Fatherhood

Darwinism Doesn’t Exist in Star Wars (A comment on the Mandalorian)

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Warning: (Minor) spoilers ahead.

As I’ve said, holidays are for faith, for family–and for Star Wars. I indulged in two of the three yesterday, binging the first four episodes of The Mandalorian (which I’d held back from watching for just this occasion) with my dad.

Part of me still expects to see Clint Eastwood’s face when the Mandalorian finally removes his mask given the laconic gunslinging of the titular character and the show’s rigid–maybe too rigid–adherence to the tropes of the western genre.

It’s a fun show, if a little simplistic. The fights have plenty of eye-candy (though also a lot of flaws for those of us with some knowledge of the way of the gun) and the plot paces along quick enough to leave the gaps in logic behind before you think too much about them. In that way, it’s classic Star Wars, though part of me also feels that this story could take place in any space opera setting and has Star Wars grafted on as fan-service more than being a story deeply embedded within the Star Wars universe–though this is perhaps my watching with a too-critical eye rather than a reasonably critical one. Did I say that the show is fun? I can’t say that enough–if you want something fun to watch and/or need a Star Wars fix, The Mandalorian will fit the bill nicely.

But I’ve mainly put this post here to rain on the parade of “Baby Yoda” memes and paraphernalia. Yes, the kid is super-cute. Yes, he’s very endearing. Yes, his antics are highly amusing. And yes, the Star Wars nerd in me is very excited to learn more about Yoda’s species (even if our reference to the character has been relegated to “Baby Yoda” because neither the character nor the species has yet been given a name). The problem, though, is that I don’t believe in Baby Yoda beyond his (her?) status as McGuffin and marketing ploy by Disney (one that is sure to be extremely successful, I’m sure).

Here’s why this post is placed in both the “Fiction” and the “Fatherhood” portions of the blog: I’m now six months into fathering Hawkwood and Marshal. It’s been tough, which was not unexpected but which doesn’t change the fact that it’s tough. I haven’t written too much about it on the blog lately as I’m still struggling through and sorting out feelings myself, and while I’m usually willing to parse through my thoughts and feelings publicly (at least insofar as the blog’s readership qualifies this a truly “public”), these I feel it’s more appropriate to play closely to the chest for the time being.

Suffice to say, though, as I know all parents do, I have times when I ask myself, “how much longer is it going to be like this? How much more can I take?” There are redeeming moments that take the edge off of that frustration, but managing it sometimes feels like a full-time job. On top of an actual full-time job, the task of raising and caring for the children, staying closely-connected with K, writing on my novel and the blog, and making some time for some other hobbies, it’s a lot.

And that’s why I find Baby Yoda such an unbelievable character. I can accept a species that lives for 900+ years. But one that remains a toddler for at least fifty years? Nope. A species cannot survive such a catastrophic development–though perhaps it explains why there are so few of Yoda’s kind in the galaxy and why those there are seem to be possessed of boundless patience and Zen-like stoicism.

Yes, Baby Yoda is extremely well-behaved for a toddler (at least so far as I’ve seen), though also possessed of a stubborn streak characteristic of the age. I don’t expect to see a scene where, furious, the Mandalorian throws his helmet on the ground (forgetting his oath, of course), utters a string of profanities and wonders why he ever made the decision to become Baby Yoda’s protector in the first place. It would be in keeping with the tropes of the category of story that’s being told here, it might be the deepest characterization of the Mandalorian we get, and it might be the most verisimilitude we could expect to see in a Star Wars story. But we won’t get it.

Now, I don’t want to bring up the shame of midichlorians again, but I can’t help but compare the idea of a creature that stays an infant for more than five decades to that level of storytelling gaffe. I know, I know, we’re talking about a setting that includes easy faster-than-light travel, stories following relatively unnuanced workings of Campbell’s “Hero’s Journey”, the Force and many other elements that openly defy credulity and beg the kind of willing suspension of disbelief that is part and parcel of the enjoyment and success of the setting. Even so, it’s often (for me, at least) the attention to verisimilitude in the details that paves the way for the greater fantastical elements of a setting. For example, this is, I think, what makes Max Brooks’ World War Z so wonderful–if you can accept zombies, the rest of the stories within play out thoughtfully and believably, making the acceptance of zombies a low price of admission.

To see that Darwinian evolutionary forces sometimes simply don’t exist in Star Wars undermines that willing suspension of disbelief–I enjoyed watching the show in spite of this, but I spent an inordinate time while viewing wondering how a toddler could survive fifty years of being a toddler, what kind of saintly parents would be necessary to make such a system work, what benefit there might be to having a creature mature so slowly, etc., etc., ad nauseam.

Just me?

Fatherhood Update

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I haven’t written much about the kiddos in a little while, so I’m putting up a brief update on this front.

We’re just past the three months mark with them living with us. I’ve been having a little bit of an existential “crisis” around that benchmark, though it seems I’m pulling out of it now. The series of questions with which that “crisis” was concerned are the most fundamental about kids: Do I really want to be a father? Does it really make sense for me to have kids? What about the opportunity cost with the other things about which I’m passionate–like my writing (I’m getting a lot less time for that to be sure)?

To add to this, Hawkwood’s been having some behavior issues. Nothing too serious, particularly for a toddler who’s just gone through the trauma of a family separation. But it’s given me a constant low level of frustration with him that’s sometimes hard to shake, giving me the unrealistic but still daunting question–is it always going to be like this?

Of course it won’t. Hawkwood will be starting with a play therapist soon, so hopefully that will help. So will time. And me keeping it together, letting go of my frustration with him, and sticking to TBRI. Of course, that’s much easier said than done, and perhaps the reminders that I’m not always as unflappable or possessed of completed self-control as I like to think I am–and the crisis of identity that goes with that–is part of the turbulence.

