Noisy

It has been noisy in my head, noisy in my house, and noisy on the internet. I have been trying to focus despite all the noise, but sometimes that is difficult. We’re in the final week before launching the Kickstarter for Planet Mercenary: The Role Playing Game, which is an RPG set in the Schlockiverse. I’ve been deep in graphic design and concept development. I’m very excited about the project and hope to have some cool things to show you very soon. My kids are home for spring break and we’ve been doing some house reorganization as a result. I suppose it shouldn’t surprise me that the various types of noise combined to punch some anxiety buttons. It is nothing I can’t handle, but it does mean I’m spending energy handling anxiety when I want to be spending all of my energy working on Planet Mercenary.

In my more thoughtful moments, I’ve been pondering the ways that one person’s emotional needs can come into conflict with those of another. I see it all the time with my kids. This one needs very much to tell every single bit of her story. That one has accumulated resentment because he listens all the time and is never listened to. Just this morning I was posting to a friend about the unlimited self-centered myopia of teens. I know that at some point in their twenties they’ll finally figure out that 95% of other people’s choices have nothing to do with them. I expect that they’ll come and tell me about their grand realization. Then I’ll say “Wow. you’re right. Glad you see it.” Though what I’ll want to say is “Gah! I’ve been trying to hammer that into your head since you were twelve.” Of course, teens aren’t the only ones who do this. Adults are guilty too. I catch myself at it all the time.

As I’ve been out and about on the noisy internet, I see another human tendency in action. People tend to project their own internal critical voices onto other people. I know I do this, because I’ve been stung by it on multiple occasions. I read a comment and feel judged, but if I come back later, in a different frame of mind, I can see that there are alternate readings of those words which don’t mean what I read into them. I’ve also seen it in my kids. I come into the room calling their name and they snap angrily “Yeah. I know you want me to come do the dishes.” In fact, I’d entered to ask if they wanted a treat from the store. With my kids, I have to recognize that when I get a response that is out of proportion to what I said, then there is something else going on inside my kid’s head. I know that is true when I’m the one snapping at them. I’m almost always grouchy about something entirely different.

We all live in our own worlds inside our own heads and sometimes those worlds collide in very unpleasant ways. Right now my internal world is a noisy place, but I’m reasonably certain that if I just keep muddling through things will quiet down again.