https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=VWK_VpzJiow
Hello everybody. This is a new episode of Unfolding the Soul. My guest today is Grizz. He’s been having some sweet time with role-playing games. And he wants to have his story about those. So Grizz is also active in this corner of the internet. He has a YouTube channel where he’s having a lot of fun with his mind control. I was going to say compatriots, but they’re puppets. So yeah, Grizz, maybe you want to say something about your channel? I haven’t been kicked off of YouTube yet. And I think if I make it to a thousand subscribers, I will be. So anyone willing to help with that and throw me a subscribe, you don’t have to watch, just you know, the number game. That’d be great. I tell you things you probably shouldn’t hear, but I give you a savings throw first so you can resist it if you need to. But everybody knows resistance is futile. We’re all bored now, baby. Yeah. So I also have a YouTube channel because that’s what you’re watching. I also have likes and subscribes. So thank you in advance. So yeah, Grizz, how about you introduce us to this idea of role playing games? Like what are they? Okay. So to start with, I’m old. So like people that have grown up with the internet may or may not know this. They’ll know it because they watch Stranger Things, I’m sure. But there used to be this thing called Dungeons and Dragons. And that’s where a bunch of people get around and play pretend. But instead of playing pretend by running around and doing things, they just, there’s a Dungeon Master guy who’s in charge of everything but the players. And the players just say what they do, and then the Dungeon Master tells them what happens. And that’s the traditional setup for the way a story gets told. Where basically the Dungeon Master’s story, and he doesn’t have to figure out what the characters do because they tell him. And you come together and you tell the story. And people not as old are probably familiar with the concept from doing it in video games, where the video game itself becomes the Dungeon Master and tells you what happens in response to your actions. So, and my experience has gone from tabletop to digital to back to tabletop. So it covers the whole gamut. So what’s the most attractive part to you? Is it the story, the self-generation of the story? Or is it somewhat something else? As a Dungeon Master, it’s fun for me to see how people way different than me respond to the situations. And how they deal with the problems I present to them and stuff. And that’s intriguing. And just as a player, it’s fun to go into somebody else’s imagination and wreak havoc. And see if you can do things that they’re not ready for and how they can adjust to that. It’s very dynamic how it unfolds. The story unfolds. And an important aspect of it, at least in the tabletop versions, is that the dice decide what happens. Whereas it’s very mechanical in computer gaming, the dice can have the greatest idea, but the dice say no. And then you have to deal with it. So that’s another important aspect, I think, that makes it fresh almost every time. So I feel like it’s in some sense a tool to gain insight into people and ways to participate into people and ways to participate with them on an intimate level. And even an insight into yourself. Because if you’re playing, you’re not in control of what situations or the results of what the dice do to you and how you’re going to react. People can sit around and fantasize about how they would react in a situation, but until it actually manifests, they don’t know. And that’s simulated very well. And the RPGs, I think. So I feel like there’s a sense of reality knocking on the door, and that’s really important. Sometimes. Damn it, reality. Don’t shatter my illusions. The only thing keeping me sane. Okay, so yeah, let’s get to how you first learned about RPGs and what was that for you? Well, as I disclosed in my famous now first discussion with Paul Vanderglay, I was eight years old, and the neighbor was my friend, and his older brother decided to be a dungeon master. And I saw on the box, it said for ages 10 and up. And so the first moral dilemma I was faced with, I chose to ignore the warnings and go full speed ahead. And that may have been one of the most impactful decisions of my entire life. So it was that. I was a little eight-year-old kid, and I started rolling the dice. But maybe it’s a good predictor. It’s like, okay, let’s put eight years old in the chamber and we do the scientific experiment and then see what they do with their lives afterwards. So yeah, did you get enchanted by this world that you could participate in? Well, I mean, the adventure, it was like a way to channel the useful imagination in new and exciting ways. And since it was the older brother of my friend, there was somebody with more life experience kind of like sprinkling that kind of thing into it. Like, I recall that that’s how I learned that like beds can stink of sweat, because one of the first adventures we went on, he detailed that part of the ogre room we had found to help us figure out what room we were in. And so there was the little older brother teaching and also all the imaginative play. So did you already have a vivid imagination or was it something that you developed to be playing? I can’t compare mine to anybody else’s. It may be all compared to other people’s, but I do like