Since the kids had never been in any kind of school or daycare before, we’re also going through the rounds of all of the commonest communicable diseases–we’ve had bouts of croup, hand/foot/mouth, stomach bugs, and the like. K’s still got her teacher immunities, but even she’s succumbed, at least partially, to one of the waves of pestilence that’s passed through the house. This too shall pass, but assaults on my immune system aren’t helping my calm.

The sweet moments with Hawkwood are there, to be sure, and Marshall, though he’s getting a bit more stubborn and demanding about some things (and on the very verge of walking!) has been relatively easy. It seems to me (though it may be merely a matter of perspective) that Hawkwood’s behavior is somewhat better with K. I’m sure that this in part that K has both formal education and years of experience in working with children, but she tells me that it’s also probably that Hawkwood has especially bonded with me and so feels more comfortable acting out and expressing himself around me. Don’t tell her, but I don’t know her to be often wrong.

We’ve been told that all foster parents go through the “maybe I should quit” phase at about this time, so that knowledge has been somewhat comforting to us–when you have thoughts like this, it’s easy to wonder if you’re just a terrible person or severely broken. Jury’s still out on that, I guess, but nothing good comes from ignoring the way you feel, so we’re confronting everything head on.

At this point, we still don’t know what the kids’ long-term situation will be. CPS has been reticent and we get only snippets of information without any details or explanation from those with more knowledge than us. That’s par for the course, but frustrating nonetheless. All the signs we are getting, however, are pointing to a likelihood that the kiddos will be available for adoption. Whether that’s really the case, and what any timeline on that might be, is beyond us at the moment.

It seems especially that time has been short for anything other than work and the kids lately, so I’m falling behind on my passion projects (which also stresses me out!). I’m still hoping to have my novel fully plotted by the end of the month so that I can get a good start on the first draft for NaNoWriMo. I’m running short sessions of a Shadowrun campaign over a Discord server on Sunday evenings, which so far has been quite enjoyable. On the other hand, I’ve fallen behind on my Frostgrave work and I’ve been really wanting to spend some time further refining and adding to the Avar Narn setting aside from what I need for the novel but, when I can find a few minutes for it, I’m often too tired to focus!

This whole parenting thing is still early, and I know it will continue to get easier (and I’ll therefore be able to turn more attention to writing again).

 

(Roleplaying) Gaming as an Adult

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With kids in the house again, I’m reminded of how precious little time I often have for some of my favorite pursuits–reading, writing and games of all types. The change in lifestyle has brought about for me a new opportunity (or perhaps mandate is a better word) to consider my priorities (for both life and leisure) and develop some strategies to meet those priorities.

My Xbox One X developed an issue about six weeks ago–the HDMI out port has blown, meaning I can run the system if I stream it through my computer (which is a poor substitute) or otherwise not at all. It’s currently sitting in parts on my study table, waiting for me to receive the new HDMI port, finish desoldering the old port, and hopefully complete the repair without having damaged anything else on the motherboard. I’ve learned a lot about soldering in this effort, which is cool (I like learning and improving skills, not matter how tangential to everyday life), but I’m not yet sure of the cost. Given my past history with DIY electronics repairs, I may well have completely botched the whole thing.

Regardless, the break from my Xbox (between its state of disrepair and the kiddos taking up most of my time) has been an unexpected but welcome change. Even if I fix the Xbox (and I hope I do!), I’m looking forward to devoting more of my free time to analog gaming for a while–roleplaying games and (one of my first loves) miniatures games.

Writing is still the priority, and though the children have drastically slowed the rate of progress on my pending novel, I am still finding small bits of time where (for lack of distractions and sufficient energy and focus) I’m able to push things along ever so incrementally. My goal is still to have the first draft of the novel finished by the end of the year; the goal remains a seemingly reasonable one.

That brings me to my leisure activities. While I love writing and feel compelled to do it, it’s not always a leisurely thing. Sometimes I hit that magic “flow” state and the rhythm of it becomes intoxicating, sometimes I write that magically-worded sentence that causes me to glow with pride, sometimes I discover something new about my narrative that gives me an indescribable joy of creating something with a hint of life in it. Most of the time though, writing is work, and hard work at that. In some ways, then, it’s like running for me. While I sometimes enjoy running, I usually don’t. I do enjoy having run. I like writing a lot more, but it is often a difficult thing.

So, my writing remains a priority along with work, family and other obligations. But I need to look elsewhere for those times to recharge my creative batteries and replenish my energy while bleeding off some stress.

But, as all adults, and especially those with young children, time for other things is rare indeed. Gone are the days when I could call up a few friends on short notice for an all-weekend or all-night roleplaying session. Gone are the days when I got home from school at 3:00, finished homework in an hour, and had all the rest of the day to play videogames and paint miniatures.

Multiply that problem by however many other adults you have in your gaming group, and getting everyone together for a game at one time seems Herculean.

There’s no panacea to this ailment of course; it’s just a fact of life. But I have thought of some things (none of which are shocking or new, but I’ll tell you how I’m using them) to make my leisure goals a little more attainable. These ideas are specifically focused on “pen and paper” roleplaying games.

(1) Online Gaming

I don’t mean for video games, as I’m focusing on “analog” games here. About a year ago, I ran an online game for some Methodist pastor friends of mine (which arose out of the Israel trip, believe it or not). It lasted for a few months and played relatively smoothly. There are a lot of virtual tabletop programs out there, and we used (for a time) Roll20. It’s an excellent program, with many great features, but I’m of a mind just to use Skype or a different video-conference platform to run games.

