Sifting Thoughts

            I recently had a discussion about honesty which resulted in the conclusion that saying the first thing that comes into your mind isn’t honest. This flies in the face of many common ideas, because what is honesty if saying the first thing to come to your mind isn’t the most honest thing to say?

            I periodically see a post show up on my social media claiming that a study found that people who swear more are more likely to be honest. The logical connection being made is clearly that people who swear are more likely to be spouting whatever is on their mind, and that’s honest. Isn’t it? Well, let’s take a closer look at that.

            When you stub your toe on something, what’s the first thing that comes to your mind? Unless you’re a remarkably logical person, most likely the first thing on your mind in that moment is to be mad at the inanimate object you just stubbed your toe on, and be very angry at it for being there. If you were to shout out your anger at the object (as I’m sure you might), scathing it with the fury of the first thing that came to your mind, are you expressing your real and honest opinion on that object?

            Technically, the answer is yes; in that very specific and precise moment, those horrible things you shout at that poor innocent inanimate object are precisely what you are thinking about it. But, that opinion is fleeting and won’t last. It fades with the pain, leaving you feeling a little silly for shouting abuse at something that doesn’t even have ears – and which you probably put there in the first place. Unless you’re a remarkably stubborn person, you’ll most likely even admit to yourself that an inanimate object can hold no responsibility for the pain you just experienced. And, just like that, your totally honest response to stubbing your toes crumbles into meaningless lies that you spewed out in a moment of emotion. Your actual, honest opinion on that inanimate object and the part it played in causing you pain is the one that comes after letting the pain die down and taking the time to think about it.

            Now, naturally, there isn’t that much trouble with shouting at inanimate objects – unless, of course, it’s fitted with some very sophisticated Artificial Intelligence – but consider if it had been an impressionable child you’d tripped on when you fell and hurt yourself. Why you left a child lying on the floor is beyond me, but that initial, ‘honest’ response of yours could do everlasting harm.

            Let’s take a look at prejudices. These are ideas that we’ve been trained into believing, sometimes since childhood (possibly by having them shouted at us after having been tripped over). We look at someone, and we instantly make certain decisions about them based on how they look, how they’re dressed, how they move – anything. As an enlightened person, you are aware of at least some of your prejudices and know them to be untrue (and, frankly, in some cases, ridiculous. I mean, seriously, just because it’s a spider, it doesn’t mean it’s out to murder you). Yet, there’s that trained piece of your brain that throws the prejudice to the forefront of your thoughts. If you voice that prejudice, because it’s what’s right on your mind, you won’t be being honest – because your honest opinion comes after all that hard work you’ve put in to quashing that horrible prejudice (spiders are people too, you know).

            So, speaking what is on your mind clearly isn’t inherently honest. I would call it impulsive, and only honest out of happenstance or if the person you’re conversing with asked about the first thing that came to your mind. Honesty is what you get after you’ve taken the time to form well-reasoned thoughts.

            That, in itself, is something of a revelation, isn’t it? True honesty doesn’t come from impulsively speaking what you happen to be thinking; in fact what you say can become more honest by sifting it through mental filters before speaking.

Check out my YouTube channel where I tell the stories of my D&D campaigns.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Complications

            Life is a complicated mess filled with inconsistencies and contradictions. Particularly life in relation to humans and how we view and interact with the world.

Take our brains’ view on change, for example. We hate change with a fiery, burning passion. We like things to be predictable and consistent. Yet, if it is predictable and consistent, we get bored and go stir crazy, with our brains demanding something new. If we rearrange a room, we’ll adapt to it quickly, with our brains not minding very much – but don’t you dare return the room to an old arrangement! No, then something is clearly out of place and wrong.

            Similarly, people often speak of wishing they didn’t have to work a job so that they can accomplish more of what they want to do. However, if you speak to people in such a position, you’ll quickly learn that they wish they had a job to help fill their time. Because having all the time in the world to do whatever you want somehow takes away from the enjoyment of doing what you want.

            We come up with morals to clearly define right and wrong, and very soon break into factions because some things that are clearly right contradict other things that are clearly right, and some things that are wrong contradict other things that are clearly wrong. Ideas that seem so simple to one person appear nonsensical to another – and both can back up their perspectives with valid arguments.

            We seek freedom while binding ourselves with laws – though, of course, the laws are required to prevent ourselves from violating others’ freedoms, and to protect our own. We try to understand the world better, yet as soon as we discover something that doesn’t match what we believe, we’re more likely to dismiss the new information as being incorrect or inconsequential.

            We pay people money to go out and raise money. We have annual feasts when, agriculturally, food is the most difficult to come by. We spend our best years working to achieve dreams we’ll be too old to enjoy by the time we achieve them. We fight wars to achieve peace.

            And as I go through all the strange and confusing contradictions in life, I notice that the common factor is humans. How we view the world. How we treat each other. How we examine and categorize things.

            And I wonder... is life really so full of paradoxes? Perhaps life is actually extremely simple, and we overcomplicate it in our efforts to understand.

Check out my YouTube channel where I tell the stories of my D&D campaigns.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

A Matter of Perspective

            This morning I was doing a touch of research on a magic item in my Dungeons & Dragons campaign, and I found myself reading an article (more of a rant, really) about what the writer believed to be some of the strangest items that have appeared in the in the D&D multiverse over the years. I found the premise of the article intriguing, but as I read it I found myself to be quite disappointed – because, apart from the basic descriptions of some magic items, everything the person said, from what makes a good D&D game to how magic items come into being, was wrong.

            Okay, not wrong; let’s be fair here. This was an opinion piece, and therefore couldn’t be wrong. However, the writer was suffering from the delusion that how they play and think about D&D is the one and only way to play and think about it – and, as a result, greatly misrepresented the entire game.

