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| All the parts of my brain marching off to solve my problems. |
My last blog had me rambling almost incoherently. Reading back over it I can see some issues. Some problems. With where my head is at the moment.
However, I do not wish to air my mental ill health here. What I do want to do is make some gods out of my misfortune. Some gods that I can look to for guidance and as a motivator for self-improvement. This all seems very strange. But, I’m intrigued with where this will go as (a) a worldbuilding exercise and (b) a wellbeing experiment.
There are many many self-improvement methodologies that point toward God (the capital G God) for answers and guidance. There is nothing that has ever made me feel like they are a thing that exists so I cannot access any of that.
But making my own little god-dudes, that’s a different story.
Some years ago…
I discovered Dungeons & Dragons. I had known about it since I was small, I have an older brother who was right into it, but I didn’t pick it up until I was over 30. I was instantly hooked. I read a lot and watched a lot and in the end, it was clear that I needed to run games. Matt Colville’s Running the Game series was particularly influential and I owe most of my formative understanding of GMing and tabletop game design to his videos.
In the lead-up to The Chain of Acheron stream, Matt was doing a range of live streams showing his campaign prep and worldbuilding. One of these streams was about Gods and Culture, where he outlined his process for creating gods and I liked it. I liked it a lot.
My process for building God’s is, first build the culture because the gods represent the things that the people in the culture believe in. Decide, what do these people believe, what’s important to them, and then I create gods that embody them.
Ultimately, the gods in his world are born out of the culture the people in it develop. I have used this process before when creating campaign worlds for RPGs but I am going to turn this process to my own life.
My personal culture
Over time, we all develop a personal culture. A way we live, the things we find important, and aspects of life we focus on. Some of that culture is positive and improves our lives, and some of it is a hindrance.
A block to our development.
The start of this little project is highlighting and diving into the various aspects of my personal culture. With the aim of identifying elements of my life that have a positive impact, those that have a negative impact, and elements that aren’t there yet but I would like to have.
I believe that these elements of my life do not have a binary impact. I am quite sure that even those with positive impacts can, will, and do have negative impacts too. But that’s all part of the discovery.
Four things I know already
- Family: I have recently started my own family and my wife and I are building our own family culture.
- Health: I have been overweight most of my life and I hate it. It is a constant struggle and I think that it is often a result of how I treat my body and how I don’t listen to it. But, I can lift heavy shit.
- Knowledge: I shunned knowledge as a teenager but soon learned the errors of my ways. I now soak up everything that I can.
- Creativity: This is my shining beacon of happiness, inventiveness, and achievement. It is what I dream of doing. To spend my days in a creative space is my goal.
I know that these four elements will comprise a vast majority of my personal culture. I know that I am not doing the best I can in these areas. I know that some of them get far more attention than others.
I’m keen to see where this goes.
Long days & pleasant nights.
Stuart.
*Well, I actually played a heap of Vampire the Masquerade when I was 18. But I’ll talk about that another day.