A few reasons for this: First, as I’ll state below, I think running games of a more narrative style makes a lot more sense for the time-strapped gamer. Second, it became an extra time-burden for me to try to learn the systems that make Roll20 run smoothly in addition to all the other gaming-planning I had to do for the game. The KISS principle seems to work for my adult-oriented gaming schedule. No, that phrase isn’t the right one. You know what I mean.

I’m looking simply to recreate the feel of sitting at the table together as simply and authentically as possible. I think a lot of “set pieces” and battlemaps and miniatures focus a roleplaying game on the wrong things (as I prefer to play, not objectively–there’s no “one true way” to play an RPG, and that’s one of the wonderful things about them), so I don’t really need most of the features that Roll20 has to offer. If I can email or fileshare handouts easily enough, and if I really need to visually display something I can manipulate in realtime, I can set up an extra device to put a camera specifically on that.\

The online venue doesn’t fully substitute for all sitting down at the same table, but it does make things much easier in terms of scheduling everyone or being able to game with friends across large geographic distances.

(2) Pick a Ruleset

We all know that there’s a learning curve with any new roleplaying game, and even a “relearning” curve when returning to games that you haven’t played in a while. The fewer rulesets you can manage in your gaming group, the more you cut down on this learning curve and keep it easy to jump into a game with little preparation.

There are some rulesets that lend themselves to (relatively easy) adaptation across settings and genres–those of you who read regularly (or as regularly as I write!) know that I’m a big proponent of Fate and Cortex Plus/Prime.

But the Fifth Edition D&D rules are being constantly tweaked to be used in different genres and settings, so if that’s your bag (or GURPS or anything else for that matter), no reason not to use one of those.

The point is to find efficiency in consistency. The fewer rulesets to jump between, the faster character generation is and the faster gameplay goes.  That said, specific rulesets built for certain games are often better at evoking the mood for that setting (The One Ring comes to mind), so there’s a balancing act to consider here.

(3) Run Narrative-Focused Games

Quite simply, narrative-focused games run more intuitively (in my opinion) and keep the action focused on the story over the mechanics. I have a strong personal bias in this direction, admittedly, and if I want to focus on detailed tactical combat, I’ll play a video game or a miniatures game.

Games like Fate, Cortex Plus/Prime, the Powered by the Apocalypse games and the Forged in the Dark games have enough “crunch” to structure gameplay and create consequences for failure and success based on more than mere GM fiat, and I think they’re easier to run spontaneously (certainly at least the Apocalypse games were designed with that in mind).

What I don’t want to do is spend lots of time balancing “encounters,” looking up charts and carefully choosing enemies from lists with large stat blocks. That can be a fun exercise, but it’s not were I want to spend my personal gaming budget.

(4) Personal Setting Books, OneNote and “Emergent Gameplay”

This one is part well-trod ground and part personal eccentricity. For me, though I don’t think this is a necessary consequence, this goes hand-in-hand with running more narratively-focused games.

I’m not by most definitions an “old school” gamer. I cut my teeth on West End Star Wars, Shadowrun Second Edition and Vampire: The Masquerade (and its sister games). But I’ve always like the idea of the sandbox game and the hexcrawl.

My tack here is to adapt the mechanically-focused idea of the “old school” hexcrawl to a narrative focus. By that, I mean the creation of a narrative sandbox rather than a “physical” one. Instead of filling in hexes on a map and developing random generators for what players might find in that hex, I’m working on building the practical setting to run a game in–collections of NPCs and their relationships, important location descriptions, events and conflicts underway.

Right now I’m working on building a setting for Houston in the Shadowrun universe. I can do this a little bit at a time–do a quick write-up for an NPC who could be a contact here, fill out organizational charts of the important criminal organizations and local megacorp executives, etc. Since I can do one thing at a time, or even jot some notes down to return to and flesh out later, I can fit this kind of work easily into small opportunities to write. The more I develop, the more links between characters, events and locations that naturally develop, bringing the world alive.

This allows for emergent gameplay. You can drop the characters into the setting and you have all of the elements you need to organically respond to the actions they take and the direction they lead the narrative.

This makes the work persistent, as I can do this for each of the settings I know I’m likely to want to run in the future. I can start a Shadowrun game with what I’ve got in my “setting database,” add to it both as a result of play and in my free moments away from the table, and whether that game fizzles and dies, I’ve got the background material ready to go to run a fresh game immediately or later without going back to square one with a campaign idea. Efficiency is key here.

A setting can sit for a very long time and, when the urge to run that setting returns, it’s ready for you at a moment’s notice. You can even have your gaming group build characters in advance for various settings and you can play “pick up” games with very little prep-time. This takes a lot of the GM stress out of gaming and helps me be excited to run games and to enjoy them to the fullest when I do.

As an added bonus, this kind of writing seems lower risk to me than writing for Avar Narn, so when I’m feeling “stuck” in my “more serious” writing or just needing to get my creative juices flowing, I’ve got ready prompts to turn to where the work I do will be useful elsewhere.

You can also use these setting portfolios like gaming scrapbooks–see a character idea or an interesting location that would work for one of your settings (whether in an official book for the game or as a riff off of something you experience in the quotidian)–and you can create an entry for it, import text or inspirational pictures, etc.

This system can easily translate to a setting bible for your own fictional universes as well.

I prefer OneNote for this kind of work. It’s inexpensive, it’s relatively intuitive, and it has a lot of hypertextuality which allows me to link my work easily and access it effectively at the gaming table. I can save my OneNote notebooks to the cloud and have them both securely backed-up and easily accessible over multiple devices.

Conclusion

So there you have it, a few of my thoughts on managing to keep playing RPGs as a busy adult.

