Shadowlight's Lighthouse

Anger: Sins of Omission
November 23rd, 2009
Current Mood:screaming at luggage
Brother P didn't want the unabridged version of Why I Left the Catholic Church, so I didn't bother to explain it further, but... dangit, it isn't just that Bishop M said something I disagreed with. It's that, when the Church needs money for feeding poor people, comforting cancer victims, helping beaten wives and unwed mothers, and (wedged in on the same bill) buying the nuns new rulers to hit kids with...in that case, they pass the hat. An ornate, large hat, but still a pledge drive. Kidding aside, I don't have a problem with funding Catholic schools, so I wrote them a check back in May, for a goodly amount, lump sum, up front, no waiting months to get it in small chunks. ... but when a Hot Button Political Issue rolls into town, suddenly Bishop M has Big National Funders and Money is No Object. (Was this whole Marriage Equality law just a scam by the Legislature to get people to pour money into the state from richer regions and deeper pockets?)
I'm supposed to be packing. Brother P just called to tell me what to pack. It includes shaving cream. First time in years I'll be somewhere where I need to shave, but can't just use...well, some of Dad's shaving cream. Why doesn't P have shaving cream? (I don't want him to feel bad, so I don't ask.) I just want to hit myself in the face with a rock. I read somewhere that the time we spend is pieces of our lives. We fritter it all away on worthless nonsense because we can't tell what's important, what we're going to need later on. I don't know what to put in Dad's casket. I don't even remember what I put in Mom's. Cram everything into a suitcase and run, and hope that it turns out in the end.

I've been doing lots of thinking on philosophical and metaphysical topics lately, and one side note of that is this: The threefold or triangle system of classifying gamers could be adapted to people in general, if "how you view the game" was changed to "how you view the meaning of life". Some people are Gamist. They do things to acquire the things that enable them to get the other things that count as trappings of success. I've never understood what sane person would eat brownies lined with gold foil, or needed a fleet of cars for one family...but see, it shows they're "winning" (the filthy twinks. Understand, I don't begrudge people for having money. I begrudge them wasting it. Bad twink! No xp!) Anyway, other people are "simulationist"-equivalents...um, Experiencers? They believe that living life means enjoying the sights, sounds, and experiences in life. They care what a peach tastes like, what their daughter's first word was. Some of them travel to have adventures. Some of them are happy watching paint dry or staring at the full moon for forty minutes at a stretch on a summer night. What they want to experience varies (like different genres of game) but the attitude underlying it is the same. The "narrativist"-equivalents, however, believe that the purpose of life is to fit yourself into the larger, unknown plan of a higher power, and the more you're in harmony with where God/the Universe/Glorynnea wants you to be, the smoother your life will go and the happier you'll be. I'm amused that this makes Rick Warren and his evangelicals the bigger triangle equivalent of the Storyteller system goths. (This would indicate that the coordinates of a given person on each triangle do not correlate. One imagines the separation between real and imaginary, single self and current character, more than explains this. It's one thing to accept that your character has to have setbacks in order to make a better story, but something much more difficult to see that your life is but one thread in a larger tapestry, that every time you meet someone else, it's a crossover or cameo into their life story.) In gaming, I'd say I'm about 60% Simulationist, 20% each Gamist and Narrativist, getting more Narra as I get older. (I keep trying to Simulate the feel of Gamist play without really being Gamist.) In life, I'm 45% each Experiencer and Purposeful, only about 10% Gamist... and I like to Experience *being* Purposeful. but sometimes, I'd like to Experience the stuff the Gamists keep hogging as 'prizes' for being 'winners' (like wearing nice clothes just to look good, going on a date, visiting Australia just to see and hear and feel it)....and the genuine religion the Purposefuls enjoy is spammed and messed up by all these twink Gamists who think they can *win* at religion. No absolution without true repentance, munchkin! and no real God of Love endorses hate! Faith without Works is Dead! I can feel this getting foamy. I think I've made my point, though.