            They started off by explaining that every magical item must be made by someone, and therefore a lot of the more ridiculous magic items have no right to exist – because who would bother investing the large amount of time and resources needed in creating – for example – a ring that makes the person wearing it disagree with whatever anyone else says to them. Now, the beginning of the argument is sound. It does take considerable time and resources to make a magical object, however there are two very important considerations left out: the first is that a great many cursed items were created to guard treasures and strongholds from thieves, and the second is that people can make mistakes while crafting a magical item and end up with something entirely different from what they intended. These two points explain the existence of any magical item imaginable.

            It’s also worth mentioning that the writer stumbled upon the latter of these two points part way through the list – with a magic item that specifically states in its description that it was a mistake – but they failed to amend the premise at the beginning, making me wonder if they didn’t think of it, couldn’t be bothered, or didn’t make the connection that other magical items could be mistakes as well.

            A few numbers in came another comment – about an item that gives players a bonus for agricultural abilities for a year. The writer went on at length about how any game where such a thing would be useful would mean there’s something wrong with the game. A later comment about an item that allows anything to be turned into something edible is that someone who is worried about that is missing the greater point of D&D.

            From this, I gathered that the writer believes D&D is about one thing: delving into dungeons, defeating monsters, and leveling up. And, you know what? That’s true of one type of D&D game – called a dungeon crawl. It’s fun, it’s fast, it’s dangerous, and it’s essentially the same as playing a hack-and-slash video game. However, D&D offers far more than that. It can be a survival game, where a lack of food might actually become a serious problem. It can be a game focused on the story, where the dungeons are hardly important at all. It could be focused on the roleplaying aspect, which could even lead to never even going into a dungeon at all – indeed, even spending a year tending a farm.

            In fact, the game actually has a large number of rules laid out for “downtime”, which is when players aren’t out adventuring. Because, let’s face it – there are only so many adventures to be had, and even the most seasoned adventurers need a break some time. There can be weeks, months, even years between adventures – and there’s a lot of fun to be had in those times as well.

            The final statement that told me a lot about the writer was that an item known as the Wand of Wonder was included on this list. This is a magic item that causes a random effect when used, from powerful offensive magic to a harmless cloud of butterflies. The writer believes this is a useless item, because of its unpredictability – would you carry a gun into battle that sometimes shoots bubbles and sometimes shoots bullets? Which tells me everything I need to know about this person. They believe that D&D is a combat game, and all that matters is making your character as powerful as possible. Which is perfectly acceptable for some games, but it isn’t representative of all D&D games.

            Why would you take such an item into battle as your weapon? Because this is a game, and that wand can do some amazing things. What’s more, it provides a wonderful storytelling opportunity because you don’t know what’s going to happen until you use it – and I grantee that the big bad villain getting peppered with butterflies will be a moment everyone at the table remembers and laughs about for a long time!

            So, if you find yourself so inclined to write an article about the odd magic items in D&D, try to do your research and find the items that truly are wacky (they exist!) rather than rather ordinary ones that have no point for your preferred style of play.

            In fact, if you find yourself inclined to write about anything, particularly if you’re presenting something in a less-than-positive light, take the time to find out why things are being done the way they are. You may discover that your frustration comes from your particular outlook on the subject, and that if you take the time to understand someone else’s experiences you may come to understand why things are the way they are. This may not make you any happier about it, but at least your article will come across as enlightened.

Check out my YouTube channel where I tell the stories of my D&D campaigns.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

A Simple Life

            Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to go back to living the simple lives humans lived before we had all this technology. It doesn’t take long for me to discard such a romantic notion; it would be horrible. Yes, my dismissal of it is in part due to the fact that I love video games – not to mention the easy access to writing research offered by the internet – but the living conditions that accompany the lack of technology are dreadful. Yet, the dream of going back to live a simpler life keeps on resurfacing, and not just in me.

            When such ideas keep resurfacing, it’s good to pay attention to them, because they tend to be telling us something about our environments. Frequently, it’s our brains trying to find a way to change something, though it doesn’t necessarily know what. In this case, I believe the important part isn’t so much the idea of going back in time, but the idea of a simpler life – more notably, a life not as cluttered with the technology that our existence now revolves around.

            As much as technology has done for us, and as wonderful as it is, there is no doubt that it has made life vastly more complicated. Almost everything we need to do is easier now, but there’s another type of strain the technology seems to put on us, seemingly offsetting it. We have a responsibility to the technology – to keep it functioning, to continually learn how to use it as it updates and evolves, and to be available when someone tries to contact us through it. In addition, now that we have instant access to the whole world and most of the knowledge in it, many people feel a responsibility to know what’s going on in the world at all times – as if, simply by having that information, they could somehow make a difference.

            I think technology has put a pressure on us that humans have never had to deal with before, and that has awakened in many of us a desire to go back – back to a simpler life. However, that simpler life wasn’t better; in many ways, it was worse. At any rate, backwards isn’t ever the correct direction to travel – we must always keep moving forwards.

            Why should we go back in time to when we had less technology when technology makes everything so much easier? Instead, we should take advantage of what we have learned, and use it to push forward toward that simple life we want. We’ve already made life easier with technology; now it’s time to adapt what we have made to give us the lives we want. It’s either that, or we wait for our evolution to catch up to an industry that is advancing faster that we can keep up with.

Check out my YouTube channel where I tell the stories of my D&D campaigns.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

In-Between Moments

            In this thing we call life, we’ve come to have an expectation of ourselves that we must use our time as efficiently as possible. The motivation for this varies from person to person – some feel they don’t have enough time to do everything they want or need to do, others don’t want to risk being bored – but regardless of their reasons, society backs up this idea that we should always be doing something. So we keep ourselves constantly in “go” mode, forgetting that some of the best or most productive moments are the in-between ones.

