I thought I would write whatever I wanted after my Grandma died.
It’s not that she was judgemental, she was one of the most kind and welcoming people in my life and I really wish she was still here with us. She loved reading what I wrote and hearing what was going on in my life. But she was from another era and I didn’t want to disappoint her, even as an adult so I’d hold some things back. It’s only after she was gone I realized that I had been really fucking silly, self censoring and robbing myself of an even better relationship.
This will also be about RPG’s at some point.
No surprise, it turns out I still haven’t written about or done everything I’ve wanted.
While I’ve grown since, I’ve found myself holding back on sharing ideas or feelings because of the hypothetical reaction of a cast of strangers in the street, relatives, good friends, paying fans, or faceless online critics. I’m sure a bunch of you can relate to the feeling of trying to cover up the messy reality of your truest self.
Ever since I can remember there’s always been the barely audible question in the back of mind- “What if you’re not enough?”. In middle school I once wore a baggy fake black leather jacket most days for a year because someone asked me to dance at a school social when I was wearing it. I formed a cargo cult of one around that jacket, thinking that it was somehow my magic ticket to fitting in.
I’m mostly proud of the life I’ve gone on to live so far since then, the person I’ve been, and the art I’ve made- but there’s more work to do to evict that whispered part that cringes, so the part that is cringe can be free. I bet it’ll make my books better too.
In my final year of college I told a friend for the first time that I was into guys and girls. He was so fucking unbothered, chill, and unsurprised while I was stressridden leading up to to it. I expected and almost wanted him to recognize the revelation’s enormity. To be shocked and say “No way! You?”. As if I seemed like the most normal passing motherfucker in the room. People can tell when you’re hiding something behind a cardboard cutout of some vision of who you think they want you to be. The reason people like you and your stuff is precisely because you’re not good at wearing the mask and the gooey, weird, humanity leaks out on the floor.
There’s a funny dynamic in indie RPG’s online. There’s a spectrum of how personal people are in their internet interaction ranging from presenting a sanitized all business promotional front to posting passionately to strangers about the specific dimensions of their struggles with mental illness. The first group is completely reasonable and I don’t know if the Internet is always the best venue for sharing (like this), but I do value the second group’s undeniable, messy, humanity. In a time where we’re being pushed to be more mechanical with our jagged corners smoothed, that’s important.
I’ve realized the part of me that’s uncomfortable with seeing people being weird and vulnerable is not because I think they’re weak, overdramatic, or lame but because I cringe at the thought of putting myself in the same situation, and the people I imagine judging, reacting, or commenting. The people who are the most critical and cynical of authentic efforts are often insecure themselves.
Barring some extreme circumstances- these imagined or real people’s opinions just don’t matter. Their sensation of cringe, or distaste is a reflection of whatever shit they’ve got in their own heads. I realized that I envy those that put it all out there, fail, and push again to their limits. I’ve gotten into a furrow of not pushing against my limits, my fears, and my artistic insecurities lately.
After all it took a bunch of work and growth to get here- why not take it easy? For me I feel like if I’m not working to expand the bounds of my comfort zone in life and art, I get stagnant and the looser shifting boundary zone begins to harden and calcify, like plaque you haven’t brushed off a tooth for too long. I’m going to make more difficult choices and conversations.
What this means for my RPG work in general is that I want to get more specific and personal to my interests- I’ve begun to catch the disease of thinking a bit about the marketability/business angle and tweaking even the earliest fun daydreaming stages when I’m writing a new project and it’s dangerous to let that grow untreated.
I’m so lucky to be able to work on something I enjoy doing (even when some days suck) and it would be such a shame to slowly optimize the joy and messiness away. There’s a lot of pressure out there for folks to try to monetize hobbies and interests that are genuine and happily unprofessional. When what you love is also what pays the bills, it’s sorta like going into business with a really close friend- you’ve got to set up some pretty tight boundaries to not grow to dislike each other and kill that spark that got you started.
There’s a lot of less invasive ways I can improve the business logistics and marketing behind the work, but as much as possible I want the business to exist to let me keep living and make art possible, not the other way around. It might be impossible to be embedded under capitalism and live and make art without compromises- but it’s worth trying to make less of them, if only for my own mental wellness.
I’m fortunate that I’m a single guy living somewhere relatively cheap with public healthcare and have been lucky with the level of reception to my past stuff so I can afford to take more risks and still be able to make the rent. As long as I can, I’ll keep throwing my guts at the wall for things to stick in a way that the oracles find auspicious.
At the core, what I love most about role playing games at their best is the ability to help us take off our baggy jackets and cardboard cutouts and the other junk we’re weighed down with for a few hours and agree to be real with each other while playing make believe. It’s a venue that gives permission to gather around the table to share our weird and embrace other’s odd edges, to better connect past the walls of our solitary skull castles. It’s great when I’m running a game for friends. It also makes me so happy when I hear about distant groups of people I’ve never met playing something I worked on, knowing that some part of me connected with them and helped share a fun evening of community together.
There’s a shitload of definitions of art but I think it’s the stuff that helps us break open cracks in those outer masks that get put on us, to connect to each other, and provide shared experience.
Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams is a recent behind the scenes view of her time as a former high ranking Facebook employee. While discussing her increasingly cold and inhuman coworkers she quotes John Updike that “Celebrity is a mask that eats into the face.”
Maybe society has always been that way, but the internet age has increasingly made brand management specialists of us all, glossy false fronts chewing away at the raw real meat underneath.
Ask the internal voices to shut up for a bit, the ones who hover around and critique you when you sit down to act honestly. Try to really accept these are bullshit insecurities and not objective revelations of capital T, truths. Make the scary thing. Touch the grass. Tell your real messy truths to each other.
Take off your masks while there’s still something left to eat.