"Things you Never Want to Hear your Dungeon Master Say", or, "Niche Humor"

"Roll Perception. Hah! You don't hear anything."

"Roll Anal Circumference check."

"Okay, odds or evens?"

 "Oh, good. You're playing a Paladin."

"My girlfriend will be joining the campaign."

"Does anyone here have Disarm Traps? No?"

"Hey, you. Roll 1d20. Oh, you'll see."

(Rolls dice.) "Hah."

"You feel the warm, familiar glow of Light slowly fade. [Player], you are now considered an Ex-Paladin."

"You feel strangely compelled to..."

"I don't like how you disabled and skipped that encounter. No one gains experience."

"That's a 50 DKP Minus!!!"

"The Queen's name is Ashley. She has curly red hair, cute dimples when she smiles, and SHE'S A CHEATING WHORE!"

"You guys have been just too damn lucky lately..."

"Hang on a sec." (Rolls some dice without any real purpose.) "Okay, continue,"

"Okay, you enter the room. Which one of you is in front?"

"You all meet at a tavern."

And, last but certainly not least...

"Are you sure?"

They said the Storm was Coming

They said the Storm was coming.
The sky was darkening, the sun was blotted out.
I heard only the wind, felt only rain on my naked body
The scent of the four winds permeated my nostrils
And I looked into your eye.
And I smiled.

They said the Storm was coming.
That the end is at hand.
And the children, eyes open wide with fear
Turned to their fathers, and their mothers,
To their sisters and brothers,
And they fled.

They said the Storm was coming.
I replied, “But there’s naught to fear!
These men will tell you nothing but lies!”
They turned to me, labeled me a heretic and a blasphemer
And they pierced me with ten thousand blazing swords
And I bled.

They said the Storm was coming.
So I fled from my home, taking nothing with me.
As I ran, the rains began to fall. Lightning rent the heavens asunder.
The glorious noise of thunder and water filled my soul
As I drank in the glories of what I beheld,
And I wept.

They said the Storm was coming.
And as the spirits of the Storm coursed through my veins
I remembered what those who pointed their fingers at me had said.
“The Storm is coming! It is not safe! Only with us can you truly live!  
Give us your silver and your gold, your sons and daughters, your staffs and your animals! The Storm is coming!”
But I am already here.

"In Darkness is Kindled the Fiercest of Hopes!"

"Hope" is an interesting word. In some languages, it's the same word for "expect" or "wait". In others, it's the same word as "confidence" or "knowledge", as in, something as fact. For some people, the word has a connotation as being overused and corny, but to others it feels as though a ray of light is shining onto their hearts.

No matter how it falls to your ears, I can say with certainty that there isn't enough going around.

Hope is a remarkably strong emotion. I'd say it's the second strongest, next to Love. The problem is that very few people of our age are experiencing enough Hope. I see people saying things like "Fuck expectations, all that's left is disappointment." and "We are all hypocrites, anyway." People are losing hope in themselves, in others, and in humanity as a whole. This nihilistic worldview hurts me so much to see. People need that ray of light to shine on their hearts-- They need something to lift them up.

The world is dark. It is war-torn, decayed, ragged, and barren. One thing it is not, however, is hopeless. A lot of people ask where Hope can be found. They see countries ravaged by poverty and famine. They see lives of loved ones taken by war. They see divorce. They see drugs. They see tragedy.

You can find hope within the ones you love. Your best friends, your family, your wives, husbands, girlfriends, boyfriends, sisters, brothers... These people can give you hope. However, it is not something that is done actively. We cannot transfer hope to other people. We can, however, set an example for our loved ones. We can give a smile to someone who needs one. We can give a crying child a new ice cream cone after she spilled hers on the sidewalk. We can return the wallet we found; cards, cash, and all.

I think of the word Hope a little bit differently than most, I would think. Hope to me is more than desperate uncertainty, gambling on a lucky die roll or coincidence. Hope to me is more certain that that. It's a very powerful thing, Hope. I urge you all to look toward the future with Hope, and look into the past only to relive a happy memory.

Our time is so short on this Earth. Everything we do-- Every drop of water we drink, every breath of life-giving air we take, every laugh we share with friends, everything we do should be an expression of Love. When we do this, we have such a great opportunity to inspire Hope in those we interact with! We can live in Harmony this way.

My favorite book to read when I need inspiration to find Hope is Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers by J. R. R. Tolkien. It may seem silly, but I always feel a very strong connection to the Hobbits in that book series. They are faced with such strong challenges, and due to their stature they are doubted by very many. (For those unfamiliar to the series, Hobbits or 'Halflings' are only half as tall as a grown man.) However, they have such powerful hearts that the challenges they face are defeated! It truly is something to admire. I hope to someday have Hope the way those characters do.

"By rights we shouldn't even be here. But we are. It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something."

"What are we holding onto, Sam?"

"That there's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo... and it's worth fighting for."

 

The Dao of Aging

"Those who speak, do not know. Those who know, do not speak." These famous words often attributed to Confucius actually appear in the 道德经，the earliest Daoist book of scripture written by 老子or LaoZi (Often written Lao Tzu). I have oftentimes consulted that book for wisdom when I don't know where else to turn.

Many people think I am wise. This could not be further from the truth! I am so foolish. I often say things I don't mean, and I fill my body and mind with garbage constantly. However, I do know right from wrong most of the time and I know what I stand for in this world.

Pictured above is my absolute favorite word in Chinese: dào​, meaning "way", "path", or "truth". It means so very much to me.

