20141209.0909

Something tells me I have an issue with triplicate...

I have been nursing a headache for the past couple of days, which annoys me greatly. I do not know what the cause of it is, either. Aspirin has not helped it, nor has ramping up my intake of water (the Mrs. suggested that it has been a result of dehydration). I have to think that it is stress or tension, but it has greeted me when I work up for the past two days...I do not know. Maybe it is the oncoming end-of-term illness about which I have commented before (although I cannot seem to find the post at this point); I rather hope not, as I have much to do, including a new freelance piece that was just ordered. Whatever its cause, though, the headache is annoying me mightily, and I wish it would go away.

Wishing will not make it so, however, no more than it will make many other things so. It is probably better thus; I know that I have wished for things that would not be to the benefit of the world, and I am certain I am not alone in having done so. (Many of them have involved things deemed impossible by current understandings of physical laws as I have seen them reported. Some of them still do. Others are wholly unethical and probably icky. Again, I doubt that I am alone in such wishing.) The actions I can take to enact some of those wishes are limited, not only by physical law, but also by federal, state, and local statutes and by my own moral and ethical imperatives. Simply put, there is only so much I can do, only so much I can get away with doing, and so much that I am willing to do...and because of the last, I have to accept that my wishing is not in earnest. And in that, too, I doubt I am alone.

Perhaps it is for that reason that I see in the behaviors of some what I see. I can understand immersion in certain narratives that allow for action without consequence, despite the lack of verisimilitude such narratives display for that very reason. I am not immune to it, as might be suggested by my long involvement in role-playing game communities. (This is particularly true of running them; the GM is god, or is at least a god, within the collaborative improvisational storytelling environment Mackay describes.) Acting in such a way as betrays a lack of acceptance of consequences, though, makes for a bad time to be had by all concerned, in games and out of them--and I do not think I am alone in having had the delightful experience of being around such people. I am not alone in being concerned with such things as trying not to be such an actor...but I am more nearly alone than is good, for me or for anyone else.