Channeled - A Look Into One Man's Psyche

I'd like to be upfront and honest about something before I really get started today. February 6th will be an important day for me. It was the day I began to question myself. Not in the "why am I here [on Earth]" question, but rather why am I here in the blogosphere. I read something that was never intended to garner an emotional response and weeks of deep introspection. It was a simple blog post intending to say goodbye. Tamarind, over at the newly unoccupied Rightous Orbs said something that simply proved to me that I was not as confident as I should be.

"It is fitting that people appear, write, and then fade away; that others come to take their places, and say the same things in different ways."

Was this me? I know for a fact that he wasn't even thinking about me when he wrote this, but nevertheless it resonated and caused me to consider whether I was one of those that were just saying the same things that have been said over and over and over as one in the long line of bloggers that come and go from the WoW blogosphere.

I've been frozen since then, unable to generate any thought for fear of it being so completely unoriginal, worried that my thoughts were the 14th encarnation, the 12th actually put to words and sent over the vast internet[s]. But why? Why should it matter? Even if it's not completely original, it may be relevant to me and my current experiences. And if that's the case then it's worthy to [cut] and paste. Sorry, bad attempt at humorous rhyming.

More than that, I haven't read much as I've only been reading and blogging for a little over a year now (one year and about 20 days), which means that I don't know what's been said. So, for the sake of overcoming my own self-esteem issues, I remembered the reason I blog in the first place. I firmly believe that people matter, you and me included I hope, and that people are the ones actually playing MMO's like WoW (with some exceptions perhaps). Every person experiences something while they play, be it good or bad. Those experiences have the potential to affect the real lives in some small or large way.

The point is, we all feel. Well, there may be a few unfeeling terds out there, but I bet even those feel something, even if it is self-loathing. Anyhoo, we feel, we think, we laugh, we scream, we grow tired or sick. We hide our gaming self from the world or we are liberated to celebrate it with those who employ us. So many of the experiences that our level 85 Fire Breathing Mage or Warlock are shared experiences with the person at the keyboard and mouse combo. I've never been too shy to be personal here on this blog, it's how I roll because if I don't show the real me, then how will I ever connect with the real you?

There's a story I want to share, and I'll have the pleasure of relating that experience directly into the WoW experience.

The Girl

I'm married now, but it wasn't always that way. Yes, believe it or not I was once a nerdy teenager, entirely too self-absorbed and critical. I was a handsome dude, to put it lightly, and I had the unfortunate habit of refusing to dance with a girl once. ONE TIME ONLY, I might add, a terrible mistake which I never afterward repeated. This girl was a couple years younger than me at the time of the unfortunate incident. I continued on in life, oblivious to her and her feelings. Around the time I was 18 I saw her again and was struck dumb and fool by her overwhelming beauty and perfection.

I was in love, or at least the love a teenager can possess, which differs in everyone. We had the opportunity to be a part of something wonderful, and do it together. Joy was in everything, life was rich, music rang from the houses and the hills, the sea and the air. Quite literally, in fact, as we were both chosen to sing in the musical The Sound of Music. I was to play the part of the young traitor Rolf, while she was the lovely eldest daughter of the Captain Von Trapp, Liesel.

For those of you who don't know, one of the most memorable scenes in the play/movie is where the young man and woman sing and dance with each other and ultimately kiss at the end. For girls it's utterly romantic, for boys it's deserving of some "whoops and hollas" from your bros in the audience. For me it was magic.

Opening night arrived, the backstage area was electric as adrenaline pulsed through the veins of all the actors and stage crew, director and orchestra. It was a monumental accomplishment for such an ameteur group of singers; I was on the verge of something wonderful. Shortly before costume and makeup time I was chatting with one of the other younger actresses who played Liesel's sisters. From out of nowhere she decided to tell me something that my beautiful sidekick had told her...in confidence. It was about our kissing during the hundreds of rehersals pervious.

"She said it was a bit dry, not very impressive. I'm surprised she doesn't just gag instead."

Now, what could have possibly motivated this young lady to say such a thing to me I have no idea. I was shocked, floored, destroyed. In a few short seconds all my hopes and dreams for love were vanishing into the void, and all because I had laid a fairly dry kiss on a girl. (Mind you, it was always in front of the entire cast, and so I was nervous ALL THE TIME in rehersals). My desire to see this queen of perfection outside of the play seemed to vanish before the eyes of my very soul. My psyche forever tarnished.

