They Should Have Called it “Cocaine” Instead of “Lich King”

As a community, I have heard several beliefs that pain is something that can be lessened when it is a shared experience. It is kind of like seeing a terrible car accident or a morbidly obese man in overalls… wearing leopard spotted underwear… that’s a thong.
The only way to ease the pain of your soul is to trick someone else into seeing it. Then that pain that you experienced is divided amongst two people. So you now only have to suffer 50% of the total pain. Get a third person to see it and only have to experience… Wait. Carry the one… denominator. 25% I think. Look I’m not a math major, okay?
So, when you have a terribly crippling addiction, you might say that you should contain it and refuse to let it spread. You should just take that addiction and hide it from the world. That is one option… The other direction you can go is to spread your addiction around to other people. And then everyone can become as consumed with the same addiction. Then some people can go much more overboard than you and you can look at that person and say, “Hey, at least I’m not that guy.”
Yes, kids, it’s gotten that bad. You see the World of Warcraft addiction continues to slowly seep away at my soul. I am not going to say that it is completely out of hand because I do still work, sleep, eat properly (if you can call my diet “proper”), and function within the communally acceptable parameters of society.
I am not certain but I think it is time for a support group. The only problem is that I am not certain if there is a building large enough to hold 11.5 million people.
So what have I done, like a drug dealer, I go around at my work and recruit players. I tell ‘em to go on the Internet and just try the ten-day free trial. See, you give them the first hit for free to get them hooked. F**king Blizzard Entertainment. Crack Dealers! That’s what they should be called!
See Luke pulled in Dave and myself. Then as a trio we pulled in James and Kasondra and now Heath. Then we found out Brad played. Then James got Shannon playing. And one by one we continue to draw in more and more players into our own personal Well of Souls. So for all the people reading this blog, I just have one question… Want to learn what The Empyrean Fury is? Shoot me a message. Remember: The power of the Fury is the group and the power of the group is the Fury…

Listening to the Ebb and Flow of the Universe

One of the heroes of the X-Men in Marvel Comics is a genetically engineered warrior named Longshot. One of Longshot’s powers was the ability known as psychometrics. In the occult world, this is where a person can “read” the history of an object by touching it.
I think there are a few fictional stories where psychics have ascertained the identity of a killer by touching the knife used to stab his victims. In the filming of FOX’s television show PRISON BREAK, character Lincoln Burrow’s prison cell was the same real life cell occupied by noted American serial killer John Wayne Gacy. Some cast and crewmembers refused to enter the cell because of the energy within it.
And I do believe that certain objects can possess energies. Most can be associated negatively. But if there are situations with negative associations then there has to be situations with positive associations. There has to be.
I bring all of this up because I have been entrusted with a sacred duty. You see, today, I was passed the ashes of my mother.
Following her death, I did not see her body. I was given the opportunity but I refused. What I told myself is that it was simply an empty shell now. What was my mother was spirited off to a better place.
What I was handed today was a heavy urn with her ashes inside, carefully placed within a plastic bag. Yet, when I touch it, I can feel a certain energy. Perhaps it is something completely within my own mind. In theory, if this were to truly work, anyone who touches this urn should feel something. Unless one wants to argue that certain energy fields are perceptible to certain people. But that takes us down a whole other road. Maybe this is all in my head…
But what I do know is that within that urn are her last remains, the last evidence that she was physically in this world. And there was a sensation that ran through me when I held the urn for the first time. It was a sadness to be certain but not a sorrowful “I’m going to start crying” sadness.
It is her. But it is not her. It is. But it isn’t.
It’s weird. Even after all this time. It is weird.
I think the strangest things can spawn memories and feelings. I certainly did not think that when I woke up this morning, I would be writing a blog about my mom’s ashes. But that is life sometimes. Sometimes you have to allow yourself to become attuned to the energies that surround us. Maybe they can give you a link to your past. You just have to be ready to find those energies… and sometimes they pop up in times and places you don’t expect. Now, I’m not looking for existentialism through a haze of bong smoke or anything. It was a profound enough moment for me to feel like I needed to talk about it here… So it was pretty strange and special at the same time, and that is what this blog is all about…