As I mentioned, I’m also trying to get back into miniatures games (and Frostgrave in particular; I’ll have to post on this separately). Strategies for this are more difficult–I try to do some modeling of both terrain and miniatures when the kiddos are sleeping and I’m not yet to the point of being ready to play games!

Mushin no shin

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Mushin no shin. It translates literally to “mind without mind, ” but this fails to capture the nuance of it. Mushin, for short, might best be described as a state of being dispassionate, freeing oneself from all mental and emotional attachment so that one may respond rather than react.

Mushin has a happy home in Zen and other meditative practices, which makes perfect sense. I first encountered it in my martial studies, where it comprises part of Bushido, the way of the warrior. There, mushin is a state of detachedness from ego that allows one to act without fear, to focus on the technique of combat rather than the result. “He who seeks to save his own life” and all. Or, as Mad Max would have it, “Fear is the mindkiller.”

During my days as a concealed handgun instructor, I advocated for mushin, for a number of reasons. First, as the samurai well knew, it is an effective combat mindset for those who achieve it. Second, in civilian uses of deadly force in self-defense, strict adherence to the law is a necessity. Many infractions of the law occur out of a fear response–the civilian produces his weapon before he is justified in doing so, or she fires it without sufficient objective indication (what the law in Texas would call “reasonableness”) of imminent harm to authorize the application of deadly force.

At the time, though, mushin interested me at least as much for its applicability at conflict de-escalation as during the escalation of hostilities. Most of the conflict de-escalation techniques I have been taught, or have personally taught, require stepping back from one’s ego to manage the situation logically and persuasively instead of as a matter of preserving sense of identity and saving face. Now, I am even more interested in that aspect of mushin.

Especially as a parent. Much of the discipline of children is done from a place of anger or frustration. This is understandable–children can be both anger-inducing and frustrating. But being understandable doesn’t make it acceptable. I’m not casting aspersions; I’m just as guilty, and I’ve tried to be introspective, realistic and candid in my own failings and unnecessary power struggles in that regard.

I’ve harped on TBRI before, and this seems an opportunity to do so again. Without calling it that, TBRI incorporates the same principle as mushin into its approach to parenting–if you can’t center yourself and can’t remove your own emotions from the situation, you can’t effectively parent. You are reacting, not responding. And, yes, sometimes parenting feels like the attack-parry-riposte of the duel.

If you’ve read much of my blog, you know that I have a strong sense of self and identity–and I don’t think that there’s anything wrong with that. In fact, I work on the assumption that the uniqueness of my personality (what we might call the “writer’s voice” if we want to be formal about it) is interesting enough to keep my audience coming back.

But I also know that I’m at my best as a parent when I put all of that aside. When I focus on my child’s needs, both in the short-term meeting of needs and in the long-term development of character, I develop parenting strategies that do more than momentarily relieve my own frustrations–I build trust and relationship just as I am redirecting, correcting, of flat-out dodging certain behaviors. That’s love, both practically- and theologically-speaking.

It’s a strange thing to think that love sometimes happens best when given from a place of detachment and dispassion, but the strangeness of that comes from a society that tells us that love is a feeling, a fleeting emotion whose high we must chase continually. While we can’t–and shouldn’t–deny the emotional aspects of our relationships, we cannot roll them into intent and behavior and pretend that the mess that results is one monolithic thing. Sometimes love is a choice, and we are called to pursue it even when we don’t feel like it. When we choose to be loving to another when it doesn’t come easy is when that love is most powerful, when it is self-sacrificial.

But there’s a trap here as well, and we shouldn’t get it twisted–we humans have emotional needs that must be fulfilled by our relationships for them to be healthy, positive, and functional. For those persons with whom we intend to travel large swathes of our lives, we ought to like them as well as love them. We ought to feel that emotional pull as well as the conscious desire to seek their good first.

But, as I’ve said, children are often infuriating, even as we also feel loving emotions toward them. But to raise them up in the world, our parenting must be about them and their needs, not about our personal weaknesses or psychological quirks and desires.

We must become like samurai, dispassionate and able to see the situation for what it really is, to–as objectively as is humanly possible–look down the skeins of time for the far-reaching consequences of our own behavior. We must be unattached to emotional needs and distant from fear of particular results so that we may employ the techniques we know to be beneficial, healthy and effective.

Because, while parenting may sometimes be a fight, it’s not one comprised of strikes and parries, of throws and joint locks. It’s not even a fight between us and our children (though we often feel that it is). We have met the enemy, and it is us.

Sanity Check!!!!

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The children have gone to church with K. I’m taking a more “authentic” sabbath and keeping a day of rest–and writing (conveniently, the sermon being preached today is entitled “You need the rest,” and concerns the fourth commandment).

There’s so much I want to do in this ephemeral freedom, so many easy distractions with which to sate superficial needs and truly kill time. But I’m exerting some self-discipline and spending the time doing what I love best–and what will truly restore some much-needed energy and sense of value. Writing. This post is the warm-up to returning to some work in writing the finer plot details for my novel as preparation for writing proper. If I hit a block on that, I suspect that there may be further blog posts later this morning.

Two sorry-not-sorry apologies to begin. If you clicked on this post hoping for something gaming-related (and who could blame you), you’re going to be disappointed–this is a post about raising children. If you have no idea what a “sanity check” is or who H.P. Lovecraft is, you may need to open Wikipedia and/or do some independent research for all of this to make sense. If you are a gamer parent, or a gamer who expects to have kids one day, I expect that this post will be especially enjoyable.

It occurred to me that I have some subconscious association between having kids and H.P. Lovecraft. When we had our first placement (three years and one day before this one), I reread all of Lovecraft’s corpus. This time, I find myself drawn to the recently-released Call of Cthulhu and Sinking City games (though I have no time for them at present and thus have not purchased them). A psychologist would have a field day, and we’ll delve into that deeper in a moment, I suppose.