            This idea that we have to constantly be accomplishing something is drilled into us from the moment we’re introduced into the school system. Throughout the years of training, our time for ourselves gradually gets shorter, while the work hours get longer – not to mention an increased workload of homework. It’s all about productivity and efficiency. Then we hit the workforce, and it’s the same thing – productivity, efficiency, and hardly a moment for ourselves.

            Yet, looking back, aren’t the most memorable moments the ones that happened in between classes or work tasks?

            This hyper-efficiency has overflowed into our entertainment world as well. There are formulas for every form of entertainment designed to give the consumer the most enthralling experience – to the point where even our enjoyable activities have become exhausting. And in that entertainment, what parts do we enjoy the most? It isn’t the plot twist we knew was in there, revealed at the most dramatic moment – if it was, we’d have long since become bored of the same stories being told over and over. It’s the in-between bits; the interactions between the characters; the parts that make this story unique.

            I think our society has gotten hold of an idea that people who aren’t fully occupied will cause trouble – an old idea that has some truth to it, if only because people who are bored are looking for something – anything – to do. Yet, at the same time, at least an equal number of people cause trouble because they feel trapped in their own lives and are trying to break free, making the solution of keeping people occupied very flawed. Instead of keeping people out of trouble, we’ve developed a system that people to the limits of their endurance. And since not all people are the same, some are able to rise above the system and laude it, while others are broken by it.

            As if that system wasn’t enough, we’ve taken each of those pieces of our lives and made them as efficient as possible – at work, because time is money, and at home, because we have so little time left over for ourselves. We’ve gotten really good at being efficient, to the point where those gaps in the middle get smaller and smaller... Those gaps where we used to have little quality moments with friends or family. Or, perhaps, when we could catch up on something we’d fallen behind on – now, if we fall behind, we often have to stay behind.

            The worst part is that by becoming so efficient, by shutting out those in-between moments, we’re actually losing productivity. For people working intellectual projects, they’re losing the ability to let their minds work on problems in the background. How often have you figured something out only after you stopped working on it? Again, I can only speak for myself, but I find that happens several times a week. As for people with more physical jobs, being exhausted all the time makes them work slower and more prone to mistakes.

            We try to blame these problems on sleep and to fix them with caffeine, but it never seems to work – because, what we really need is to allow ourselves more time to ourselves where we aren’t constantly pushing to get things done. We need to allow ourselves those moments where our bodies and minds can regroup between tasks.

            Those little in-between moments aren’t just enjoyable; they’re healthy and, contrary to common beliefs, they increase productivity and efficiency by making us more capable. They’re what make the difference between a perpetual cycle for working so that we can work some more, and working to fund a life worth living.

Check out my YouTube channel where I tell the stories of my D&D campaigns.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

If I Were You

There are a great number of expressions in English that seemingly make no sense, while there are others that make a kind of half-sense. One expression that has been preying on my mind is the semi-accurate “If I were you...” It’s an expression we use when giving advice, which actually means “If I were in your place...” but we’re so familiar with it that we automatically translate it in our heads. Yet, taken at face value, “If I were you...” is quite inaccurate, and shows a symptom of one of our greatest struggles as individuals.

            When interacting with other people, on an intellectual level we know they are very different from us – their thoughts are different, their likes and dislikes are different, and their entire life experience has been different. Yet, when we tell them about something we have experienced, we instantly expect them to understand how we experienced. After all, it hurts when I stub my toe, don’t you feel exactly the same thing when you stub yours? But, for all we know, there could be someone out there who thoroughly enjoys the sensation of a stubbed toe, so they go around kicking things.

            For a more down-to-earth example, my brother loves cars – everything about them. He can (and has) go on at length about all the parts and how they work, and will generally do so every chance he gets. He knows when the people around him don’t share his interests, and he knows that they have different likes – but, at a fundamental level, he doesn’t understand why it is that other people don’t all love cars as much as he does.

            We all have a certain element of that in us, that little part that wonders how other people don’t like what we like as much as we do. I love bacon, how can you not love bacon? Yet, somehow, there are people who hate the taste of bacon. Intellectually, we know this, but deep down there’s some fundamental part of us that believes everyone else is just like us.

            So, when I say to my brother, “If I were you, I’d get a mechanic to fix the car,” I am superimposing my own self onto him, and making my statement completely inaccurate. If I were him, I’d love cars, because he loves cars, so that’s how I’d feel about them if I were him – and I’d then proceed to fix the car myself. A far more accurate statement would be, “If you were me, you’d get a mechanic to fix the car.” You see, then I’d be expressing what he would do if he had my interests, rather than what I’d do if I were in his place.

            It may seem a small change, and rather pointless considering the well-established expression, but the way we say things is important. It shapes the way we think. If we go around expecting others to conform to our life experiences, we’re going to regularly run into problems. On the other hand, if we go around expecting people to have entirely different views and experiences than ourselves, well, we may actually begin to make some progress.

            If you were me, you’d be amazed that this was the 300th blog you’ve written. And if I were you... well, I really don’t know, do I?

Check out my YouTube channel where I tell the stories of my D&D campaigns.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Psychology, Sociology, and the Art of Manipulation

            Whether you are creating a book, a D&D campaign, a video game, movie, or any other type of game, there’s a particular skill set you need that is often overlooked: you need an understanding of psychology and sociology, and you need to have a knack for manipulation.

            Psychology and sociology are fairly self-explanatory. If you want to accurately represent people, and groups of people, you need to understand how people think. You also need to know how they behave when in groups, not to mention how groups as a whole act in various situations. You don’t have to study or research these in-depth, but at the very least you need a general understanding – be it an innate understanding, or one gleaned from study – or your characters and interactions won’t be believable.