I recall also once when we were little kids, we had to fight a dragon. And for him to communicate to us what we were facing, he’s like pointed to the power lines ahead. And he said, it’s about that tall. So there were imaginative aids to help. So yeah, I would say it helps develop your imagination, help you visualize things internally. Okay, so is this the thing that you kept doing like throughout your youth? That game fell apart when I had to move to Hawaii when I was nine. And there was a little bit of a token, there was a role playing game based in tokens world that I dabbled with a little bit there. But until I got, until after Hawaii, I got to Oklahoma, I didn’t really get back into gaming. And then, but when I did, it was, it was how I established friends in the new location. I found a group to game with. And so it weighed in that way. So what’s your social outlet? So do you have a story about how that works for you? Like, how do you connect with people through a game? Oh, well, it’s, you pull everybody out of their existing context, like, you get to stop being like a goofy, awkward kid, and start being a like, you’re the barbarian in the party, and everything, it’s always the part like, things that you wouldn’t allow your actual friends to do, you kind of have to smooth over to keep the party together and the game going. And so that way you learn things about other people’s perspective and bond in that way. Like the same way any shared group experience reveals things about the other people through each other. So yeah, I’m not familiar with the culture in America around that time, was this like a commonplace thing? Or was this like a group of people? It was mainly like a way for the socially inept to socialize. It was looked down upon a little bit. It was about the time the Revenge of the Nerds movies were coming out. So the nerds had not yet made the revenge, and they were sort of second class citizens, the freaks and weirdos. And it allowed us all to step out of the freaking weirdo and be these other characters. So there was that aspect. And it allowed you to scheme the revenge, obviously. So were you still a participant at this point, or did you also start doing it? I was doing tabletops. When I got to Oklahoma, I started my own campaign. It was a second edition Dungeons and Dragons with Thacko for the people who care. And then the computers started to come in. And there was this one point when I was when I was dungeon mastering, I was like, it would be so convenient for me if I could script all these NPCs to this run on autopilot and not have to figure out where they were in the town and stuff. And so I just I leaned into the notion that that was going to happen. I wasn’t the only one that was going to see that. And so I went more into the computer aspect of gaming and whatnot. About 23, 24. So I’m still interested in the shift from player to GM. Was that a thing that you chose to do? Was it you needed to do that? And how did that change your relationship to the game? I was always a bit of a rules lawyer. And so I would get frustrated with the way other people were doing it. And I had to do it myself to show them how with the potential to manifest the potentials of the game. And it was a good way for me to incorporate like all the books I was reading and the stories that me and my friends could live through. There was a there’s a series by R.A. Salvatore about a dark, a drow elf. And then that’s like an underground society run by women. And like all of those all of his input from those stories got to be part of the backstory that my players went through. And one of the important things you develop as a dungeon master is how to think like a villain. Because if all you ever do is play, you’re always the hero, always trying to be the good guy. But if you’re writing the whole story, you have to manifest like, why are the bad guys doing what they do? Why are and exploring those motives for me really shaped what lets me believe in weird ass conspiracy theories. Because I can turn myself to the perspective of somebody selfish who doesn’t care how much they hurt everybody else. So yeah, that sounds like a big deal. Did that also affect you in your life? The fact that you were having this change in perspective? I don’t know. I’ve never been able to embrace the dark side, but I can see it now. And I see the gains of it. But there’s just something about the the integrity. I think one of the important things I realized is that the integrity of your internal character is always at risk of corruption. And I think that has helped me stay out of a lot of trouble that I otherwise might have been swept up into. So that’s in relation to yourself and in relation to other people? Do you see that that knowing about the darkness and understanding it allows you to relate differently to people? I actually think it alienates me a lot. It’s harder to get involved and get swept up into things when you can see all the angles that most people don’t pay attention to. And they can just fully embrace the moment and what’s going on. And I’m seeing consequences and other motivations that play on the people that they’re blind to. So that’s actually interesting. So in your attempt to enchant the game, you disenchanted reality. Yes. One of the harmful aspects, I think, of getting involved so early into it was that when you’re rolling up a character, you can, I don’t know what