead of perfection. Hinging your entire existence on another person is an unfair burden and is in fact not a sign of love, but a sign of attempting to control them. You should not place that level of responsibility on someone’s shoulders that you truly love.

Finally, and perhaps most important, you have to learn to truly love yourself. You have to embrace yourself, warts and all. You have to be able to look yourself in the eye, honestly and openly accept who you truly are (both good and bad) and love yourself not because of your flaws, not despite your flaws, but with your flaws. If you cannot love yourself unconditionally, you can never love another person that way nor can you truly allow them to love you that way. Once you truly and completely love yourself that love will flow from you to the people around you and will encourage them to do the same. I remember when I was married I used to tell my wife (and myself) that I loved her more than I loved myself. That was oh so wrong, and I’ve grown wiser since then. You should love yourself completely. You should love yourself enough to set boundaries, and once you are comfortable with loving yourself you can then extend that love to the people closest to you.

I don’t know if Bill will be able to work things out with his wife. I hope he does, because a relationship gone bad is a terrible and tragic thing. Most of all, I hope Bill can learn to love himself, whether the relationship ends or not. In the end, that’s what really matters most of all.