But first, the two boys who are with us need some names for blogging purposes. Our first two were, by sheer randomness, Abe and Bess. This time, I’m having more trouble deciding. There’s Cain and Abel, but that didn’t work out so well. Jacob and Esau, but that too isn’t the best of relationships. Joseph and–nope, that one’s not going to work either. Has anyone else noticed how many dysfunctional family relationships are in the Old Testament? There’s some great theology to be had there, or as my pastor friends would say, “That’ll preach.” Someone remind me to do a post to delve into that, it’s a topic for another time.

That still leaves me with no names, though. How about Hawkwood and Marshal? Two famous English mercenary captains. They’ve been waging a concerted war against me, I’m sure, so it seems to fit in my own mind. We’ll make Hawkwood the older boy, three in October, leaving Marshal for the younger, of course, one in October.

Now that we’ve got some names, some fun ones, I hope (and if you don’t enjoy them as much as I do, that’s too bad–I’m a nerd and I’m the one writing!), let’s get to the point.

Why is it that I’ve got this link between Lovecraft and raising children in my mind? I pride myself on being especially self-aware, particularly able to look at myself in a somewhat objective light and get to the bottom of my psyche without assistance; let’s see if it works this time.

Lovecraft wrote a different kind of horror, not entirely free of historical influences and bindings, of course, being especially mired in the nihilistic thought and existential philosophy that developed over the course of the 19th century. We can associate some of the classic tropes of horror with Lovecraft–body horror, Otherness, fear of mortality, societal and psychological anxieties, etc. But Lovecraft went further with his Cthulhu mythos, which is why we call his genre of horror cosmic. Lovecraft’s deepest form of horror is existential–that the universe has no overarching and benevolent structure or meaning, that suffering is inevitable, constant, and without redeeming value, and that entropy and despair are the ultimate fates of all things. That’s the type of horror that sticks with a person long after the sudden shocks and momentary frights, after the monsters have gone back under the bed or into the closet and the ghosts have been exorcised for a while.

Again, what does this have to do with children? A few things, actually. Sanity being one of them. Not in the broad sense of a person’s mental health, but in the localized sense of those little insanities that sometimes overtake each of us when we lose our cool and the concomitant ability to act rationally. These are my moral and personal failings–but a two-year-old sure has the fast track to bringing them out in me. Just as I had to deal with them with Bess (see Just Give Her the Damn Goldfish!), I’m still letting myself get out of my own head with desires to achieve some modicum of control over situations where control doesn’t matter. Since two-year-olds often say one thing and then do another, or change their mind about what they want or don’t want in milliseconds, opportunities abound.

As (I think) I’ve mentioned, Hawkwood is extremely intelligent. His vocabulary is astounding, he bent our Alexa to his will within two days (we’ve listened to Toto’s “Africa 57,432,001 times now. I used to like that song.), he can help with laundry, dishes and cooking. But between two and three is when children begin to learn to consciously manipulate to get what they want. This is developmentally appropriate, it is the early stages of learning important social and relational skills. But since Hawkwood is so intelligent, his attempts at manipulation are especially infuriating. A few examples: Hawkwood asks questions (often random, but always associated with something or someone nearby) whenever he wants to change the subject and avoid something he’s being asked to do; he phrases what he wants as questions: “Do you want milk?”; he parcels out affection when it is calculated to achieve his ends. Don’t get me wrong; he’s a sweet boy and I’ve quickly become quite fond of him. He’s also a little booger.

It’s that the above combines with his inability to rationalize or employ logic (although it’s possible he’s just using non-Euclidean geometries in his logic) that has a tendency to make me lose my head. You can’t bargain with a child who’s not ready to evaluate cost and benefit. You can’t reason with a child for whom cause and effect are not entirely real, such that consequences–particularly those that are minutes or hours down the line–carry any real sense of urgency.

As you know, I am a lawyer in my day-to-day career. There are a few things I’ve learned well in that profession: (1) You cannot make someone do something they don’t want to do without coercive force; this is never a positive experience and always has consequences. (2) For those people (and it’s certainly not everyone), with the ability and desire to act rationally, they must be able to reasonably calculate costs and benefits in order to be persuaded. (3) For those who cannot or will not be subject to reason, you can only achieve compliance by playing into their pre-existing beliefs, weaknesses and expectations (something our current president does all too well).

All of these things remain true of a two-year-old, except that they cannot be expected to act according to reason and do not yet have any pre-existing beliefs and expectations (other than selfishness) to use to advantage. That leaves me–someone who is typically quite persuasive and (I think) very good at working through conflicts–powerless when it comes to Hawkwood. And I hate being powerless.

Add to this sleep-deprivation, a schedule that currently revolves entirely around meeting the needs of the children and helping them to adapt in what is a very difficult situation for them, and putting aside the semblance of frustration (as much as possible) to help them to bond to you, and you quickly lose sight of the idea that this is a phase that will pass. Once the children are in daycare and I’m back to working, the days will be far easier and life will return to something that feels manageable. In the meantime, the horror feels existential. Cue Lovecraft.

But Lovecraft was an atheist, and that left him little respite from his nihilistic despair. I am a man of faith, and one possessing a powerful will at that. So, regardless of the similarities between the terror of children and the cosmic terror of otherworldly beings, the differences are greater, and the ending is not the same. I will not succumb to despair, and my present situation will not acquiesce to tragedy or insanity. We will make meaning out of chaos and thereby dispel the lurkers at threshold.