the name is, but you can I don’t know what the beeping is. When you’re rolling up a character, sometimes you get shitty stats. Like if you’re wanting to play a fighter, but your strength ends up four or eight, depending on how cruel the DM is. Like generally house rules I’ve always played under is like, none of the DMs made me play with an eight and I could re-roll the character. And that mutated as a notion in my life, especially since without growing up with any religious background, like if reincarnation is a thing, then all I have to do is play with this character. I could re-roll a character afterward. I get to be somebody else after this life is over. And that made being in this life and accepting my role in this life as more difficult. It’s like I got to sour grapes my own existence, the stats I was actually born with and have to live with, I got to be bitter and pissed off about and lamenting it. And then that became like a giant portion of my life is lamenting the character, not the character, but the stats I’m living with. I don’t know that that answers your question, but I had been thinking about it coming up to this podcast. So I wanted to get it out there. And at some point, probably about the time I got into the computer gaming, it was like I accepted that, okay, so in this life, based on the circumstances I saw around me, I’m just this Walmart employee. That’s who I am. And the artificial reality of the gaming, the time I shared with the people online now, rather than at a table, became more important than what was going on in the physical reality. Because that’s where I got to be an expression of my true character. Whereas here, I was just a schlub. So the danger of that escapism into the gaming manifested that way for more than a decade. Yeah, so I want to point an arrow to different ways like this. Well, there’s a dynamic element in D&D where you level up and you grow. And I feel like you took the static element, like, oh, you roll these stats and you got to deal with it. But did you also do the translation of the level up element to what you like? Not in physical reality. Because as I was coming of age, entertainment and work began to commingle. You could get a job entertaining people with programming computer games and whatnot. Helping people distract themselves from reality became a profession. And so that I think helped keep the… There was no… The adult responsibility angle became so commingled with gaming that it would be able to feel like the time I spent gaming and learning about the different aspects of gaming and how to serve those two people felt like I was doing the work. And I might still be doing that. The way the reality is played out, that’s still true. Or even more true. Now that building virtual worlds for people is gainful employment. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And I was thinking about how you live your life now. In some sense, it’s still true, right? Like you’re still building a world, although the world is now no longer in a game. Yeah. See, now I’m stretching… I’m trying to stretch reality into like, okay, so you have to NPC for so much of your life just to get by. That’s the cost of living. But now, you can LARP something else on the side. And that can become more important. But it doesn’t have to be held in a game. You can LARP it outside in reality. I think it was back in 2015 or so. We ended up playing at the back of… Playing tabletop gaming again at the back of a radio station. And it doesn’t always have to be swords and sorcerers. You can do like cyberpunk or superheroes or whatever. There’s all kinds of different realities you can explore. And we ended up playing this space game this guy made up. And there was this moment where like, we had just finished this big mission. And so the crew had decided what to do. We decided to go to a pleasure planet. And the notion that maybe that’s what this planet was meant to be. And that it’s been skewed somehow. That we’ve all been enslaved and stuff. That really impacted the potentials that we could manifest on this planet. If we were to play a different game. It’s like, I was born and we were all raised up into this basically really intense version of Monopoly. But collectively we could decide to play a new game somehow. And that’s kind of the thrust I’m going with the whole LARPgate project I have going on over at the channel. I actually made a commentary on the GameBee video where they’re exploring the same idea. Like, oh, we’re doing the wrong thing. We should do something different. I also had ideas of flashbacks about Jordan Peterson talking about Pinocchio. So yeah, yeah, like those ideas are really alive for people throughout times. I want to get back to the computer game aspect when you first got introduced there. So yeah, you kind of talked about it already a little bit, right? Where the optimization and the promise of that was really important. So are there any other big shifts that accompany the transition to computer? I took a large relationship failure with severe consequences. And about the same time I fell into this computer game called Jumpgate, which was back when we used joysticks that were actually like flight joysticks and we were flying spaceships around. And it was I got into it in the beta before the big companies bought it and got a hold of it. And the level of access we had to the development team, it’s like we were