Rust Belt Ramblings

​It’s been quite awhile since I’ve been here. But it feels right. I’ve had a lot of things going on. I’ve put a lot of work into my music, I’ve been DMing Tales of the Valiant games for my friends, and I’ve just overall sorta been coming into myself more as a creative. It’s been great, and I’ve been really enjoying myself. But that’s not why I’m here tonight. With growth comes change, and for me, change is fucking terrifying. I’ve been more capable of processing my emotions, but the anxiety has also grown to keep pace. It’s a vulnerable place to be sometimes, growth. I’ve always tried to be a wallflower. It keeps me safe. But I have been accepting that I shouldn’t hang on the sidelines, and while it’s good and necessary, it’s left me quite exposed. Most of the confidence is still false, even though it is bolstered by the logical knowledge that the people who see my best self are telling me the absolute truth about the Greg they see. I still struggle with my insecurities daily. I win fa...

​Well, I’m at it again. Checking the leaderboards. I’ve always enjoyed playing video games. I am not great at most of them. But it never kills my joy. Until I start looking at the leaderboards. There’s a certain rush to being measured and found to be “good.” It’s validating, it’s an affirmation of value in that context. It’s also absolutely destructive. Once you get sucked into the hole of striving to be “good,” you tie your value only to the numbers. The experience doesn’t matter anymore, it’s become entirely about the pursuit of that threshold. And there is no “good enough.” You will say that there is. You’ll even believe it. But then you hit that plateau, and you think “maybe I can get a little better.” So you push for the next target, the next milestone, and you keep pushing. This isn’t the destructive part. Self-improvement is a beautiful thing. But it doesn’t stop there. You keep your eyes on those leaderboards. And you’re in a good place, but there’s still people better. They’re...

Where I’m at feels oddly familiar. I’ve been trying to compete again instead of coexist. I need my voice to be the loudest again, because I’m forever terrified it’s not worth hearing. Then, I feel like I’m being intrusive. But it doesn’t feel like where I’ve been. I see the proof that I’m not an afterthought or a background character. I am finding the excitement in the moments others share with me instead of feeling the need to “keep up.” I’m finding the joy in being the hype man again. I do truly believe that this is the best version of me. The hype man. I don’t really contain the pieces to steal the show, and I get more joy in being a part of a whole than I do in being a lone survivor. The struggle that I constantly balance is how to do so without losing myself. Life is a collaborative pursuit, but we can’t take every journey with help. We can’t rely on others to validate our joy. Jealousy is gross. It takes the awe we feel from others’ accomplishments, and it twists that. It makes u...

I haven’t wanted to burden anyone with the following thoughts, so instead I will indirectly throw them at a wide array of someones. It’s much like shotgunning my melancholy into the void, hoping to minimize its impact on the world around me. You see, these thoughts shouldn’t really carry any impact. It’s the same old feeling around my birthday. One of a lack of importance or visibility. This feeling isn’t one I like to feed. It’s a huge underlying part of my worst qualities, and it drives me to be everything I desire to not be. But around August 11, it gets harder to shoo away. We equate the anniversary of our birth with a sense of meaning, and it lends itself to selfish thoughts. And oh, my sweet Ora, I am a sucker for those. I struggle to accept my place in the stories I get to share in this journey. The truth is always that I am just happy to have a place in the tales others tell, but I desire more than I let on, almost always. It’s simple, but it’s deceptively tricky. I de...

“The only thing that’s ever stopping me is me” -Fall Out Boy, Stay Frosty Royal Milk Tea Well, proved that yesterday with the one-shot. It felt natural… but I gave myself a day to process it before searching for conclusions to draw. I have not lost any of the joy I felt at the immediate conclusion. It felt like something I could flow and roll with, and I felt like i could do it “my way,” but still effectively. Its the joy of the “what do you think?” and the pleasure of the “yes, and?” I was in control of the moment but I was not in charge. I am less a dungeon master, and more a self-aware narrator. And I think it suits me to pursue my “style” as such. I’m lucky. I know about the “Mercer Effect” and how a lot of DMs get down on themselves for not being that guy. Listen, he’s wonderful, and I love what he does. But I’m more trying to be Sam Elliott in “The Big Lebowski,” so I get to dodge that pressure. The DM Abides, man.

It’s been a really really long year, and it’s only January. There’s a ton of reasons for this, but right now I’m focusing on one. This is America. It’s got me so fucked up lately. And I’m not your standard, garden variety panicked yankee over here. I’m not making preparations to leave, I fucking can’t. Ain’t just that easy, I’m not marketable and my wife’s got Multiple Sclerosis, we’re not providing value, we’d be refugees not emigrants. But I’m already digressing. I think the best way to put this is that I’m not afraid. I’m concerned. Fear implies a feeling of danger. I’m a straight-passing cis white man with some beautiful baby blues, my bleeding heart is the only thing that makes me distinguishable from the alpha male misogynist and gigachad MAGA maniac. I don’t fear for myself. But i have strong concerns for people I hold dear to me. I’m also pissed off. Pissed off that my Canadians won’t be coming here because of the bullshit of our leader here and the legitimate danger he puts f...