Sin Eater: Week 2

I am not immune from cloaking myself in an air of self-righteous dignity wherein I become unassailable. Not because I'm right mind you; good God no. No I become resolute in my logic to the point of lunacy because I have determined that I am right and you're wrong, wrong, fucking wrong.

I can guard against it better online because I have to think before I type - but away from the keyboard my wit can become acerbic at times and I say unkind things because I'm right. It's a terrible thing to recognize in yourself and I struggle with it. This week saw me lose that battle twice. The first time was a stupid conversation about the St. Lewis Rams and the second was over cooking dinner. Stupid things to become so damned full of myself over.

". . . Verily, I wish their madness were called truth or loyalty or justice; but they have their virtue in order to live long and in wretched contentment . . ." (Nietzsche, 151-152)

Then I wandered into RPGnet's forums and found a land where all these socially conscious kids are trying to shoehorn their pet issues into role-playing games. There, if you care to believe them, role-playing games are: a racial shadow play wherein we reenact the murderous habits of our colonial ancestors as they made their way through North America (strangely not South America) and Africa; a sexist den of iniquity where women are driven from the hobby by social mores from a bygone age; a place where white men (and apparently only white men) are incapable of creating anything but pseudo-European fantasy settings because anything else involves them making use of cultural appropriation. There were more claims being made as I clicked on interesting titles but it became clear that this wasn't a place for me. 

It seemed that practically every conversation on that forum was attempting say, "We know better than the poor, ignorant bastards who engage in this hobby and think that they're having fun. The true cost of their games goes far beyond the table. Oh sure, the beer and laughter might seem nice now; but the reality of their racist portrayals of orcs and their cultural appropriation of ninjas shows these games for how terrible they are for society." If they weren't so serious in their discussions I would swear they were trolling the internet. 

So yeah, I was also being a judgmental ass-hat. It's been a week, kids. 

The Sin Eater series is an opportunity for each of us, you and me, to recognize our sins and failures. Each week I kick it off by discussing something I do wrong, that I have failed at, or that I find reproachful in myself. Then anyone who wants to can join in and post their own 'sins' either through the use of their own username or anonymously in the comments below (DO NOT POST ANYTHING ILLEGAL AND THAT WILL GET YOU IN TROUBLE WITH THE LAW). 

The idea behind this project is to humanize ourselves (so take your self-righteous judgments and pronouncements and shove them right up your ass). It's also a place to help each of us to let go of the 'sins' that have been dominating our lives and recognize them for what they are: the simple human frailties that all of us struggle with daily. This series is the place where you can speak honestly and let your frailties be devoured by the internet gods.

Let the sin eating begin.

Works Cited

Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Portable Nietzsche. Trans. Walter Kaufmann. United States: Viking Penguin Inc. 1982, Print. pgs 151-152