I don’t really have a topic in mind that I want to talk about. I have plenty on my mind, but I don’t think I’m ready to talk about that yet.
I’m flying again, back to Atlanta for one night. I’m already regretting not making it two, but I made my decision some time ago and past-me must have had his reasons. I’m flying for business, slowly racking up points on JetBlue. I seem to hate them less than most others. Today so far the only annoyance is a TV that won’t work and also won’t turn off. It has some sort of seizure inducing flicker instead, presaging the chaotic heat death of the universe in a low res LCD. I won’t live that long, even if I succeed in uploading my consciousness to the cloud. Meanwhile to keep my meat brain from shorting the fuck out I’ve made good use of the snack menu as a sanity shield. Left neighbor’s is off, but right neighbor’s suffers the same fate… Passed my persuade check and that one is covered too now. Bonus: he suggested taking a picture and asking JetBlue for a voucher for my troubles. I’m sure my pull as a blogger will help… I have practically tens of readers.
Flights are usually not stressful to me once I get to the gate. Prior to that I am a stress ball for more than a day. I lose track of time easily and being late for a plane has annoying consequences. Today was worse because I cut it close, arriving less than an hour before takeoff. Mostly because I decided to visit the Renaissance Faire to support my friend who had written a book they were showing. Also, to see some friends who were visiting and others working there. I arrived less than an hour before I had to leave, but it wasn’t my first trip this year so it was ok. It helped that I was in the RV and I just camped out in their parking lot after arriving last night, but I had some work to do when I woke up that delayed my entry.
Before that was a mostly unhurried trip up from rural Pennsylvania, which I can confirm was a right good choice for William Penn. There I visited a couple of friends who I seem to see once a year on this same weekend, ever since they moved.
Continuing my reverse chronology, that was but a short jaunt from the instigation of my travel: another game convention weekend. This one was Traveller Con USA, to distinguish it from the one in the UK, where the extra L comes from. It’s a small one, something around 65 people, but tightly focused on a single game. Three guesses what it’s called. As a small convention it’s easy to get to know people from year to year. As people arrived Thursday night our table at the bar was repeatedly extended amid flurries of good natured razzing. It’s like coming home to a house of 20 older brothers, each with stories to tell from the past year.
Now that I’ve reached the end of the beginning I’ll return to the middle: the games. They’re all four hour slots, and there are two Friday, with 1 to 5 being open and unscheduled gaming and 7 to 11 the first scheduled one. Saturday has three slots and Sunday has one. Last year during the open slot I ran a pickup game of Scum and Villainy in a Traveller setting. This year I played in a game a friend ran wherein we were stranded in space and had to mine fuel to rescue ourselves before our life support ran out.
I just realized I skipped the explanation of Traveller, but I’m pretty sure everyone reading this has been in proximity to me for more than a few hours, during which it is highly likely I’ve already explained it ad nauseum. If not, ask me sometime you have a few hours to spare. Maybe I’ll write about that specifically sometime.
Throughout the day I was distracted by my need to finish planning the game I was running Saturday at 08:00. I had done 80% of the mental effort, that of creating the character concepts and their interrelationships, and 20% of the administrative work, which consists of making standees, character sheets and actually writing some stuff down. In the end the worry paid off, as it tends to, when and only when it’s directed towards productivity.
Many people struggle with anxiety and worry, but it’s important to understand that it is perfectly healthy in moderation. My brain was trying to tell me something important. It wasn’t dangerous in any physical sense, but an RPG is a collaborative story, and the GM is the hub on which the spokes are attached. I don’t have to be the whole wheel, but we won’t roll if I don’t do my part. My brain was reminding me that I wasn’t done with my commitment to my players, and the worry was a result. It was right, in that if I hadn’t heeded the warning it wouldn’t have been nearly as good. So, thanks brain for making me spend the effort.
I find thanking my brain helps a lot. It reminds me of my friend who thanks her dog when it barks in alarm at a noise outside. It’s a productive way to acknowledge the value of the signal, even when it’s not needed. Once acknowledged the dog and the anxiety are often silenced. The trick is to learn how to recognize whether our own intrusive thoughts are valuable in the moment.