Maybe that puts us closer to August Derleth’s much-maligned “posthumous collaborations” with Lovecraft, in which Derleth’s own Christian view superseded Lovecraft’s atheistic nihilism in the stories of the Cthulhu mythos the two wrote “together.” Maybe that’s what I should pick up next, to read while Hawkwood is slowly drifting off to sleep at night after I pick him up and rock him, play the classical music on his night-time CD, and sit with him in the bed until slumber takes him.

More to come.

 

Day One

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It’s 6:30 on Wednesday morning; K is trying to put the infant back to sleep as I write this (bless her!). It wasn’t as long a night as we’d expected, but it was a long day yesterday.

Two precious little boys, eight months and about two-and-a-half, arrived in our home yesterday morning. The older boy is talkative, curious, intelligent and very busy. We were told that he was hyperactive, but that doesn’t seem to be the case–he’s just a normal, active two-year-old. The infant is already full of personality–smiling often, but also very stubborn and opinionated! And about as food-motivated as Berwyn (our dog) is!

Yesterday was a typical first day, filling out paperwork, learning as much as we can, trying to get back into parenting routines. All of this brings with it a lot of stress and exhaustion, but only the situation itself was the cause–the kids themselves are fairly easy-going.

As expected, everything came to a head at bed-time, at least for the two-year-old. That’s when the realization that this isn’t a fun daytrip sets in. I’m extremely thankful for having attended the Empowered-to-Connect conference stream a few months back (see my TBRI post); it was fascinating to watch our little boy as he went into “survival mode” and exhibited exactly the sorts of behaviors expected of him. This understanding allowed me to remain calm and centered rather than becoming frustrated–I could easily remind myself that this was not a matter of willful disobedience or obstinance, but simply a child experiencing very understandable trauma trying to regulate himself. And, from that place of understanding, however limited and abstract it may be, I could respond with compassion, using the same techniques I’ve learned through TBRI trainings and the ETC conference in particular.

In this case, this meant picking up the toddler and holding him until he was able to regulate himself and calm down some. This took about an hour, and I began to doubt my ability–my physical ability to stand up and rock a thirty-pound child after a day already filled with a lot of physical exertion–but we made it through. After that hour, I was able to lay him in the bed, awake but much calmer, and we gradually dimmed the lights and moved him toward sleep.

It didn’t take long after the kids went down that I went to sleep myself–I know that when they’re asleep is my only chance to get some rest! I slept soundly, though K informs me that she had a rough night doubting that the baby monitor was working. It was, as it proudly (and loudly) informed us at 5:45 this morning.

So here I sit with my computer and my coffee in the calm before day two. As promised, this part of the blog will come alive as I share my experiences, joys and frustrations of parenting–and “co-parenting with the state” as they say.

I’ll be turning now to continue working on my novel for as long as I can before the kiddos wake again. More to come soon!

Update 6-18-19

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The blog’s been quiet for a little over a week and, as usual, I like to explain myself a little bit when that happens.

The Writing
I had planned to wait until NaNoWriMo to start working on finishing a novel again, but those plans have been happily dashed. What started as a short-story ended up as a twenty-thousand-plus-word text, one that needed a lot of work on pacing and a lot of filling in of details. So it just made sense to turn it into a novel. That’s been the bulk of my writing time in the past few weeks, both in the original story and now in plotting out the novelization.

Plotting is almost complete and I’ll begin the writing (and re-writing) proper shortly. If posts to the blog are sporadic over the next short while, that’s what’s going on.

This novel does not yet have a name, but I’ve also already got broad-stroke plans for three sequels; two of which will likely be part of an initial trilogy and the last of which (which also started as a short-story that expanded out of hand) will likely be the start to a second trilogy. The story is set in Avar Narn (of course) and is something of a noir story. Saying it feels in some ways like a bastardized mix of noir fairy-tale and dark fantasy is pretty close to the mark, I think.

If you’ve followed the blog for a while, you may remember that, in 2017, I began work on a different Avar Narn novel, tentatively called Wilderlands. I fully intend to finish that novel, potentially as part of a trilogy between the two trilogies discussed above (the characters in the current novel and Wilderlands are entirely different), but it’s on the proverbial back burner for now.

Kiddos
Any day now, K and I could get the call that brings kids into our lives again. We’re going a little crazy with the wait, to be honest. But, when it happens, you’ll see the Fatherhood section of the blog come to life again.

Shadowrun
If you’ve been keeping a weather eye out for RPG news, you’ll know that a Sixth Edition of Shadowrun has been announced for release this summer, boasting a “streamlined” ruleset.

Shadowrun: Anarchy disappointed me greatly in its failure to translate some of the most fun things about the Shadowrun universe into a more narrative-focused design. As such, while I’m excited to see a new edition, I’m not sure that it’s going to provide what I think the rules need to really present a modernized and excellent take on the game’s design. So, look out for two things: (1) continued posts for my Cortex Plus/Prime hack of Shadowrun (which may end up remaining the sweet spot for me for playing games in the Shadowrun universe), and (2) a thorough review of the Shadowrun Sixth Edition Rulebook when I get my grubby hands on it.

Theology
More to come and soon.

TBRI

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I spent last Friday and Saturday attending a simulcast of the “Empowered to Connect” conference put on by the Karyn Purvis Institute of Childhood Development at TCU. The simulcast at our home church was put on by Cultivating Families, a non-profit that is dear to my heart. I hope that you’ll check them out and consider donating.

Dr. Purvis was the creator of a parenting approach called “Trust-based Relational Intervention,” commonly known as “TBRI.” TBRI relies on an understanding of childhood brain development, particularly for those children with capital-T Trauma in their backgrounds, to inform a parenting style that is focused on developing and maintaining attachment between parent and child, helping the child literally rewire the physical changes in the brain related to past trauma so that they can get out of “survival mode” and begin to self-regulate their emotions and behaviors, and teach/enforce positive strategies for all manner of social interactions.