helping shape that reality. And then for the next 12 years, I tried to make that game a success. There was a lot of uncertainty about the game. And I think that’s one of the things that I tried to make the game a success. On the reality side, there was a lot of hardship and stuff. There was a lot of difficulties. So it was always trying to get people in and get people entertained. And it felt like, like I said, doing the work of what it takes to build a world that people can share deep meaningful experiences with. And I didn’t get out of that until like probably 2011. So it was like my reality went on pause. My leveling up in reality basically went on pause. But I was learning about online communities and those sort of things that are technically applicable. But essentially, I retreated from life into the screen. And so like my social skills in reality are still very low level. So there’s this element where, yeah, you had social skills in some sense when you’re in person participating. But like how does the social aspect work when you’re behind a computer? Well, it’s context. It’s like going into a, if you go to a party or go where people are doing real life people things, you have nothing. But if all those people are in this other context, then the skills you’re learning are applicable. You can rally the troops for a special mission or whatever. So it was really goal focused. The social interactions, it wasn’t for pleasure, but everybody was like, oh, I want to do this and then we need to group up. We were having a hell of a time. But it was plenty of pleasure. But like rather than being some dude sitting in his house playing with his joystick, me and my squad were like breaking the flash fire blockade so everybody in the universe could have flash fires again. And like there was a whole other group of people where like they were being that part of this. They were being the opposition in that story. But like the adventures and stories don’t translate into the real world. And so there’s that chasm. Yeah, I’ve had my own experience with online communities and participating. I was at school. So there was this real big divide between, okay, like I’m doing this and then I’m at school and I’m having to deal with school and people. And then I can get back. And there was this element that I felt that I always carried this thing in the background when I was at school. Was that also true for you? Yeah, it’s like I’m sitting there stocking shelves at Walmart thinking about what me and the squad should be doing to make ourselves better in that world. And so it’s like this level of disassociation between our physical realities and our intellectual selves. I guess ego excels if you want to put it that way. But it’s a denial of all these things and how impactful they are. Like the meditation, the exercise, all that stuff was irrelevant because none of it mattered in the world where my care was placed. But see now we’re in the situation where Discord and these online communities are essentially the same as the video game. But it’s like through the looking glass or through the wardrobe where like nobody on my street knows who I am. But like people like that associate with Band of Clay and we’re baking and stuff, they have an idea of who this GrimGrid’s guy is. And so it’s like, you know, you have an idea of who this GrimGrid’s guy is. So it’s the same thing except now the worlds are sort of blending together. And it’s a fascinating time, but it’s a little weird and a little unhealthy maybe. Yeah, so that’s an interesting connection that you’re making there. Like there’s these people gathering online and they’re rallying behind the flag, right, to break the blockade of society instead of whatever blockade in a game. And yeah, right, like there’s a little procrastination in relation to that. And there’s also this idea, right, like if you talk enough about it, then the world will change, which it obviously won’t. So yeah, do you like, where are the similarities and where do you think there’s actually something different? Like are we lopping now? Yes, always. I mean, for me, lopping is live action role playing. And there’s a giant difference between lopping and lying. But there’s this giant gray field of like, unfalsifiable unknowns, where you can pick which one you think it is and lean hard into it. And since it’s unfalsifiable, like you’re not lying, you’re just lopping. Like I don’t know that I’m not a time traveler with amnesia sent back to help save this society. So that’s a solid lop, because it’s unfalsifiable. And the amnesia part makes it mean that like, I just don’t remember. And as that character, rather than like, this schlub who has trouble finding gainful employment, because it feels too much like participating in slavery, rather than being demotivated, I can be positively motivated to try and make a difference. So yeah, I want to go back to your life story. So we’re now gaming online. We’re disassociating from reality. We’re focusing the attention on the game over what’s actually happening. So was there at any point a significant shift in that attitude? The game that I’ve been trying to keep alive for over a decade finally got so, I think they actually, it had the company who was paying for it, while they tried to develop the sequel, cashed out and collapsed. And so that basically was dead to me now. And I was left looking for a game. And since I had moved