No One is Helping You

So there are people who think about quitting role-playing, and there are people who are frustrated with their game.  There are people who know something is wrong, but don't know what to do about it.  A part of me thinks I should write this post to softly pat the reader on the hand, say sympathetic things, only to lead the reader right out the door.  "Yes, that's right.  You probably aren't suited to run this game.  It's not easy, and you have things to do with your life that will probably be more wholesome and helpful to society at large. Don't feel bad.  Just put your books in your closet, and remember that from time to time you can glance through them and remember how silly you were when you were young.  That's fine.  Now go find a box big enough for everything.  No, don't sell them on eBay.  Don't purge.  Purging never works.  If you sell it all, you'll just feel compelled to buy it again.  Better that you should keep it, so you know where it is, and it can remind you how truly deluded you were to waste so much time with it.  Good.  Now seal the box.  Put it somewhere dry.  Someday, maybe your kids will play it.  When they're really young.  Before they grow up and make the smart choice, like you have.  That's it.  Don't you feel better?"

There.  Will that do?  Does that help heal the pain?

You know, there are people who are destroying their brain cells playing a game where they chase a little leather-and-rubber bladder back and forth over the grass.  It's true, some are paid a lot of money, a very small number, who end up putting that money towards hookers and ex-wives, or businesses that fail, because CTE catches up, until the participants are homeless, or in jail, or dead from overdose.  Thankfully, no one thinks the game that causes this is silly - even though there are hundreds of thousands of participants of the game suffering from CTE who never got paid to play.  That little bladder, and keeping it away from the other team, and getting it across a little line, matters.  Don't you question that.  The whole education system is founded upon little balls being pushed across little lines, hit with sticks, poked through a hole and so on - and without those things, all education and learning everywhere would collapse and chaos would ensue.

So when you're wondering about being the one that plays those silly role-playing games, remember that you're not as important as people who bear up the entire educational framework in the country on the fundamentals of sacrificing the health and welfare of young boys.  If you're a lucky parent, and your boy is 5'11" by grade 10, and weighs almost 200 pounds, then know that your boy's later stupidity in life is worth what he's doing for nerds like us who play this silly role-play.  CTE: Keeping America in Books.

No?  That doesn't help with your perspective?  Hm.

Does it help to know that while your role-playing game isn't working, and while it is really very boring, and you don't know how to fix it, that there are others who are in the same boat as you - except that instead of role-playing, they've chosen to endlessly debate sexual politics?  Yes!  They sit around in rooms, they repeat the same words over and over again, they look at each other with this complete incomprehension that says, "Why don't people who are not like us get this?"  Then they say the same words all over again, knowing that IF we sit around in rooms, in groups, and say these words again, to people who agree with us completely, we'll be ready for the next time the other side comes out to meet us at University-funded events, where we will both stand up and repeat the exact same arguments everyone made the last time this event was funded.  No one will change their minds, no one will have anything new to say, both sides will be very mean and petty and cruel and dismissive, until ultimately three hours will have gone by without anything valuable having been accomplished.  Then both camps will retreat to their lairs, to practice for the next event.

Does role-playing seem less silly now?  No?  Still want to quit because you can't figure out what to do?

Don't be shocked.  No one is helping you.  Here you have a game that is keeping hundreds of thousands of kids off drugs and safe from gang violence, that inspires learning, that builds relationships and creativity, that influences the game industry making $80 billion annually, not to mention the publishing industry, that teaches management skills, negotiating skills, teaching and learning skills and computer skills . . . and no one anywhere cares, except that it's a little weird, it's a little goofy, and most people aren't sure exactly what goes on.  But don't worry about the total lack of interest by anyone with a post-graduate degree; we ourselves choose to make our number one priority in self-made media the satirization of the hobby.  If we ARE going to write something, or depict something, then by gawd, we're going to make it funny.  Because it just is.

No one is helping you.  No one thinks, despite the influence, design or value of the game, or even the psychological proofs that role-playing our troubles is healthy and demonstrative of our will to improve ourselves, that it is worth discussing.  Or examining.  Or writing about academically.  There's only one group in the world that wants to 'officially' write anything about it, and that seems to be a group of dweebs whose whole education seems to rest upon writing code and taking 1st and 2nd year business courses.

No one is helping you.  You're forced to do this shit on your own because you're alone in this.  You're in the cold.  You're not important enough.  You're not worth the time.  You're weird.  You're misguided.  You should be doing more important things.

No one is helping you.

So yes, quit.  Why not?