I don't remember making my way up the stairs and into my dressing room, but the next thing I know I'm there. Sitting in his chair was the lead actor, with one look at my face he jumped to my side pleading to allow him to assist me, for I looked quite ill to him.

"No, I'm not ill," I told him. "Just heartbroken." I related the story to him and watched as he listened intently, not saying a single word until I had finished my story. Slowly he placed his hand on my shoulder and said:

"Don't let this get you down. Channel this feeling, all the disappointment, sadness, hate, love, everything you have into your character, into your performance. Let these feelings channel into your heart and mind and focus you like you've never focues before."

That was it, he was done. With another pat on the shoulder and a "break a leg" while walking out the door, I was left to wonder if it was even possible to channel what I felt in to something positive.

But I did it.

Everything I had ever felt for this girl, past and present, I allowed to envelope me completely. I wouldn't even speak to her or anyone else before going on stage. I was a machine internally, but to the crowd I turned into Rolf, Rolf as he really was and how everyone should see him.

The beautiful one and I sang and danced as we had never done before. And as the scene came to its conclusion, we kissed as we had never done before. In that one kiss there was passion, warmth, hate, betrayal, love and confusion. Everything poured out and we shone as a result. Drawing all power from the grid we lit up the city, and people in our town talked about us for years afterwards. All because those feelings were channeled, focused into the power to accomplish a worthy goal.

That was my life, and my life isn't mutually exclusive from the games I play, and now a part of my life is a game. A small part to be sure, but a part nonetheless.

Channeling in WoW

It can be done, and successfully at that. There have been times when I have listened to a raid leader implore the group to "get it right for once", and other stuff less appropriate for children along those same lines of thought. Those times when I allow myself to become frustrated at that leader or at someone who is clearly making multiple mistakes, are times when I begin to fail. But those times when I can successfully focus all those positive and often negative emotions into my ability to concentrate on the task at hand are those times I find my greatest successes.

Perhaps I'm in a BG and someone is yelling at everyone else to NOT BE SO BAD, when that happens I try to take all that disdain and channel it into performance. Sometimes it works, sometimes I lose focus and I fail badly. But the opportunities are there for me, for you, for many other gamers out there. We play with other people, people with different opinions, values, personalities, and often we clash with these folks to the point were we either want to vomit or just punch them in the face. Since their faces are not within punching distance, there is another option. Channeling. Channel your hate of that trade chat idiot into something worthwhile. Maybe you can just ignore him/her, which makes channeling unnecessary. But you can't ignore everyone, it's literally impossible.

So I say to you, give it a try. Next time you get frustrated, focus, channel those emotions into somthing beneficial, something positive that rewards you and leaves you feeling accomplished. Don't listen to the yelling of the raid leader, listen to the words, then channel the emotion that is on the verge of boiling over into a great performance this week, this month, or whenever.

Who Am I?

I've thought about it, and here I've given it to you. These thoughts, however many times they have been expressed, have never been done so by me to you in this manner. This fact, above all else, tells me to keep on keeping on in this here interesting blogosphere. It's a pleasure to talk with you, to receive you to my little corner of the world, to get personal with you, and maybe, just maybe, connect with one of you.

Come back soon sometime!

Fancy Talk and Arguments

I am not a philosopher. I am not intimately familiar with the structure of a valid or sound argument. I know of many fallicies and can recognize some of them when used, but I am not close to being an expert. But I have 5 senses still, for which I am grateful, and I have instinct. With these highly imperfect tools I can sniff out, see clearly, hear with perfection the most ridiculous arguments that are intended to either sway my opinion or prove my opinion false.

Pardon me for getting just a little bit political, but politicians are perfect examples. I will tie this into wow, trust me. For those of you outside the US, we have a television channel here in the States called CSPAN. On it we can watch our congress hold hearings, debates, congressional sessions and votes. It's a wonderful opportunity to watch our fearless leaders debate the most important subjects.