            Manipulation, though? That sounds a bit strange, particularly since manipulating people is rather frowned upon. Yet, at the same time, it is essential – even expected by consumers – for a creator to have this skill, because it’s the ability to manipulate people that draws them into the story.

            An audience needs to be connected to the characters, which means the creator needs to know what buttons to push to get people to relate to the characters. From the very beginning, the story needs to draw people in – and this is done through manipulating people by instilling curiosity or some other emotion that will prevent them from turning away. And, throughout the plot, you want the audience to feel certain things at certain times – it keeps them interested and makes everything seem much more real. And all of that is done through manipulation.

            It puts a whole new spin on creators when you look at media from that perspective. Entertainment basically becomes the art of manipulating people. In many cases, this manipulation has been honed to a science, refined into a simple formula – but at some point, someone sat down and decided how best to manipulate people – for their own enjoyment, of course.

            I also feel like it puts a new spin on the connotations we have around manipulation. We look at it as a negative word, yet nearly all of our entertainment relies upon it. It’s almost as if there is nothing inherently negative about any particular skill – it is merely the use it’s put to that defines if it’s good or evil.

            Either that, or the entire entertainment industry is trying to control our brains for their own personal gain. I’ll let you decide for yourself.

Check out my YouTube channel where I tell the stories of my D&D campaigns.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Honestly

Why is it that we encourage so much dishonesty in our society? We hypocritically spout that honesty is always the best course of action, but we turn around and punish honesty – and reward dishonesty.

Let’s take the familiar story of the child breaking a vase. If the child admits to breaking the vase, they are most likely going to get into trouble. If the child lies about breaking the vase, and get found out, they are most likely going to get into trouble. So, the best solution available is to learn to lie really well to stay out of trouble, because, from the child’s perspective, that is the only possible way of avoiding getting in trouble.

But it’s not as simple as just truths and lies. We then get trained to hide things about ourselves that we think others will judge us for. This behaviour is encouraged by the teasing that occurs when we reveal our interests. You like what team? You play what game? You like what? So we learn to hide and be dishonest about what we like – and maybe even join in with teasing others for what they like.

Going in even deeper, we discover that being honest in any social situation is, in fact, rude. Are you ready to go home before the party is over? Wait until you have an appropriate opening. Did you hate the food you were fed? It would be rude to tell the person who made it, so lie. Did something upset or hurt you? Hide it. How are you feeling? It doesn’t matter; be cheerful and happy.

Everywhere you turn, you’re expected to lie. Unless everything in your life fits into a specific box, you have to lie. But, don’t do that! Be honest. Honesty is the best way.

Why do we do this? Why do we train people to be dishonest about everything, yet expect them to be honest? Most of us don’t have that much to hide, at least not that’s actually worth hiding. Sure, it would be a dramatic shift, but wouldn’t it be nice to see a world where honesty is actually valued?

The biggest concern with a world like that is that people would constantly be getting offended by the truth – as if the whole world is going around secretly hating everyone they interact with. There may be an element of truth in that, but if there is, I think it’s inherent in this society built on dishonesty. We put so much faith in this judging of others that our entire outlook on the world is inherently negative. And, can we trust it when other people say they like us? Of course not, because if we didn’t like someone, we wouldn’t tell them to their face.

If we were to strip away the dishonesty, and really practice what we preach, there would likely be a massive shift in our entire world views. Our outlooks could turn from inherently negative to inherently positive.

It would take a lot of work over several generations, but if we taught acceptance and encouragement rather than teasing, and if we taught honesty – both delivering it and expecting it – we could, perhaps, finally practice what we preach.

Honesty is the best policy. Honestly.

Check out my YouTube channel where I tell the stories of my D&D campaigns.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Interpreting Reflections

            Art holds a mirror up to the world. It takes what the artist sees in the world, changes around a bit, then shows the artist’s interpretation of the world to those who view, read, hear, and even taste or smell it. Sometimes it’s merely a reflection for the sake of entertainment, and other times it has deeper meanings – bordering on educational. It’s one of the great things about art, as combining entertainment with education is the most effective way to teach – and, being open to interpretation, art allows people to come to their own conclusions. Yet, sometimes I wonder if we artists reflect too much.

            When artists set out to create deep, meaningful interpretations of the world that allow them to share their ideas and revelations with others, they take the elements of the world they want to showcase and make them very prominent in their work. The idea is often to say, “Hey, look at this! Does it remind you of anything?” and then proceed to show the observer why it is good, bad, or sometimes just to get them thinking about it. It is a marvelous form of education, but sometimes we have to stop to consider... What exactly are we teaching?

            Back in highschool, an English class assignment was to examine the lyrics of a song and interpret the meaning of it. One of my classmates chose a song that I was amazed the teacher even allowed to have the lyrics shown for his presentation. However, as he went through the song, he was representing it as a satire – a commentary on a particular type of lifestyle rather than, as it appeared to me, bragging and lauding said lifestyle. Until then, it never would have occurred to me that the song was satirical – and that’s where we hit a major flaw.

            What happens when something is intended to be satire, and people interpret it as real? What happens when commentary is interpreted as praise? What happens when metaphor is taken to be literal? What happens when an artist is just making art and people are convinced it’s full of deep meanings?

            What ends up being learned isn’t always what was intended – and learning wasn’t even necessarily intended in the first place. However, learning is what humans do constantly – we take in our surroundings and interpret and learn from them. We don’t even know we’re doing it half the time. We just keep absorbing and absorbing....

            So, when an artist presents to us the world as it is, highlighting the flaws, some people will see what the artist is saying and learn from it – maybe even help the world to change and grow. Others may see it and simply disagree, while others will miss the point entirely. Often what will happen is that people will see it as just a straight up statement of “This is how it is!” which they will take to mean it’s normal, which is the most dangerous view of all.