There are a few things I particularly like about TBRI. First, it is very much in line with my idea of parenting through calling a child to increased empathy and understanding of the consequences of actions for others rather than shame- and guilt-based judgment and punishment (see my post called “Toward a Positive Morality.”) Second, which likely makes sense given my first point, TBRI matches closely with what I believe to be good Christian theology–it focuses on building relationships and solving problems rather than punishment and guilt. Third, there is a strong emphasis for caregivers to “do the work” to understand the things that drive them crazy or make them respond emotionally rather than thoughtfully; to sort out our own baggage. Without doing so, we fall victim to the same behaviors we’re trying to help the kiddos work through and beyond. K and I have had several conversations over the weekend of “Oh! That’s probably why I always get angry when X happens, or why I always do X when Y. Now that I’ve named it, we can try to work on it.” Most of the people who’ve been through TBRI training (DePelchin, our foster licensing agency, uses it thoroughly in their own training) report similar experiences.

There’s an example of that process that’s been on the blog for quite some time, in fact. One that arose out of my own reflection about my behavior with our first foster kids (see the post called “Just Give Her the Damn Goldfish!” An amusing anecdote–some anonymous and benevolent person left an industrial-size box of Goldfish in K’s office with mine and our daughter’s names on it after that article was published. I remain grateful and always smile when I think of that!

While it may have been designed for children from hard places and their caregivers, TBRI just makes good sense. It advocates a system for relationships that extends grace to others and encourages introspection to improve one’s own relationships as well as providing proven techniques for conflict de-escalation and for building trust while negotiating interpersonal needs. K and I have tried to implement the techniques with each other, and I think it’s improved out relationship. At the very least, it’s helped us demonstrate to each other our mutual desire to grow closer and to work on the issues that arise between us in a positive, grace-filled and loving way.

I like to joke that I also use TBRI techniques with some of my legal clients, but it’s also true. The techniques I’ve learnt through TBRI training have helped me to help clients understand their motivations, more effectively evaluate their options regarding any particular matter and look to solutions rather than the tit-for-tat that is often common in our interpersonal conflict, legal or not.

TBRI is not a light switch that, once flipped on, completely changes everything. It takes practice to implement, continual self-evaluation and creative problem-solving, and the ability to ask for grace, forgiveness, and a “re-do” when you make your own mistakes. But every time I attend some training on TBRI, I ask myself what it would look like if everyone used it, and I think to myself that the Kingdom of Heaven would be just a little bit closer to Earth if we did.

Since we’re on the topic of raising children, fostering and adopting (or at least in that section of the blog), it seems that an update is in order. K and I have reopened for a placement and have been waiting since late February for the call that will change everything again. At any moment, we could be returning to parenthood again and this section of the blog will become much more lively. I can’t wait.

Blog Update

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I completely missed posting last week and haven’t posted anything this week. This post is not going to be as substantive as usual, unfortunately (I’ll try to get a substantive post up over the weekend!), but I wanted to let my readers know what’s going on and what to expect in the near future.

NaNoWriMo is not a go.
Last November, I made very good progress on the first draft of my first novel set in Avar Narn by participating in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). I had hoped to participate again this year to get the first draft finished. Unfortunately–at this point–I’ve made the decision not to participate this year.

K and I are still waiting on a placement of kiddos, which could happen at any moment now but (obviously) hasn’t happened yet. I’m concerned that, as November nears, I’ll need to be focusing more of my time on the kids when they arrive. As much as I’m yearning to get the first draft (and then revisions) done on this novel, it simply must take a back seat to the children and their needs.

Additionally, K and I are purchasing a house and will be closing and moving around November. K’s got a lot going on with her worklife right now and into the near future, so I intend to take on the better part of the moving efforts.

That doesn’t leave much room in my schedule to try to fit in 1667 words a day in November, so I’ve decided to give myself a little break on that front.

This does not mean I won’t be writing–just probably not as intensely as I would be if participating in NaNoWriMo. I’ve been spending time working on (and reworking) some of the setting information for Avar Narn (mythology, legends and history, religion, geography, etc.) that will be the basis for (hopefully) many short stories and novels in the future. Expect some posts related to this “background” information.

I’ve got one Avarian short story currently underway (though I’m not sure I’ll end up happy enough with it that it will get posted) and plotting in the works for at least half-a-dozen more. I have more plotting to do for the rest of the novel (and some changes in the part that’s already written, which I’ve been slowly working through) and I hope to get some writing done towards the novel in the near future.

I had said not long ago that I’d be working on some sci-fi short stories (and a few are in their infancy), but Avar Narn is my truest passion and that’s where I’ve decided to really focus.

On Publishing
I’ve been thinking a good bit about how to approach publishing some of my work. That’s a daunting set of decisions, and I’m not fully decided, but I am currently leaning toward some form of self-publishing. While I’d love to have a large readership, I’d rather follow some advice from Joss Whedon. On talking about making TV shows, he reportedly said (and I’m paraphrasing), “I’d rather make something that a few people have to watch than something that a lot of people want to watch.”

For me, the major issue (other than perseverance through mountains of rejection letters, which I could live with) is control over my projects, staying true to the story for its sake rather than caving to market demands, and taking things in the direction I want them to go. This likely means a smaller audience and less money (to the extent that there will ever be any money in my writing, which is not a guarantee) but more personal freedom. It is a quirk of my personality to prioritize my independence and doing things my way over most other advantages–for better or for worse.

This may merit a full post, and I’d love to hear the thoughts of any readers who are themselves published (I know there are a few of you out there!).