For example I could be stressed out right now, sitting in my sky chair. I could start with the simple understanding that gravity spends every waking moment trying to squash me into the Earth. I could wonder whether the engines are as functional as the TVs. I could think about hijackings or lightning. I could make myself miserable every moment of every day if I wanted to. Instead I work very hard not to choose that misery. It doesn’t always work, but it does more than it doesn’t, and since life is just a series of moments spending more of them unmiserable is winning.
This bit here is Buddhism, or whatever you want to call it, since nothing he said wasn’t said by someone else at some point. I find it easier to hold on to when it’s labeled, but when held lightly it can be seen everywhere namelessly. So, lightly then and without labels I’ll continue.
Some of you may be asking how. How to stop thinking the thoughts that make us miserable? Well you can’t stop, so step one is acknowledging THAT. That’s a hard thing to swallow, but it’s actually good news. It turns out our brains are a cacophony of voices, thoughts, ideas and distractions, and that’s OK. So step one is accepting that you’re a weird twisted temporary lump of goo powered by chaotic flickers of electrons. You’re ok.
You have the thought, the impulse, the fear and… then what? What do you do next? Do you yell loudly at the barking dog in your head? Take a guess what effect that has. Chemically it’s a cocktail, but the brain bartender reaches for the cortisol first. Cortisol: The preferred cordial of fighters and flighters everywhere, guaranteed to get you out of a jam, in .04% of situations! Step right up everyone and chug the anti-rampaging-wild-boar drink, it goes great with confined spaces like airplane seats!
On second thought, maybe try to save that drink for when you need it. If you have accidentally imbibed, it’s hard to step off the ride, but you sure can’t do it by drinking more. I find that looking at my body as though I wasn’t piloting it helps. Oh look! That guy is clenching his jaw, and tensing his fists and hey… It looks like he’s getting ready to fight a boar! The good news is that cortisol peaks only take about ninety seconds to clear out, but only if you don’t have another swig. So once I am aware of what I’m doing physically I just change that. Deep breath, unclench, de-boar. It turns out that changing the physical response usually short circuits the chemical cycle. And then I say thanks to my brain for practicing boar defense protocols, which could be really damn important some day. This too is Buddhism but that also doesn’t matter.
Ok but what if there is a boar? Or really what if we don’t know whether or not there is? That’s when we have a conversation with ourselves. It helps to have a script, since cortisol is a hell of a drug.
- Is this real?
- Is this now?
- Is there anything I can do NOW to change this NOW, or have a measurable impact on a likely future NOW?
So, first: Can I see, smell or touch a boar at this moment? Did someone I trust just inform me of any imminent boar attack? Did they sound serious, or did I just arrive at a game convention?
Second: Is this a thing happening now, or is it just leftover boar tracks? Am I just remembering something? Am I simply listening to a story my brain made up? Maybe one it’s told me before? Would an objective observer, undosed by the bartender, scream at the movie screen that I should run for it?
Third: What, in all seriousness, can I do at this moment to deal with the boar situation? Can I spend my time making a spear? Building an anti-boar fence? Buying an automatic anti-boar-invasion machine gun? Don’t answer that one.
What about the plane crash, is there actually anything I can do? Yeah, turns out there is, and the flight crew instructs you about it every time you get on a plane. Do you listen? I do, and I count rows to the nearest exit. Plus, I keep my shoes on, my feet on the floor, my head back, and my seatbelt tight during takeoff and landing. That’s all I’ve figured out, feel free to let me know if you have other ideas. Once I’ve done all I can do I thank my brain for working to protect me and then I pull out my phone to write to you. Or read a book or listen to a podcast, or otherwise do anything else at all but pointlessly fuck up the next few hours of my life drinking cortisol cocktails. There are a million ways I could die today, the plane is just the one most likely to make the evening news.
Behind me a child has a meltdown, because his sister closed the window thwarting his airborne boar defense. Ten minutes of screaming and sobbing later and he’s back to his video game. Pictures of boars are less scary when you can hit them with pictures of Spears. (Google capitalized that and I’m leaving it in, in support of her own famous meltdown. Rich beautiful young women are probably surrounded by hundreds of vipers and boars. We don’t often see them, but they do. I don’t blame her in the slightest. )
Engines spooling down,
Gravity begins to win,
Probably safely.
Quick apology,
Sister forgives his outburst,
Crisis averted.
Still no sign of boar.
H
So good.
Love this.