            By showing the world as it is, artists can inadvertently reinforce the very flaws they seek to highlight. The art reflects the world, and the world – upon seeing its reflection – says, “This is how it should be,” or perhaps, “This is how it is, and there’s nothing to be done about it.” Then the art is no longer teaching us about the flaws in the world; it is teaching us to make all the same mistakes of the past.

            It makes me wonder what the difference would be if there was a dramatic shift in art – from reflecting the world as it is, to reflecting the world as it could be. What changes might be wrought in our society if, rather than displaying and normalising how everything is, art showed us how the world could be? I suppose it’s possible that it could do nothing. On the other hand, it might make all the difference in the world.

Check out my YouTube channel where I tell the stories of my D&D campaigns.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Earn the Right to Complain

            This week, as I cast my vote for my provincial elections at an early polling station, I was asked if this was my first time voting. Amused, I replied that it wasn’t, and assured the questioner that I’m somewhat older than I look. But, then I reflected on it and realized that, while I’ve voted in the last few federal elections, this may actually be my first time voting in a provincial one.

            Looking back, I distinctly remember not caring at all when I was first old enough to vote. I didn’t see what good it would do – I was only one person, after all, and, quite frankly, I didn’t care what the government did. I didn’t feel that who was elected to government had any direct impact on my life. So, I didn’t vote.

            I think it’s a major failing in our education system that we don’t teach people the importance of voting – at least, not in a way that sticks or that they care about. I did have a mandatory Civics course that lasted half a semester where we were taught how to vote and given the basics on the structure of the government, but I don’t recall being taught the why of any of it. Admittedly it may have been because I lacked interest and none of what I was taught stuck, but young people not voting seems far too common a thing for it to have been just me.

            So, it falls to parents to educate their children on voting, which is a catastrophe on its own. Some people don’t vote because they don’t care and don’t think it matters, while others vote for the same party every time because that’s what’s “done”, and others believe people should choose for themselves and avoid talking about it at all. It’s made all the more difficult because talking about politics is considered a taboo subject.

            It’s fair to say that I picked up my parents’ political leanings, even though it wasn’t a major topic in my house. Even so, it was because I agreed with their views, not because I was blindly following. When I chose not to vote in that first election I was eligible to vote in, they respected my decision – though they reiterated the one idea that had been present all my life: If you don’t vote, you don’t get to complain about the government.

            It’s a very simple idea, yet powerful. It taught me the idea that you have to earn your right to complain about the government by voting, because if you didn’t vote, you obviously didn’t care enough, so it’s your own fault. You may not feel like one vote in a pool of thousands, or millions, counts for much, but if you didn’t cast your vote into that pool, you didn’t partake in the system and, thus, have no right to complain.

            Still, I didn’t vote. Not until a government came into power that started doing things I disagreed with – a government whose every decision seemed to fly in the face of what it meant to be Canadian and that was dragging the international name of Canada through the mud. But, as I saw this, I realized that I couldn’t complain about it. I hadn’t voted, and so I had no right to complain. But the very next federal election, I did vote. The same government ended up in power, but at least this time I felt I had done what I could to fight against it. I had earned my right to complain about what they did.

            So, today’s lesson is: vote. It doesn’t matter if you think who you vote for will win or not, the important part is to make your voice heard, however small it may be. Be it in this election, or any other election to come, anywhere in the world, vote. Vote, or be prepared to remain silent and live with the decisions made by others.

            Earn your right to complain.

Check out my YouTube channel where I tell the stories of my D&D campaigns.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Lights Out

            This week’s blog is brought to you courtesy of a massive ice storm, although it may be coming late for the same reason. It’s really quite remarkable how, when the power goes out, everything in life just seems to... stop. There’re no lights, no heat, only battery-powered electronics which must be conserved, and no internet (unless there’s data around). However, there’s something else that vanishes, too: pressure.

            Our lives have become so reliant on technology that as soon as it’s no longer there, all those important things we have to constantly be doing no longer matter. Yes, there’s an element of anxiety about not being able to complete required tasks, but the power is gone – it’s out our hands; there’s nothing we can do about it, so it’s easy to push aside.

            We’re then left with our biggest problem: what do we do with ourselves? To me, it’s astonishing that it’s so hard to figure out what to do with myself when the power is gone, because I’m right in that age group that transitioned from very limited technology use to constantly being plugged in. I remember a time when I had far more free time, and yet I still managed to keep myself occupied, but somehow I now have no idea what to do when technology ceases to function.

            I think a big part of it is shock, because looking around I can find things I do fairly regularly that don’t require technology. Reading. Conversing. Board games. Drawing. The activities exist, but it’s a so much smaller pool of tasks that the brain is easily tricked into thinking there’s nothing to do.

            Yet, at the same time, there’s that element of reaction. Not only is there less we what to do, there’s less we’re able to do. Our technology has given us the ability to do lots of things very fast, sometimes many things at once. As we became used to this, it became an expectation not only that we could accomplish so much, but that we should.

            Then the power goes out, and everything slows down. Our attention is drawn to all the things in life that we take for granted. We have to remind ourselves of other ways of getting things done, and of other things we have to do.

            I’d be the last person to claim we need less technology in our lives, but at the same time I think it’s important to pause and remember that we don’t have to constantly be going so fast; that, in fact, without all our technology we wouldn’t be able to. What better time to reflect upon this than when the power vanishes and all the lights go out.

Check out my YouTube channel where I tell the stories of my D&D campaigns.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Basic Income

            There’s this concept being experimented with right now called Basic Income. Some countries already have it and some others are testing it, but I don’t think there is nearly enough information about it given out. The essential concept is that the government gives everyone of the age of majority enough money to live off of – and, after that, all you get told are the details about how the system works – not why it is being done.