On Theology
One of the reasons I failed to get a post out last week is that I’ve recently been teaching for a Sunday school class at the church. I love to teach and its an honor to have been asked to teach by people I so deeply respect and admire. We did two weekends on the history and polity issues confronting the United Methodist Church relating to our position on homosexuality (and the LGBTQI community in general) and are now doing two weekends on the Trinity.

There are certainly some posts in the works based on this research and some other reading/studying I’ve done recently. I’ll of course have a post on the Trinity in the near future (and why it’s such an amazing aspect of orthodox Christiany faith), but I’ve also got some ideas kicking around about theories of salvation, about William of Ockham and his theology, about (modern) Gnosticism and more.

On Reviews
I’ve finished a few Great Courses on medieval history recently and I’m currently in the midst of one on Imperial China (which, as K will attest, has really gotten me geeking out a fair deal, though perhaps no more than usual). I may do some reviews on these sometime soon.

I’m also working through a few theology books which I may have some comments on.

There are a number of video games either recently out or that will be out in the next few months that I’d, one, like to play, and, two, like to share some thoughts about. The Pathfinder: Kingmaker isometric game just released; it both takes me to an RPG setting and ruleset that’s always interested me (though that I’ve found far too complex and, ultimately, flawed to play on the tabletop) and to the isometric RPGs of the 90’s that were the mother’s milk of my early (digital) gaming life. The last installment of the recent Tomb Raider trilogy is also out and I’m definitely interested in following up on the first two very-well-done games of that series.

Of course, Red Dead Redemption 2 and Call of Cthulhu will be out soon, both of which I’m excited about. I was in law school about the time the first Red Dead Redemption came out, and I distinctly remember sitting with a judge in his late-sixties or early-seventies at lunch during a summer internship as he ranted about how great the game was. He wasn’t wrong.

On Roleplaying Games
As those of you who are interested in such things may have noticed, most of my recent posts on the truest-and-highest art of gaming–the tabletop RPG–have been about the Cortex Plus/Prime system. I’ll be continuing to post about my Shadowrun conversion for those rules.

I have always dreamed of an RPG to go along with Avar Narn. I’ve run several games set in the world over the years (using rulesets as diverse as The Riddle of Steel, Cortex, Fate, and D&D), but my ultimate desire is to build a roleplaying game specifically designed for the unique nature of the world (said every RPG designer with a pet setting ever, I know). While I love “generic” roleplaying games like Fate and Cortex for a wide variety of play, I am also a believer that systems specifically designed for particular settings are usually better, because the mechanics can reinforce the setting and vice-versa.

One of the most annoying things I see in D&D is the assumption by some players that the rules of D&D are the immutable physics of any setting using that ruleset rather than the rules serving the setting (and being subordinate to both normal and narrative logic).

Both Fate and Cortex intend to be rulesets that bridge the gap between the completely generic ruleset and the one-setting ruleset by using modularity and a toolbox approach that encourages customization. But even this, I think, will not be sufficient for my purposes.

I see games like The One Ring with mechanics that really bring forward the themes and motif of the game as a whole–not to mention indy games like Dogs in the Vineyard, Houses of the Blooded and Torchbearer that really push the envelope of rules for narrative games or RPGs (however you parse those two out)–and I am inspired. We’ll see what comes of it, so expect posts as I struggle through issues of design and ask for feedback (and, hopefully, some eventual assistance with playtesting).

I had mentioned a ways back that I was working on a massive campaign set in the Warhammer 40k universe. That is on a backburner, to be sure, but still in the pipeline.

I’d like to do some review of the newer Warhammer Fantasy and 40K rulesets in the future as well.

Reader Involvement
In case it isn’t apparent, thinking critically and imaginatively and then writing about those thoughts. Maybe it’s a disease–I’m just not happy if I’m not doing it, and I find a lot of fulfilment just from writing and from posting here.

But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to know that people find some usefulness in what I write! I’d love to have more comments, requests for topics, questions to follow up on from posts and more reader involvement in general! Drop me a line, even if it’s just to tell me what you think of the blog in general–or if you think there’s something I could improve on. And invite your friends!

Conclusion
Well, that’s a long list of things I’d like to do, perhaps more than can reasonably be accomplished. But it seems worth trying to do anyway, so we’ll see what comes of it.

Going a Little Crazy

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As of today, K and I have been on the active list for our second foster placement for two weeks. The suspense is killing us.

The first time we became an active foster family, we had a placement within three days of going active. That being our only experience of the process, we’re chomping at the bit for something to happen.

We could get the call at any time, so all of our plans must currently be held in “tentative” status and every decision has a “what will we do if we get a placement call” component to it.

But we’ve only had one call for a potential placement, and that was the very day we became active again. It was a potential placement that just wasn’t a good fit for us, so we did the hard thing all of our clinicians, foster trainers and the rest of our support group has recommended to us–we passed and waited for something that will be a good fit for us. I can see how that becomes more and more difficult as time goes on and the desire to have kids in the home now continues to crescendo.

It’s a feeling of constantly being on edge–a strange combination of the night before Christmas and the night before that test you really should have studied for–but didn’t. It’s not that I don’t feel well-prepared, though, it’s quite the opposite. The source of tension is that the kids I imagine being in my home soon, falling in love with, are an amorphous blur in my imagination. We have, at present, no way of knowing what the specific challenges will be, what little miracles will greet us each day, what sorts of things will start me pulling out my hair. As is most often the case, it’s the not knowing that’s tough.

All of that is to say two things, I suppose: (1) as I hinted at back in July, there’s soon to be much more to say on this part of the blog, and (2) if I’ve been less active, or more distracted lately, at least now you have some explanation if nothing else.

On the other hand, maybe I should be trying to write more to stay sane–that usually helps. If only I could get my thoughts to stand still!