to Portland, Oregon at the time, I decided that, you know, maybe Craigslist was a game I could play. And so I started having fun with that game instead. And that pushed me a lot back more into reality. And so finally, when I was near 30, I started having the experience that like had been, I guess, the normalized version of happened in the 20s for the people around me. I started finally having when I was 30, and I was playing a whole lot of catch up with that kind of social whatnots, leveling up the social leveling up in the meat space. So in the way that you were describing that, I got the sense that you were looking at reality as if they were games to play. And you had to pick a game, right? Like that was the way that you connect. Yeah. I mean, I don’t know how I’ve never bothered to look into game theory or anything. But it’s easier for me to understand how to interact with a situation. If I view it as okay, this is a game, this is how people level up. And like with YouTube, like I level up by getting up more subscribers and people having me on their channels. Thank you. And that sort of thing. So the game perspective gives you a set of patterns that you can use to identify relations in other situations. So it’s kind of like a religion to you. Well, it’s like I’ve been, I’ve put myself into so many different digital contexts that my skill set for adapting to new context is defining what’s the moves, how do people level? Yeah, I wouldn’t go as far as religion, but it’s a tool set for understanding new things in the world, new experiences, new environments. Yeah, well, that’s the way I was using the word religion, Ryan. I guess the way that you interface reality in some sense. So yeah, is there any other meaningful event that happened where your relationship with LARPing changed? Like the crags list, did getting into reality change the way that you look at games? Well, I think the most significant thing that has happened since was that Occupy Wall Street event happened. And until I saw like people were blocking my way to work because of this thing they were LARPing, I had kind of sort of thought history was over. Like everything was settled. Like the powers that be were in charge of things and this was how it was going to be. Nothing could really change. You couldn’t make any difference. You were just an NPC. So entertain yourself however you want. And when that cracked, it helped me start recognizing the different like the televisions as a form of mind control devices that enslaved people and have them that paint reality a certain way for everybody else. And like if you want to get along with us, this is what you act like reality is. And the shift of like recognizing that as more of a spell and untruths than like just taking it as it was fed to me as this is normal. This is what we think. This is it. Like it broke me out of that a little bit. And then, I don’t know, things went downhill from there as far as agreeing with what society thinks things are. And groping. Figuring out how to exist alongside people who believed differently from me. Like saw reality in this fundamentally different way. It’s like you can get through to people but you have to get through the programming. So they even tell you it’s regularly scheduled programming. We’re not returning you to your programming. Like seeing those things and then like the first thing I went through is after that was like I got to, oh my god, this great insight and revelation I’ve had. If more people had it, then things would change. And so you get into this like you can wake people up to what’s really going on. But eventually you come to realize that it’s a willful blindness. And spending your time trying to wake people up just ostracizes you to the herd. And then if you’re ostracized from the herd, then nobody can hear you at all. Yeah, that’s a rough place, right? Like when you see a thing and other people don’t, like that seems like a repeating pattern in your life, right? Where you’re finding a way of engagement that other people don’t have access to. So yeah, society plays a game, a really complex game. And you’re like, I don’t know about this, but do you have an alternative or are you just in rebellion? I think the game right now is to gain accountability and do what I think would make the differences if everybody did it. Even if I’m the only person doing it. Like as a citizen, I should probably know who’s on my city council, who’s representing me, who’s making the decisions. And not just like, oh this president, yarr, I’m a Democrat, yarr. But actually like locally is where you can make a difference, where your sphere of actual influence is and where stuff has been going on for the last decade that you haven’t been paying attention to because the regular scheduling programming puts you like, this is the national shit everybody can care about, but it doesn’t do any good for them to care about it because their area of effect is local. But now we have this like discord and other online communication substrate where you can make a difference in people. And so that’s become a new game, is finding people that align with me on that level and are willing to play. So I hear that two things, it’s what I would call relevance realization, what is your sphere of influence and get people back to relating to that. And then there’s also this other aspect where your sphere of influence isn’t merely