The arrogance of writing

I haven't written anything here in 6 months. I haven't played in even longer. I haven't felt able to articulate why.

Today I forced myself onto the ellipse machine and found myself listening to one of my favorite podcasts: Carrots & Suffering. It was a recap episode which was followed up by a Q&A. Many of the questions they answered centered around how they are dealing with major news events that directly affect them - like the pandemic and the civil unrest and use of unmarked federal troops in their hometown of Portland, OR. Their answers were thoughtful and nuanced. I envied their coherence and the sense of cohesion they radiated. And it made me think about my own situation in relation to my gaming life, and why there isn't that sense of in-the-trenches-together feeling out there for me. Why does gaming - an inherently social phenomenon - feel like such a lonely endeavor for me? And why does writing feel so similar in that regard? (Therein is the double reason why this blog lay fallow for the last 6 months, and it's not looking great for the future.)

I don't even know where to dig in. It's a lot to get my arms around. But I suppose the act of organizing my thoughts is a useful undertaking. Perhaps doing so will allow me to move out of the stasis I'm in with gaming. 

Like many people, my world has gotten smaller and darker over the last 6 months despite the summer. While I was gardening and knitting and cooking, my contact with strangers dwindled to nothing. The soundtrack to my days were (and are) all the noises of my own home and garden. Even when I see my friends it is over zoom - they are their in their space, I am here in mine. And I have found that I tend to want to stick with my own demographic - the people I find most comforting to talk to are at the same stage of life as me - who have shared experiences. In my case, that means older. Parent. Female. Science-affirming. Left-leaning. 

Does that make me a bigot? I don't know. I just know that this shared frame of reference makes me feel... I would say more comfortable, but that's not as accurate as saying "less uncomfortable." 

I can't remember what it is like to feel comfortable. 

I am perpetually unsettled. There are too many "near misses" on a personal level. There are too many cataclysmic phenomena about, tromping like tarrasques through the landscape of our complacency, exposing the injustice in our society in the fractured earth, upending our sense of safety, and causing our people to turn viciously on each other like the desperate vermin we are. 

I have the easiest time connecting with people who share at least some of my experiences and thinking patterns. And connecting these days is harder than it's ever been. I have spent a lot of time knitting and chatting online with other knitters. I have family, and about 4 friends that I stay in regular contact with and perhaps double that with whom I zoom once every couple of months. But you know what? I don't know even one gamer personally who fits that list of attributes I made above. So, in the gaming sphere - I feel alone. I'm sure there are others out there like me in the d20verse, but I don't know them, and don't know how to connect to them.

The days go by, fading one into another. And I get older. I have less to distract me, and I am feeling the days weighing upon me, piling up behind me. And I have naught to do save look at them.

No that's not true. Not true at all. I have spent my time making things. Doing things. All at home, of course. And still, the soundtrack of my days is so familiar to me that I always seem to have extra space in my mind to consider the time going by, and my lack of worthiness to write or make anything of substance. Who needs to hear my voice? No one. I am privileged. Why would I lay claim to the arrogance of thinking what I write or create might be relevant? And so I set aside the dice, and I work on my novel in private, and feel shame that I have the gall to do so.

I think I could push those thoughts out of my head when I was running about, going in and out, talking with others out in the world. But now, with so much automaticity about me, I have ample time to undermine my own pier footings.

And gaming is emblematic of it all. I am isolated.

Isolated as in separated from other people. Isolated as in a one-off sport, a mark of the universe's penchant for a trial and error approach where there are a hundred thousand errors to every happy accident.

I'd like to think that if I could just game with the people with whom connection is the least cumbersome, I would feel validated and perhaps even accomplish something of meaning. But, that, too, is a statement of privilege. Who am I to think that older moms and grandmothers have anything to contribute to the gaming world? Why would those voices be valued?

As far as I can tell, as a demographic, I don't even exist.

And where's the fun and escapism in that?