            Based on that surface information, there are a number of different responses that jump straight into people’s heads. The ones that really get to me are the people who complain about the government giving money to people who aren’t working for it – a response that shows they have no idea either how an economy works, or how people think.

            The latter isn’t really their fault – we’ve been trained to think that work is unpleasant and that, given the opportunity, no one would work. This has fostered the belief that anyone on any kind of government support is simply lazy and feeding off the rest of society, which is completely untrue. Sure, there are some people who abuse the system, but the majority of people getting money from the government A. need it for one reason or another and B. would much rather be working for their money.

            The truth is that we humans need work. It’s not merely a way to make money; it’s a method for passing the time. Without it, we’d go stir-crazy. Sure, the idea of playing video games all day every day may appeal to some people, but after about three months of that our brains long for something different (yes, I’m speaking from experience) – and that’s where work comes in. We need a variety of things to do, and work helps break up the time, making enjoyable activities more enjoyable.

            Apart from that, no one wants to just be handed money. Oh, we think we do, but it’s just as unrewarding as spending the entire day on the social media website of your choice. It feels horrible to be living off the charity of others, so, given the option, most people avoid it. So why does anyone accept these ‘government handouts’ then? Because money is needed to survive – and our strongest instinct is to survive.

            So, how does this Basic Income thing help? First, it makes it for everyone, meaning that the stigma associated with accepting government money are lessened, making it seem like a less horrible option. Next, it makes it easy to get on to – being automatic for everyone. Finally, it encourages everyone to get off of it: it’s only enough money to cover basic expenses, so if people want cars, houses, the latest books or videogames, TV channels, or any of that, they still have to get a job. However, it doesn’t just vanish as soon as someone gets a job, it simply fades out as the person makes more money – but at a rate where the person is still earning on top of their basic living expenses. In essence, you get given, say, $20,000 per year – if you start working, your income goes up by half your earnings until you’re making about $40,000 per year, at which point the Basic Income drops out.

This means that people with disabilities are able to work fewer hours and get a better income, while still having the security that, if worst comes to worst, they won’t end up living on the streets. In fact, it means that no one need ever end up on the streets again! Just like that, a bulk of the homeless problems are solved.

            But wait, there’s more! Think of all the drastic changes a system like this makes to the whole society. Students won’t need as much debt to go through school, people who lose jobs won’t have to panic about finding new jobs, and people can work fewer hours to get the money they need to survive – which will improve mental health across the board.

            Then there’s the work environments – remember that horrible boss you had once? Or that dangerous work environment? The co-workers who made you dread going to work? You couldn’t quit, because you needed the money to survive. But with a Basic Income, you could safely take the risk of quitting and finding a new job, knowing your base expenses can be paid. That may seem a small thing at first, but think – how many bad bosses will there be if their employee’s aren’t trapped working for them? How many unsafe environments if the employees feel safe walking out? The system would actually force work environments to improve. Employers would be forced to earn their employees’ respect and loyalty.

            Then there are all the would-be entrepreneurs out there. Starting a business takes a lot of money and risks. How many more brilliant businesses might start if there is a guaranteed safety net?

            Hang on a moment, though. This is still money being given out by the government. That means it comes from our taxes! Well, yes, but that’s the most brilliant part of it. You see, there are people out there who would have you believe that the best thing for the economy is to give more money to rich people, so they can spend that money on more extravagant things, which generates more jobs and pays more people. Yet, however hard they try to prove trickle-down economy, people are always able to find holes in the arguments and math.

            The truth is that the opposite is true. The economy functions through the movement of money, and the poorer someone is, the more likely they are to spend their money. People with a lot of money have a stockpile of it. If you give $20 to a corporation, they don’t turn around and spend it – they put it in a holding tank, where it may take ages for it to get passed on to someone else. That’s where the economy goes to die. On the other hand, if you give $20 to someone who barely survives from paycheck-to-paycheck, they’ll spend every penny of it and fuel the economy.

            So, yes, the money comes out of taxes, but even though it looks like it’s being given away for free, it’s actually improving the economy. But, in truth, it shouldn’t be thought of as the government giving away the taxes you worked so hard to pay – it should be thought of as a country investing in its people. Once the system is up and running, taxes will be more like paying off the money that was invested in you while you were building your life. And, once you start thinking about it like that, you’ll be happy to pay your taxes, secure in the knowledge that they’ll be going to someone else who is still building their life. Perhaps even your own kids.

            Imagine if a Basic Income could be implemented around the world – converting poverty into unlocking everyone’s full potential.

Check out my YouTube channel where I tell the stories of my D&D campaigns.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Stories We Tell

            When I was six or so, my family was sitting around the breakfast table telling stories of the dreams we’d had. This wasn’t an irregular occurrence, but something different happened this time: my dad had a dream to share. Normally he only commented on how he didn’t dream, so when he commented that last night, he had a dream, he had our rapt attention.

            It was an extraordinary and hilarious tale about his encounter with an aggressive pink rhino, which he had eventually befriended. To this day I don’t know for sure if he made it up on the spot and wrote it down later, or if he’d prepared it in advance. It doesn’t really matter – what matters is that it was the start of something wonderful.

            I honestly don’t know how it happened, but it led to my dad coming into the grades 1-3 my brother and I both were in to tell the story of the Pink Rhino again, and the story was loved by the whole class – so much so that it became a regular thing. My dad began producing more Robert Munch-esque stories and telling them for my class. It wasn’t just the incredible stories themselves – it was the way he told them, which I would love to describe to you, but in truth it’s something you’d have to experience.