physical, like the limitations aren’t only provided by the people that you engage with in real life, but also online. So if we look at it as a game, what would be the rules of this game? The rules are you don’t get to know the rule. The, I think the part I’m at is leveling up my locus of control understanding and the, my wizard, not my wizard skills, because my wizard skills are what I practice on the channel, the mind control stuff, all those things. It’s the internal self-discipline I need now. Because most of my motivations have been palliative. And so like the integrity of my logos, I think one of the things that I’ve recognized has collapsed among the society is like his word is his bond, or a man is only as good as his word. And so my personal journey at this point is to like go back through and follow through on the things I wanted to. And I’m very ADD, so I’m always chasing the fucking snitch. So it’s really hard to go back to the things that were important to me six months ago. And so that’s what I’m at now is sort of working on my internal character so that I’ll be stronger in this multi-verse that we find ourselves in now that the digital and physical worlds have intermeshed and collided so much. So this ADD aspect was an important aspect of your life. How does that connect to playing the games? Like is there a way, an outlet for the ADD in the games? It’s, I don’t know how ADD it is, but it’s like I have no problem hyper focusing on shit I’m interested in. It’s when I try to focus things I’m only moderately or barely interested in that my control over my attention is a problem. And so like I have no problem playing a game for like 14 hours straight, but to do things I’m not interested in that’s something I have to rest control over. I don’t know if that qualifies as ADD or not, but it feels like it because I can’t focus on what I, there’s part of me that wants to focus on something and can’t. And that part is tiny and needs to be strengthened. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So what I’m thinking when I hear that is it has to do with the alienation. So when you’re alienated you don’t have the capacity to have an intimate relationship with the thing that you’re alienated for. So what it would require is for you to find a way to be intimate or to see the value in the activity that you’re doing outside of the frame that you’re currently in. And I think using the framework of a game has allowed you to interface with certain aspects of reality with that. So I guess I get the sense that where you want to go is to define different methods of connecting apart from this single aspect that you’ve developed mostly throughout your life. Does that resonate? And unless I can get everybody else to play. If everybody else comes through the LARP gate then I don’t have to change the way I interface with the world. Let everybody else change. I want to be the same. You guys should roll characters. This is good times. We can change things. No rerolls. Okay. So yeah, we’re at these crazy hippies bugging Wall Street. So are we… Is there any other major change happening? I think moving into this Discord space has definitely been a big change for you. It is. It’s interesting because I don’t really remember what I was doing with my time before the whole Discord scene. It’s like… And like they’re China, just so everybody knows. Like all your thought product is going straight to China. No. Yeah, when everybody started LARPing the mask situation, I lost a whole lot of hope. The possibilities for my future life started collapsing right and left because I saw it coming that like it’s only a matter of time until I won’t be able to buy. I’ll either have to cave, I won’t be able to buy or sell things. And so that was a major blow to like the hope that motivates action for me. And I’m still in recovery from that injury, I think. Like it looks like things have been lightening up, but the way conditioning works is usually on and off and on again. So I’m waiting for the other foot to come back down. That’s going on too. And I figure probably the time to get my internal locus of control and discipline down before the next foot drops again. So do you think participating on Discord is a way to cope with that? Or was it already happening before that? I don’t really participate in Discord compared to other people. Like I’ve subbed to things so I get notifications of things I can participate in, but I don’t hang out in Discord rooms hardly at all. And I know that that’s a thing that people do. So that’s a game I only sort of play. I do the chat game on Discord. But I know there’s a level of participation I can try that I haven’t, as far as that, even though I recognize it. It’s like I see it as a side game, where I could network some. You’re doing your live streams instead, right? Yeah. So you’re dragging it out into your realm, into your locus of control. It’s like we’re under constant surveillance anyway, pretending we have privacy. We’re just larping that we have privacy. So we might as well show everybody everything and hide in the flood of, hide what truths you have in the flood of information so they can’t find it, rather than like, I’d flag yourself as somebody keeping secrets and doing secret things and make them interested. Just pull it out in public. So I get the sense that you’re trying to GM life now. Be the game master of your circle. What do you level up