Join the new world

_{"Fiat ars - pereat mundus."}


A Preface
If you're reading this article, you're not going to be in for any game related substances. Here lie dragons, bred of a differing sort. There is no candidate to talk about, no new mechanic to discuss. There's not a party on my mind, not a administrative related situation I wish to speak on.

If you enjoy a bit of reading, grab a seat and your favorite drink, and settle in.

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Returning Forms
I don't know about you, but I tend to be very fussy with appearances. Here is perhaps the root of what makes me a better writer than most, that I concern myself with presentation and propriety as much as with function and form. Slaving as would a butcher, I cut the finest pieces of meat for you to dine upon, and with time I have grown accustomed to my own cookery and finesse. Less fat clings and the garbage can looks significantly less red with waste.

Yet it has always been the plating that has given me trouble, especially in these recent times. Psychologists will give you talk of dissonance, of your outer projected self mismatching your inner, and how that can result in all sorts of fun prescriptions to request at your local CVS. My medicine has always been much more mercurial - and at times alcoholic - and I stray from pills and more towards pens and paper.

Thus, writing.

In the earlier times of this game, there were the standards of journalism you see now: the party blowhorn, the congressional review, the departmental outlet, the candidate's platform. War analysis, satire, roleplay; these forms are all still alive and well. But others have faded.

There are fewer bridges for the unseemly beasts of the web to haunt here, and thus less articles that they can provide. And while satire exists, it is in either a caliber too small to pierce or a width too broad to be anything but a club. Other kinds were lost in the chaff as well: the party diss article, the true advertisements, various varieties of true political analysis.

The thing I miss most, however, and the one that I think is most indicative of our current state of affairs is the article published for its own sake.

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Of Poetry and Sentiment
Many in the world question the use of art. A great swath of art evokes intangibility, and an inability to interact. Pictures hung on walls behind security fences with guards watching, statues cordoned off with cameras eyeing them in the lonely night. Art is a thing separate, removed from common occurrence and elevated to this special place of evocative absence.

Of course, some things provide ample use. Video games, books, movies; all certainly qualify in some manner under the greater umbrella of creative enterprise. Theater especially has always pushed and marred the threshold of the fourth wall. The true classic status of art likely must be given to poetry and painting, however.

Language has always sought to express inexpressible things. Practice searching for synonyms and you'll grasp my meaning quick; you cannot equal the concise description of a cat without measuring out a long list of tired descriptors. We have words for a reason; they trap an idea, and allow us to barter them.

Sometimes, though, bartering isn't enough.

We are possessed of a higher intelligence. The fact any of you comprehend this sentence is evidence enough that humans think to higher causes. We want heavens and hells, and heroes and demons. We aspire, and we enrapture. The mind is the true line drawn between man and beast, no thumbs about it.

Given enough time and desire, we create. Sometimes, for a purpose, surely. Sometimes not. Expression is fickle; it doesn't need cause.

And that, perhaps, is one of the most telling things in this day and age of play. Surely the boat won't capsize tomorrow. We've been saying for years how it's all in the crapper and tomorrow - for certain - we'll all be out in some way or another. Yet that Armageddon has not arrived, and we have persisted.

But we've lost. People, things, purpose. And most importantly, sentiment.

As many times as we all have in our own way said "this game sucks," we keep playing. And for many, the reason for that is that there's something enjoyable. The community has always been the prime motivator for retention; no domestic program or fundraiser has ever proven differently. We like playing this not because of the game, but because of the sentiment instilled.

Only, we've grown away from it. Tiredness has lulled us into a malaise of apathy, and the joy of sheer creation for its own existence has nearly vanished. Everything requires a reason to it, now. We must justify action, nothing can be done simply for being done. Nothing can be enjoyed simply for being enjoyed. It must be calculated out.

It is a very cold place that our hearts now beat, and it is of our own doing.

I don't say this to posit a point, or a change. There was a time where you could just write, when it was acceptable for certain medias to exist and merely do so for their own sake. That, truly, is the depth of it. Media should never be tacitly tethered to empty function; media is self-serving and self-effacing. It creates and destroys in its own way and cycle.

There was a time when you could just write, and I want this one to be with it. This article, here. I want people to think of a day when the sun rippled through clouds, of the quiet calm of porches and summer breezes. Breathing for the sake of feeling the air taken in, thinking not for goal or gain but of enjoyment. The gentle exercise of idleness is a fond treasure I think we've too often ignored.

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Anecdologue
There was this river. It was camp, summer of a junior high year. And there was this river. Our camp counselor led our group away, as all the other camp counselors were leading their charges out as well. And we trudged through the trees, and there was this river.

Pines stood at a distance, the rocky bed bending to allow the stream room to move as it wound its way through the valley. Behind the pine setting stood a cliff of rock and foliage, a jutting thing that gave us enclosure in this quiet place.

We had been instructed not to speak. Spend thirty minutes just walking, no interaction. Take time to yourself, and just walk. And then, at the end of that time, we met at a log, and we began to talk.

Everything we said was the deepest part of ourselves. There were secrets so unknown that we did not often wish to disturb them. But we were quiet, and there was this river. And so we babbled all along, each in our own turn, and told about the parts of ourselves which we had never showed anyone else, those quiet anxieties and dear hopes that build in you to a point where they might as well be the earth beneath your feet. The essential parts of our young lives were spoke to.

We shared, and the afternoon grew later. Hours passed, and still we spoke. Emotions ran easily as rain off a window, smearing and smudging until they fell away. We had all reached a new point of self-acceptance.

And then we left, and never spoke of anything we had told each other to each other or anyone again. And the sun settled behind the pins. And there remained the river.

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If you read this... well, there you are. Hope your day goes well.