Earlier this week I got into an argument with someone I respect. I'm not proud of it. The things I said were very unloving and I wish I could take every one back. During this argument, this person made a few comments about how young I am and how very inexperienced I am. I was slightly offended.

I am young and inexperienced, I understand that very well. I've not even yet lived out a quarter of my life! I know I am very naive. However, as I said earlier, I do know right from wrong. The person I was arguing with believes that wisdom comes with age and experience, not with what we read in books. I could not agree more. However, everyone ages differently and experiences different things daily. This person is intelligent, having studied philosophy and discourse. He is a fair deal older than I am and thus has experienced different things.

However, age is not everything. It says in Buddhism, Daoism, and Christianity that to find true wisdom, one must become like a little child and see things with wonder; see things as though you are seeing them for the first time. This person believes I am headstrong and arrogant, thinking I have all the answers. He's half right. I am arrogant, and work to fix this every day of my life. I know, however, that the more I see, the less I know. I am constantly finding answers, but I always am given countless more questions for each answer I find.

I may not be as old as this person, but I can tell my right from wrong and I have learned much in my studies and experiences with other cultures, peoples, languages, and ideas.

The Dao of a person can be constantly changing, and is always transforming with everything we experience. This is not to say, however, that it gets better the more we age-- In fact, many times, people are so out of tune with the Dao that they start to look down on those who are younger.

I'm not trying to defend myself from this person's accusations, but instead want you, the reader, to keep an open mind to those who are younger than you. They may not have been around the sun as many times as you, but it's not a bad idea to listen to them with an open mind. We can live in Harmony this way.

Take Heart!

10 days since I was able to post last. Sorry about the delay-- The beginning of this semester has been quite a bit more hectic than I had planned for.

That, and I seem to have developed romantic feelings for someone. Hoboy.

This Sunday I woke up early so I would be able to do a bit of pre-semester preparing. I was all set with a banana for breakfast as I met my parents downstairs telling me we were going to see my little sister's choir group, the Croixaliers (of which I was a member for two years).

It was a bit of an unpleasant surprise. It wasn't that I didn't like seeing the Croixaliers perform-- I just didn't want to be drowned in the nostalgia of people that weren't even in the choir at the same time as me.

However, during the service, I began to look mindfully into my past and I had realized something I never really did before.

That choir just about saved my life.

Now, that's a bit of an exaggeration... You, as diligent readers, must have noticed that I have a flair for the dramatic. However, I should elaborate.

My years at my high school were filled with instances of favoritism and flukes, with only a few of such instances working in my favor. It was unpleasant always getting shafted. Naturally, I was surprised when I made into the choir the first year-- Especially when my equally gifted older sister wasn't so lucky.

I enjoyed it, but I never knew why. I would look forward to it, but it would be full of me trying to be socially acceptable and just keep my big mouth shut. I was only sometimes successful.

I didn't care very often what the others thought about me.

I was a smartass, and a lot of my peers in high school had legitimate reasons not to like me. I was making the wrong decision at every turn and it was harming my self image and letting my conscience decay. I was pursuing short-term satisfaction at the cost of my friends, my family and multiple unlucky girls who were unfortunate enough to get tangled in my life at the wrong time. Long story short, I was treating everyone like shit and wasn't noticing the damage it was doing to my soul until it was too late. Eventually I dropped the "HATER'S GONNA HATE" mentality. I slipped into a lethargic depression, and converted for a short amount of time to a very depressing atheism.

When I walked through the doors to the music room, at first it felt like all of the others in my group were judging me. I walked away from every practice with my instincts telling me that no one else thought I was supposed to be a part of that group. Three, four, sometimes even five times a week I would sing with these people and feel ostracized, like the only fork in the entire silverware drawer that has a crooked tine. That didn't last forever, though.

I knew that even though I had royally fucked my past, I had the potential to keep going and rewrite what I was living for. I knew it all along, but realized it late in the game. I began to study past traditional Christianity and look more mindfully into the Bible while the pastor was preaching during the services that the Croixaliers sang at. Soon enough, I had found a back door into Christianity, and realized a few of the more key truths about it. I realized the religion as a whole is not a bad concept. Mohandas Ghandi said it perfectly:

"I like your Christ, but I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."

Reading into the Goodness (rather than the Lawfulness) of the Bible through new lenses, it felt like I could put on a mask and become something different... something better. I felt like I could actually do something right in putting my talents toward something good-- even if it wasn't something my beliefs coincided with 100%. People began to notice a very subtle change in my behavior. I realized this, and finally had something to live up to. It dawned on me that I did have the capacity to do some good and I could be something better than what I was. Jesus said in the book of John, chapter 16 and the second half of verse 33:

"In this world, you will have trouble. But take heart! I have transcended the world."

What he says here can be taken to mean many different things, but at the moment that I read it, it became clear what the words meant for me.

"Life is Suffering" says the Buddha. I know, however, if I live in the 道，the "dao" or "way" of the Universe which is wisdom, justice, and (most importantly) love, I can take heart in the Way that the wisest of men have traveled on and I can transcend this World, which is Suffering. (I will expand on what I mean by this in later posts of this blog.)

If I hadn't rediscovered that aspect of myself, that potential, and if I hadn't reforged that spiritual side of myself (albeit not being the exact same after the process) than I would have continued to do horrible things and I would have alienated myself from everything that was important to me. I would have become a shut-in, antisocial train wreck.

Even if something right now in your life is causing you to feel uncomfortable, judged, insecure, unloved... Take heart! You can transcend it. It may turn out to be a blessing in disguise.