to? You have to give yourself, how can you tell somebody has mastered a thing because of what they’re doing? What does mastery of it look like? Like leading, teaching. I’m trying to summon a beholder, which is like a definite integration of Dungeons and Dragons and stuff. I tweak the definition of a beholder because in the game it’s a monster with all these eye stalks. But to me, as somebody who spends time watching crap on YouTube, I can be an eye stalk and you can be an eye stalk and you and I are going to look at different things and watch different things. And if the information from those eyes goes into one big eye that projects it to everybody, then what’s projected is better than what I see and what you see because it’s what both people find important. And if you can build one with six or seven eye stalks, then rather than all these people being swept up watching what you’re watching with you, we can all watch together, learn together and level up together. And then maybe that’s how we see what’s going on with the Egregore. So how’s the beholder connected to your GMing? Are you just the keeper or is there something else going on? It’s like you summon a monster and then the monster does its own thing. And I think we can summon one and see what happens. But to me, it’s still a method of leveling up. It’s like it would level everybody who plays up. And right now, it seems worthwhile. That if we’re all just zombie hordes following Ravecki or Peterson or whoever, then we’re not playing. We’re just part of their horde. And so together we can play. And the reason I pull the references from the beholder and that is like all these subcultures of entertainment like the Marvel Universe, people all speak a little subtext language together because they’ve all shared that experience. And so I’m trying to pull other game, for what it means to me, gaming. The D&D folk should be able to understand where I’m going faster than someone without that experience. So I’m sort of trying to find my tribe and communicate with my subculture a new game we can play together with limited success. But you’ve got to level up. So I don’t have a sense that you have a sense of where you’re going with this beholder. Is this literally a monster that you summon and then you’re just assuming that the monster will bring good or are you actually aiming at something? I’m aiming at a better information flow. I pointed at Vander Clay because he’s already getting people saying, hey, you should watch this. Hey, you should watch this. And in the manifestation I see, that’s filtered through the beholder rather than each person saying, hey, Paul, hey, Paul, hey, Paul. A group of people come together and pull, he should see this. And debate that amongst themselves and then feed it to them. And that would be kind of what the beholder would function if everybody played. So I now more get the sense of a body. And then there’s a neck or something where there’s this congress. The beholder has no neck. It’s a giant eyeball. I’m trying to get out of the beholder metaphor. Okay, okay, okay. We can box that. The reason that I’m doing the neck is because it’s a choke point. It’s what connects the body to the head where the speech is, the processing, the re-narrativization. So the head is leading and then everything else is feeding in the leading thing so that the leading thing can take care of what’s feeding in. And you’re saying that at this choke point, the filter, you want to have a group of people, seven or eight people that filter this information? I think that if people show and tell, because it’s basically a lot of what we do on YouTube is show and tell as individuals, like that if we can start doing it as groups, then the quality of what gets showed and told goes up and it levels up everybody who participates faster. Based on my understanding of the game mechanics. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I’m also thinking in game mechanics because I’m still my share of gaming. But I’m still struggling because when you have a game, you have a creator of the game. And the creator of the game has a set of intentions and you can execute within the limits of the intentions and you can have a game like Dark Souls where it’s like, yeah, you’ve got to get past this guy. Or you can have a game like Minecraft and the world is open, but you still have to play within the rules. And the way that you can find self-expression in these things is completely different. So, yeah, so I feel like you’re pointing at the intellectual development and in some sense, I think you want to cultivate some independent thought. So, yeah, like what are the rules? Like there needs to be some rule, some aim. See, I think that like I can’t figure out the GM’s attention on my own, but if I can get people to bring in what their takes are, that together we can all get a better sense of what’s going on and how to play and what the mini boss that we’re stuck on that we don’t even know we’re stuck on is. And so I’m developing the skills to try to learn collaboratively with people. So I guess I would say that I’ve taken what I’ve learned from role-playing games, I’m now trying to apply it to turning this internet thing we all do together into a new sort of game we can play where we can become an adventuring party rather than just a horde of the entertained. Yeah, yeah, I am in full support of not going into the entertainment