Some of the stories involved members of the class, like Pictures, a story about a talented artist in the class named Mallory whose pictures came to life when put on the refrigerator (causing no end of problems), or The Scratch – a story about the fight I had with Rotten Rosco, the most fearsome pirate to sail the Canadian highways, that he wrote over the weekend as an explanation for a huge scratch I’d gotten on my face from running into a tree. Others grew into massive class projects, like the Ordinary Story, a rhyming story about a boy and a girl who wander into the woods and befriend a troll – after this story, our class worked together to create an enchanted forest from plasticine.

            Looking back on that time, I find it incredible how many engaging and humorous stories he wrote, memorized, and told over the short three years I was in that classroom. It led to him joining the local storytellers’ guild and telling stories at a number of other venues as well – including an event for my wife’s homeschool group, before I even met her.

            Looking back on that, it’s no wonder that, with that in my background, I grew up with a passion for telling stories. However, there’s one conversation I had with my dad several years ago that has stuck with me ever since – it was the day he told me how impressed he was that I could write full length books. I looked at him in astonishment and told him that he could easily write a novel as well. I, myself, was (and am) still impressed with all his shorter stories. I’ve only written a few short stories in my time, and almost all of them leave an opening for more to happen – making them more like first chapters than short stories. Writing something novel-length is far easier to me.

            I think that was the first day I came to appreciate a key element of human nature: our tendency to be blind to that which makes us extraordinary because it comes easily to us. We think that, because we find it easy, everyone must find it easy, and that the things we find hard and that other people find easy means that those people are more extraordinary than us.

            We teach kids that everyone is unique and special, but we don’t go on to tell them what that actually means. It means that everyone has their own skills and talents, and those are what make them extraordinary. If something comes easily to you, that’s probably one of the things that makes you special. And those things you wish you could do that other people seem so good at, but that they seem to think it’s no big deal that they can do it? That’s what makes them special, and they just might admire you for the things you find to be easy.

            Sure, I’ll never be able to sit at the front of a room and captivate an audience with the way I tell a story – at least, not like my dad can – but I have my own ways of telling stories that are just as good. Not to mention, requiring far less energy to present. And quieter. Much quieter.

Check out my YouTube channel where I tell the stories of my D&D campaigns.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Blurring the Lines

            Last week showed gave me one of the greatest experiences I‘ve had to date while playing Dungeons & Dragons – and, believe me, I’ve had a lot of great things come out of that game. Those who’ve played D&D know that, every now and then, there are moments that are... indescribable. But that doesn’t mean I won’t try to describe them anyway. These moments happen when the players are so invested in what’s happening in the game that they almost forget that they’re playing a game. It almost seems like reality blends over into the game world.

            Most often, these times come in situations that bring up strong emotions for the characters – sometimes it’s when the characters are bonding; sharing tales of their past and feeling vulnerable. Sometimes it’s when they are discussing what they want to do next and they have very hard decisions to make. Sometimes it’s when one of the characters has died – and it feels like an actual friend has been lost.

            This week, I presented the players in my game with a decision that would shape the future of the world they’re playing in – and I was careful to make the decision as challenging as possible. You can read a more detailed account of the game over here, but for the purposes of this blog I’m just going to outline the scenario.

            The players have helped found a settlement in a new land that seems to be bereft of civilization. They have been working hard to establish the place and keep it safe. In this game session, they woke up one morning to discover that the settlement’s first baby was being born, to someone they had known for a long time and was very close friends with one of the characters. The child was born, but he was a tiefling (a demonic form of humanoid that is generally mistrusted by society) – which might not have been a problem if his mother hadn’t been a human. A mob arose, crying “demon worship” and “witch” and wanting to slay the mother and child.

            The player characters were on hand to diffuse the situation, but it was a bit much for them alone. They had to get the help of a known racist (racism in D&D tends towards species, rather than skin color) who had a great deal of influence. He managed to disperse the crowd with a promise that the council (which the players are part of) would solve the problem. Then, at the council, he proposed the idea of segregating the settlement into districts based on race.

            As you can guess, the players (most of which have characters of minority races) were not too happy about this, but the council put it to a vote, with each council member voicing their opinion. Now, as the Dungeon Master of the game, I had to put a lot of work into this situation. I wanted the players to have a direct influence on the outcome of this vote, so the majority of the rest of the council had to vote in favor of the segregation – which meant I had to come up with a lot of very convincing reasons for it; a challenge for someone who is actually opposed.

            In the end, the scenario was designed so that, in order to avoid segregation, the players had to all vote against it – plus, on top of that, they had to convince the final voter, who would break the tie. Now, here’s what happened:

            After hearing the arguments of the rest of the council, one of the players was actually swinging towards voting for segregation (a very rewarding situation for me, on its own, because it meant that the arguments I came up with were believable and convincing). The other five wouldn’t even consider it. One by one, they each gave an impassioned speech against racial segregation; about why this plan would fail and backfire. They didn’t just say “my character gives a speech”, they actually made the speeches themselves. Each and every one of them was incredible – so much so that I wish I’d recorded the session so I could share their words. They were so well thought-out and convincing that they convinced they brought the final member of their party back to their side of the argument.

            And they easily convinced the swing vote (and even some of opposing votes) that they were correct, successfully preventing the entire settlement from going down a very dark path.

            The amazing part is how connected they were to the whole scenario, and that even I – the man behind the curtain who knows how everything works and pulls all the strings – was drawn into that psudo-reality where the story we were telling became something more than just a story. That’s very hard to achieve from the DM’s omnipotent position.

            Those are the rare and glorious moments that make D&D more than just a game – it briefly transforms into something magical shared by a group of people. I wish they happened more frequently, but then, I suppose they wouldn’t be as special then.

            Still, if you ever wondered why people play something like D&D, this is partially why. It’s also why you should try it out, too.