The Fabric of Humanity

My dad is probably one of the most well read men that I have ever met. I would be scared to see what his Amazon.com bill is for a month or how chummy he is with his local librarians. Everyone has his or her own vices and his addiction to books is clearly in no way a hindrance.
I have been very fortunate in using my gifts to transfer over from the role of “Writer” to “Author.” And one of the things that fascinate me the most as a writer is perspective. I absolutely love the whole tale of perspective.
No army has ever marched forth into battle thinking God wasn’t on their side.
No army has ever marched forth into battle thinking they were the bad guys.
That is a pretty powerful thing to think about. Imagine being able to see stories from both sides. And that is what makes a really believable villain. Whether that villain is Darth Vader, General Francis X. Hummell, or Magneto, if you can see their point of view (what we call POV in comic book industry shorthand), you can understand their character. You can understand why they do what they do. You may not condone what they do but you can understand why they are doing what they are doing.
To the casual observer, you see a money-grubbing girl that refuses to date poor people. You immediately dismiss her as a gold digger. Well, I’m not saying she’s a gold digger but she ain’t messin’ with no broke nig— Wait. Did I just quote Kanye West? Let’s move on…
But if you take some time, you might learn this girl’s history. Then you find out that her family is gone. They have left her with nothing. Moreover, her financial dire straits have caused her to lose custody of her little girl—the only thing that ever brought her happiness. And with little education, she is looking for someone that can help support her and help make sure that she does not spiral down into darkness…
Now you may not approve of her using her feminine wiles (translation: big boobs) to try to find financial security but you can understand where she is coming from. And after you have walked a mile in her shoes, you understand why she is the way she is. So it is a thing where you can say, “I don’t trust Melanie but I can trust Melanie to be Melanie.” You can understand a person’s mindset and why they do what they do.
(Strangely, the alternative to this is the absolute crazy person like The Joker or Hannibal Lecter. They are so crazy that their motives cannot be predicted and that makes them incredibly frightening.)
It is my job to write a character that is three-dimensional and real. I don’t want mindless drone villains. I want to write believable characters. (This is why I love the Marvel Comics villains.) And in order to do this, I have to be an amateur psychologist. But I am in no way qualified for such diagnosis.
So I consider myself a “Studier of the Human Condition.”
And this line of thinking has often led me to certain epiphanies. I search for certain universal truths (believe me, that is a topic for another blog). And so here is my dad doing all of his reading and he likes to send me snippets of wisdom from his books. The last quote he sent was from Scott Turow’s Personal Injuries and it gave me pause.

From the quote, the author was talking about the pain that people feel in their hearts. I’m chopping the quote for length but this is the gist of it:

“Everybody’s got this hurt. Everybody has it somewhere in their heart. And I knew that I’d never really get away from it, and neither would anyone else. And life bears that out. It’s being poor, or being alone, or being sick, it’s not being loved enough or not loving the way you want to, it’s feeling you are a doormat to the world, or a mean crud, or just not quite as good as the people you want to be like or be with. But it’s always something, and it devouring, for most people, this parasite always eating a hole in their hearts.
“And I wondered and wondered why. Why did God make a world where everybody’s heart is in pain? I figured that out. The answer. You know why it’s like that? So we need each other. So we stick with each other, do for each other, and build up the world. Because misery does love company, and another soul’s comfort is the only balm for the wounds.
“And how would you say it? How do they put it in the Bible? ‘The shadow of God came over him.’”

The eternal question that is often lamented (typically from the gutter by people down on their luck) is “Why do bad things happen to good people?” Given my current life situation, I often look up and wonder, “Why do good things happen to bad people?”
But you find a little nugget of wisdom like this every once in a while and often feel compelled to pass it on… Maybe you learn something…