mode. So, yeah, we want to have things trickle back into reality, all right, because people need to to get the gold from the mini boss, the dragon that’s as high as the power lines. Yeah, absolutely. And then they need to spread the gold among their circle, right, like their physical circle. So have you had any thought about that aspect? I don’t have a physical circle. I mean, the people I interact most with in meat space are the convenience store NPCs. And like, I don’t know, I’ve considered going to church, but like their real reality is so foreign to my own. It’s like I can play along with their game, but I can’t imagine them getting them to play mine. Whereas like everybody on these discords and in the audience base of these people is at least playing a similar game to the one I’m playing already. And now that the meat space and digital spaces have integrated financially, like I have a what I call a remarkably successful patron, because somebody sees value in what I’m doing, at least at some level. So me leveling that up to the point that meat space recognizes what I’m doing as valuable will then enable me to start working in meat space with people. I think I’m a level two guy killing rats as far as that’s So yeah, yeah. So it’s interesting. So you’re constructing this tower of dependency, right, where the ground floor and I’m also interested in how you’re going to solve this problem, because like, isn’t the ground floor still NPCs that suck in the information from the beholder? It’s just different channel. Theoretically, the information will help them level up. And with other people leveled up around me, I’ll see the next play. But until I see the next play, it’s the only thing I have to go on. And so yeah, like, I get that you want to be on top of the hierarchy, or at least close to the top. So that you know, but how are you going to, how is everybody going to play your game if you’re not on top of the hierarchy? Like then you have to play someone else’s game. Yeah, I am I am but one of 12 monkeys. And once I find the truth, like, people with more leadership skills, then I can go into the service world, I see things that people don’t. And I can bring that to the monkey troop who will, you know, something with it. I don’t know yet. So, no, that’s where I’m at. I’m lost in the sheep world. But this is the only path I see forward. So you want you want to be the Wizard of Oz behind the curtain? Is that your ideal role? No, I, my ideal role is traveling constantly finding new things and bringing it back to the village. And hopefully, the village rewards me for my service. I don’t I don’t, I don’t see myself as a leadership type or, or the controller. I want to be the wanderer. I want to explore. Okay, so so yeah, let’s, let’s, let’s aim at the future then. Right. So, so we’re starting in a new campaign. You pick the wanderer. What basic skills did you roll? Well, I’ve already I’ve already mastered the regenerative movement of game B. So I’d like to infiltrate those people and steal what value they have, and bring it to the people that are completely turned off by regenerative movement. Come on, you could do some everybody, everybody, let’s regenerative movement. Because we’re playing game B now, baby. So, so yeah, like, so, so, I’m not a big fan of regenerative movement. I’m not a big fan of regenerative movement. I’m not a big fan of regenerative movement. I’m not a big fan of so yeah, like, so, so, so what’s what’s the first encounter like for for the wonder? Don’t be so obviously off that people can’t hear you. Like, learn to tone down your excitement about things people don’t understand. And just be calm and wait for openings to say what you really think. Listen to listening is a big part. So there’s a big mob in front of the wonderer. And they’re all, tell me your stuff. And then the wonderer starts talking and they’re like, what the fuck and then they start getting that pitch forks. And now the wonderer has to calm them down by by being intelligible to them. No, it’s more like a giant marketplace where people are fighting for the attention of other people. And when you catch someone’s attention, you have to provide enough value that and without alarming them to the point they call the guards. It’s the best as the delicate game. So you’re like, you’re like a swindler. Like, yeah. As long as you play my game with my rules, you’ll get results. But if you step out, everything will collapse. It’s like like a house of cards. I don’t see it that way. But maybe I’m not supposed to. Did you know that on my Discord in the porch section, there’s a you can buy an EMF beanie. Call me a swindler. I’m making a plug. Well, we’ll provide his Discord link and his YouTube link down below so you can check that out for yourself. Thanks, everybody. All right. I need to run away now. Okay, yeah, you got it to the end. So yeah, that’s interesting, seeing the world through through games. You can keep yourself up to date on his journey. Come play. Come play. I’m looking for players, man. He even lets you make save rolls. If you do get to have savings, Rose, it’s good times. Well, thank you for being a wonderful guest, Chris. Thank you for helping me explore these ideas in a way that might get across to somebody. Yeah, I think I think this was actually intelligible to people. So I think I think you defeated your first monster. Hey, all right. Bye, everybody. Thank you.