My favorite to watch are sessions where they question our head of the Federal Reserve Bank. Many of there questions are phrased like this:

"Thank you Mr. Bernanke for being here today. I am sure that you saw, as well as I did, that the DOW (Dow Jones Industrial Average) had an intraday loss just yesterday of over 900 points. Does this not prove that President Obama is not managing our economy well and we need to lower corporate tax rates equal to the lowest in the world? You're a sensible man, I see, can you please explain what the President is doing wrong in a way that everyone here can understand?"

Can you smell it? Some say it's horse, I say it's cow dung. First of all, the question wasn't really a question, was it? No, it was a statement of opinion formed in a way as to illicit a desired resonse at best, and a display of political positioning at worst. The senator/congressman has no intention of having the question answered, he's just taking the stage to make a point with no supporting evidence for purely political purposes.

Admittedly this is just a blog, which I believe means that the opinions expressed here are my own and there's a good chance that I use illogical and unsupported arguments to make my point, just like any good or bad politician does on a daily basis. But some arguments just stink more than others, meaning some are so unfounded and ridiculous and unsupported by any fact that you have the right to put on your gas mask and run for fresher air on another blog.

I am not about to get into a fight with any other bloggers out there, so you'll just have to trust me that my comments here today are as a result of something that I've read elsewhere, but I won't demean myself by attacking that blogger, I'm not popular enough to do that just yet.

While reading through a few friendly blogs this morning I stumbled accross two conflicting points of view. I found both to be extreme points and both stunk of disdain for the other. But the disdain was overshadowed by the lack of thought or evidence that was placed into either of their arguments. I concluded that either both truly believed what they were saying or were arguing varying point just because they dislike each other.

We see this often on the official forums and even in our own trade chat in game. People make comments about gear, dungeons, raids, social activity, class balance, gold making, PUGS, and each comment is biased based on both the experience and belief of that individual. Sometimes comments are simply malicious because that's what the person wants to be.

There is no reason to say to somebody else that they are a &$@*$&^% retartd, is there? Why would you? And why would you do it in public? I can only guess that you would want to show yourself superior, show that you're right at the expense of another.

There are simple issues of debate, such as what class and sub-spec are OP and which are broken. It's obviously subjective and equally predictable that your class clearly isn't optimized, while the other person emphatically declares that you are not broken but indeed OP because you keep beating him in duels. Who is right? Probably neither, but the relativity of the argument is what entertains the two. Perhaps that is why people make such offending comments on a blog, forum or chat - they wish to be entertained by colorful debate regardless to the logic instituded in such a debate.

I've heard some say that until you truly PvP in a hardcore way you will never know everything about your class. Others claim that those uninterested in making wow gold are idiots, not uninterested. Still others believe that heroics can only be tanked by toons decked out in full T9 gear. These common arguments beg the question, why? Why do people feel the need to make these claims? Are they true? I think both you and I have our gas masks at the ready when we hear them, why? It's not because we have imperical evidence to counter the arguments, it's because we have multiple working humans senses and an instinct to not step in cow dung.

I've made the argument on this blog that the real life persona is "IN PART" transfered into the games we play. In what way do I mean? Well obviously I am not so stupid as to believe that I am a participant like those in the 1980's movie Tron where humans were literally digitized into a video game. Nor do I mean that I do what my animated toon does (i.e. slay dragons with swords or axes), it's a ridiculous notion and an insult to my intelligence to inply that that is what I mean.

What I mean is that a part of our personality and our attitudes we project THROUGH our character. Mainly it is via the form of chat or vent, where our real life voice is heard (or read). We speak things that we would in real life, often we say things that we would only say in real life if there were no consequences. Our voice is very real (excepting Role Players, of course) and most of the time we mean what we say and we cannot hide the portion of our personality that comes out in those words.

Example. I used to play with a mentally handicap person (before he server and faction transferred). Dispite his mild mental handicap, there were a significant amount of people who were rude to him whenever he lost control of his faculties. Sometimes he would say rough and even offending things, but it was mainly due to his handicap, not his personality. But in response people would get enraged and return offense in kind. Even when they knew of his handicap, they would respond to his outbursts such.

Now put all of us in the same room together, and in comes a doctor to explain what mental handicap person X has. No matter what person X says or does, how many of you do you think will exclaim "SHUT UP YOU #$%@%@#$% RETARD!" How many of you would say that to his face? Hopefully none, probably none...for fear of public appearances and scorn for treating the mentally handicap in such a manner.

