Sin Eater: Week 7

I try really hard to control my impulses and to avoid letting them control me, but sometimes, like this week, I fail miserably. It started off with my diet and letting myself over indulge. Which shouldn't be such a big deal but I'm trying to get my weight to stabilize during the winter instead of ballooning up like a bullfrog and then struggling to take it all off throughout the spring and summer. Except this winter has been pretty icy and gnarly here and suddenly I'm not exercising like I should and eating way too fucking much.

I ruined my third draft of the Americas map because I got impatient and decided that I could go ahead and paint it too early. Then I fucked up an essay I was working on by trying to convert it and instead ended up deleting the thing - even after it asked me if I was sure because reading the god-damned warnings that pop up is for losers. It's been a week filled with little moments like these that aren't a big deal, in and of themselves, but that add up to this overwhelming feeling that life just fucking sucks right now. Ah well, Sunday comes soon and things will be better.

Promise.

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.

Sin Eater: Week 6, Procrastination

I'm usually pretty good about time management, but the last few months have been a bit tough because of all the illnesses, family visits, and normal life happenings. Normally I set myself a 'to-do' list that I work my way through, marking off each item as I finish it, and that keeps me on track. Here lately thought the little boy has made that a bit . . . difficult. It's hard to put into words how much a child changes your perspective on time and what's important when you.

Yet that isn't the thing that has hamstrung me the most. Instead I find that that I'm often feeling like I can't get started because I just don't know enough. I should probably provide some context for that statement. I want to start a let's play channel on YouTube. Nothing crazy; just me playing some games and having a good time. The problem is that I want it to be of a certain quality level from the beginning - but I know that waiting until it's perfect is only going to find me never doing it at all because nothing is perfect. But I don't want to start it until it looks a certain way. And cycle.

I used to do that with the blog before I started it. I wanted to have this knowledge level for the hobby that would make my blog this unassailable plateau from which no one could question me or my pronouncement from up on high ground. Then I realized that I wouldn't ever start writing a fucking thing if I held to that. No one has that level of knowledge - and let's be honest, the people who start approaching that level tend to being boring. I'm anything but boring. 

So anyway, after spending a Summer fruitlessly wandering from book to book, pretending that I could learn everything in a reasonable way I finally got fed up and just started writing the blog. Since thing this thing has done well because I'm not trying to make it perfect, just as good as I can do. I need to do that with the YouTube thing but it terrifies me that I might get myself into some legal hot water or that I might start out with such low quality that no one wants to watch the videos. 

Fuck it. This evening (if the power doesn't go out with the ice storm they're calling for) I'll start building a study guide for OBS so that I can learn how to use the software in a reasonable fashion. The Yeti microphone that I'm using is a beast so I'm not worried about the sound quality. I just need to make sure that the rest of it comes along.

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.

Oppenheimer (Now I Have Become Death, The Destroyer of Worlds) by Yuri Leonov

Sin Eater: Week 5

I meant to post this on Friday but my son was sick and then I was traveling and trying to get him into the doctors and . . . Life happened. Anyway Sin Eater will be delayed until Saturday, February 14, 2015 to give me a bit of time to get some major projects out of the way. I know that Sin Eater isn't the most popular thing that I do on the blog but it's one of those projects that I really enjoy. 

If you haven't been reading along with the series the project is designed as an opportunity for each of us, you and me, to drop the facade for a minute and recognize each other as real human beings with our won failings, misgivings, and foibles. Those are our sins; the things that we hate about ourselves and that we are ashamed of. Sin Eater is a chance to put those out into the void and to release ourselves from them. Anyone can post on them either through their own usernames or anonymously if they prefer. I only ask that you don't share anything illegal you've taken part in because the law can get your ass and confessing openly in public will put your ass in jail.  

Anyway, all the old Sin Eaters are still available for anyone who wishes to participate. So whisper your sins to the internet gods, and let the Sin Eating begin.

Sin Eater: Week Four

I try incredibly hard to be honest in my dealings with most people - though I fail at being so at times. However this week found me lying through my teeth as I had to pretend that I was okay with a terrible event that we just found out about. Sometimes honesty has to take a back seat to being good to your wife and family. Sometimes it's an easy choice where you can simply say that this is for the better. Then there are times like this week where you bite back the truth because you don't want to poison your relationships with people that you're bound to for the rest of your life. 

I apologize for not being able to speak more openly on this matter but that's the way that life goes sometimes.

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.

Sin Eater: Week 3, If Hell Exists . . .

If Hell exists then I have surely found what will be my ultimate punishment: helplessness. I don't mean the sort of helplessness that comes from being an invalid, such things are beyond your control. No I mean the helplessness that comes from being in the same room as your wife when she cries, and cries, and cries because of an awful thing that you can't do a god damned thing about but sit there and hold her. The helplessness that comes when your son climbs in your lap and tells you about the bad dreams that keep him up at night and no matter what you say there is no assuaging his fears. The helplessness that seeps into your bones when you think about him having a febrile seizure and you're holding him only he doesn't even know you're in the same room.

This week has been filled with nightmares reliving past and current moments of helplessness for me. Moments when I drove across the state praying that I wasn't about to lose my Mom and hearing my son crying into his pillow because he thought Nana and Poppa were mad at him. So many nightmares crawling through my dreams as my wife struggled with a lie from another family member that I couldn't help her through because  words failed and comforting hugs weren't enough.

Our sins and failures haunt us all and this week I just want to move on from this feeling of helplessness that has overwhelmed me. So I let it out to the void for the internet gods to feast.  Let the Sin Eating begin.

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.

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

Sin Eater: Welcome to the Confessionals

". . . [M]an's feeling of homelessness, of alienation has been intensified in the midst of a bureaucratized, impersonal mass society. He has come to feel himself an outsider even within his own human society. He is trebly alienated: a stranger to God, to nature, and to the gigantic social apparatus that supplies his material wants . . .  But the worst and final form of alienation, towards which indeed the others tend, is man's alienation from his own self . . ." (Barrett, 35-36)

I suffer from existential doubt and struggle with the meaninglessness of my own life and the world around me. It makes me callous and difficult to live with; yet thankful for the blessed mercies that show up when I most assuredly don't deserve them. This is not me lamenting the way my mind works. Rather it is a recognition of a failing in my character.

I have lots of failings in my character and many moments in my life where I struggle with the choices I am to make, and have made. I'm not alone though there are people out there who would like to pretend that I am. I am tired of pretending that my internal struggles solely exist within my own head and that no one else in the world understands what I'm going through or has been through it - as both those thoughts are complete and utter bullshit. So this series is going to be an opportunity for each of us to recognize our sins and failures. Each week I am going to begin the post by talking about something I do wrong, that I have failed at, or that I find reproachful in myself. Then anyone who wants to join in may 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. 

Untitled by Kristian Hammerstad

Works cited

Barrett, William. Irrational Man, A Study in Existential Philosophy. Garden City, New York: Doubleday Anchor Books. 1962. Print. pgs. 35 - 36.