Check out my YouTube channel where I tell the stories of my D&D campaigns.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Built in Obsolescence

            Today I shall say a few word on built in obsolescence. This is something in our current world that is both very important, and extremely horrendous. It is the idea of making products with the express intent that they will only last for a certain amount of time before needing to be replaced.

            A first look at this process (which is used in a great many industries) at first glance looks like a money grab – and it is, to a certain extent. If you build something that lasts forever and sell it to them, you sell one item. On the other hand, if you build something that lasts for 5 years and sell it to someone, they keep coming back every 5 years for a new one.

            It’s a type of job security, for everyone from retail to manufacturing to design. It fuels the economy by ensuring that within our materialistic society people just keep buying more and more things. It sounds horrible – and it is – but there’s a flip side to it: progress.

            Putting an expiry date on items that otherwise need not expire allows for constant work towards improving products. If there wasn’t such a constant turnover of people buying more smart phones, how fast would improvements to them be developed? Not very fast, because there would be far less demand and there wouldn’t be money to pay the researchers.

            So, it’s not all bad, from a certain point of view. In fact, it’s necessary for how our society functions. It makes more jobs, and keeps people with the latest technology. On the other hand, it is extremely inefficient and wasteful. It’s a bit of a conundrum, and not one that’s easy to fix.

            Where is the balance between continuing to improve products and keeping people in jobs, and less waste accompanied by people not needing to spend so much money? There must be a way, but whatever it is will be hard for us to find. The way things work right now are so ingrained in our society that it’s hard to imagine another way.

            We need to view the problem from the outside – and probably completely restructure our society.

Check out my YouTube channel where I tell the stories of my D&D campaigns.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Opinionated Facts

            We humans have a very bad habit of assuming our opinions are facts. It seems a strange thing to do, but we do it nevertheless, and, once they’re formed, we will defend our opinions ‘til the end of the world, often regardless of other information.

            The fact that a man lies dead in his bed is indisputable. Yet, with no other information than that single sentence, you just formed an opinion about the cause of his death. If you readers were to express those opinions to each other, there’s a good chance you would end up arguing about it. Some would say the man died of natural causes, comfortably in his bed. Others would say he was murdered. Some might even posit that an accident occurred where he slipped and bumped his head on the side of the bed.

            A few more facts would only fuel the argument. The dead man is splayed on the bed, face down. It can be argued that this is how he sleeps, possibly tossing and turning. Of course, it could also be that he was killed, and that’s how he landed – or perhaps he was smothered. The splayed position also works for someone who has fallen.

            A glass of some clear liquid lies spilled on the floor beside the bed. That may sway some of those who believe that this was a natural death to the side of the murder-believers, but the staunchest supporters will insist that he could have knocked it off the bedside table as he slept. On the other hand, it could be poisoned. Is it even water? Perhaps the man had been drinking, which led to that fateful bump on the head.

            Facts are points of information, but what they mean is so often opinion. This is evident in the scientific process – when an experiment is designed, it is done with the intent of proving a specific theory – which means that there is already an opinion about what the results will reveal. If there is any room for interpretation in those results, what do you think the findings will be?

            The more we discover, the more humans become aware of this discrepancy. It has led many to believe that there is no such thing as reality – that facts are only there to support reality. This has led to all kinds of confusion and even beliefs that the facts, themselves, may be changed to suit one’s needs.

            However, there obviously is only one reality (the one I believe in, of course), otherwise we wouldn’t be able to interact in it. The real trouble comes from the facts – or, rather, either the lack of facts, or the way the facts are presented. For there is far too much information in the world for one person to discover on their own, and the only way to get a sufficient amount of facts is through someone else’s opinion.

            That means we are required to trust someone else’s opinion in order to gain the information we require. That seems reasonable enough – only, why would you trust the opinions of someone who has a different opinion than you?

            So, the facts are that a man lies dead on his bed. He’s splayed face-down, and there’s a spilled glass of a clear liquid on the floor. There’s also a red silk scarf wrapped around his neck. How did he die?

Check out my YouTube channel where I tell the stories of my D&D campaigns.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Frogger Game of Life

            Last night, while driving home in the pouring rain, I saw a brownish-yellow leaf on the road, highlighted by my headlights. As the car drew nearer, the leaf seemed to be lifted by the wind and carried in two arcs to the side of the road. In fact, it looked almost like it was hopping.

            The idea was still forming in my mind that it may have been a frog (or toad) when I saw another one. This one was sitting on the edge of the road and I was able to distinguish that, yes, this was some type of amphibian, and it confirmed my suspicions about the previous ones I’d seen.

            Having identified the first two frogs, I was then able to spot more – and there were a lot along this particular stretch of road, all trying to get to the other side. Luckily I was able to avoid hitting them, but it did get me thinking about the situation.

            Had it not been for the specific lighting provided by the combination of the rain and the headlights, I never would have seen those frogs. And while some of them expertly dodged the car, Frogger style, there were others that I actively steered around – those ones would certainly have ended up squished and I never would have known. Perhaps they ended up flat anyway, courtesy of another car with a driver who didn’t notice their presence, or perhaps one who did notice and simply didn’t care.

            It struck me as a perfect metaphor for the relationship between humans and the natural world. For centuries we’ve blundered around, shaping the world to fit our needs. Sometimes, some of us notice that we’re causing harm and we do what we can to stop it. Others of us never even notice the harm, or refuse to believe harm is being caused. Some people are aware of the harm and just don’t care.

            The greatest threat to the frogs are the people who don’t even know they’re there. We could, of course, tell them that the frogs are there, but we humans are a skeptical lot. We like to see things with our own eyes. What we really need to do is provide the correct lighting conditions so people can see the frogs for themselves. Then it’s up to them what kind of person they want to be.

            Personally, in life’s great game of Frogger, I want to be the type of person who helps get the frog safely across the road.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.