But people blogging, posting on forums or in chat have no fear of any consequence or retribution. There is no accountability for what you say or how you say it. I guess for a blogger the worst is that people stop reading. But given the type of entertainment news that exists in the world and the high ratings that such gossip media gets, we can probably assume (based on that empirical evidence) that there are a lot of people who like it when they read a blog who states the everyone who disagrees with him/her is an idiot.

I fully admit that any examples that I used here are anecdotal, and not based on years of scientific research. Heck, even if they were many would likely reject it stating that the science was "probably" bad to begin with.

I guess what I'm trying to say is to watch out for politicians wearing blogger hats. Be careful not to be deluded into believing something just because somebody says it in a way that makes you laugh or illicits some strong emotion in you that you can't quite describe but you succumb to their tenants out of lack of any viable opposition.

We all enjoy a good argument, I as much as anyone out there. But please, if you're going to make a statement on your blog about the factual nature of something, I would appreciate it if you didn't resort to politician-like arguments and facepalming. Insults are not arguments, they are insults no matter what kind of dress you put them in and what kind of makup you splatter over their face. When you insult somebody it's an affront to their character and personality.

For the record I think that Enhancement Shamans aren't as strong as they should be, we run into too many periods were everything is on cooldown. We need to be buffed big time! And nerf the Pali, for goodness sake...all specs! If Blizzard doesn't do this they are total idiots!

Who Am I?

If you ever wanted to read a story where the innermost thoughts and feelings of the main character are revealed with intimately poetic detail, then Victor Hugo's Jean Valjean would be that character. If you have read my blog before you know of my love for timeless literature, books that transcend nations and peoples and generation after generation.

My point in bringing up Valjean is that he was a criminal. When young he stole bread and was sentenced to prison. Following 19 years in jail he was released with legal papers showing to everyone he met that he was a convict, which limited his ability to gain meaningful employment, if any. He was nothing, a cur under the feet of dogs, whose abodes were too good for him.

Eventually he broke parole, and created a new identity for himself along with a new life. This life brought success, until one day an old nemesis (an Inspector Javert), believed he had captured Jean Valjean, the parole-breaker, and was to try him in court for his crime. The real Valjean found out about this and became quite vexed in both mind and soul. Should he let this innocent man pay for his crimes? Who was he to allow this to happen?

This story brought forth a musical, and in it a song titled "Who Am I?", which sings about the night Valjean spent in his room debating what path to take, to claim ownership of his true identity and live with the consequences, or continue living a lie in the shadows of life.

This story brings to my mind issues of identity within World of Warcraft (and any other MMO on the market). Who am I and who are you?

More specifically, how much of the "true you" do you keep hidden while playing vs how much you reveal? I realize that one thing that breaks down any barriers that you may put up is Ventrilo or Teamspeak. You can't hide the fact that you're a boy if you open your mouth and others hear your voice. But I'm not talking about guildies, for in a good guild I think we can open up more and make friends and learn stuff. What I refer to is the rest of the world.

Let me be the first to admit that I have kept a secret, even lied to somebody because it seemed like the right thing to do. When one of my toons was very young and I was new to the game I met a friend while running a dungeon. This person began whispering me whenever I logged in, and I did the same to her. I say her because she made it very clear that she was a girl.

The lie was that she also thought I was female, when I was not. I conversed with this person day after day, and soon I began to see that she started trusting me with some real life issues. Now being the really nice guy that I am I listened. I didn't offer too much adivce, I just tried to show that I understood what she was going through (to the best of my ability, of course). I mean, hey, guys have experiences too, who's to say we can't turn black to white and still understand the situation?

We don't talk every day anymore, we never were in the same guild and I stopped logging into that particular character to play with my others. But we still talk sometimes and I have no inclination to let her know that I am nothing other than what she believes me to be. Why? Because I think it would do more harm than good. Please take note that I did not open up nearly as much as she did, I just tried to listen more than talk.

I don't reveal a lot to people by choice, I don't want you or anyone on my server involved in my personal life. I'm not against it to the point where I refuse to help others cope with life, but I choose not to reveal things myself unless it's with guildies.

So how much of yourself do you reveal? Do you think you reveal more than you want to based on your actions or other factors? What's appropriate and what is off limits?

Operators are standing by.