Best Of

With the barbecues, the conference, the weird sleep schedule etc., I have not been very disciplined with my eating for the past week. So I was afraid I had put on weight - and even felt fatter. But to my amazement this morning the scale showed that I have LOST an additional 1kgs. Very happy about that! 6kgs down, 14kgs more to go My method is very simple - eat clean ("don't eat stupid shit") and exercise. I try to exercise daily but in practice that comes out to around 3/5ths of days. I am interpreting the fact that I feel fatter as a psychological readiness for losing more weight.

Today I am going to a) take a cold shower and meditate b) have lunch with my mother c) cycle to a shop that works on Sundays to buy a birthday present - which will be my sport for the day and d) go to a friend's son's birthday party.

My job is to allow and accept uncomfortable feelings (primarily anxiety) and be OK with not being OK at times. If that does now work - just label and accept - it's no big deal.

I listened to a podcast yesterday with an American CEO whom I did not particularly like but he did say one thing worth emulating: "I am consistently consistent - that's my secret". I am not consistent but would very much like to be. I did have a phase of about 2 years about 4 years ago when I was - and this was my best phase in the last decade. It's like consistency is a muscle, like everything else, you do do do do, and it becomes easier and second nature. And your overall functioning and wellbeing improves dramatically.

I put down on paper yesterday the things which I would need to let go of in order to lead a clean life. Leading a clean life is something which I would very much like to do. If nothing else, it leads to a clean conscience, but I know it has much wider positive consequences. My reaction was that the things I need to let go of are not that big or difficult - at least in theory

@Jeroen said:
So, in the case of a game like D&D acting like a series of imaginary encounters with enemies. Is it actually useful to imagine yourself in that situation, having to kill for the sake of the game? Do you learn anything from it? Is it good for you in any way?

I would say I don't even think of it in those terms. I don't think of it in terms of killing for a game. First its not actual killing, you may be correct that imaginary violence has some impact on one's actual predilection towards violence, but... It hasn't changed my feelings or behaviors at all regarding insects, and most research on the impact of video game violence on real world behavior seems to show no correlation.

For me the main reason I play is for the real world fun of it with other people, I really enjoy the challenge of trying to express a character I imagine to others. So that is a skill I seek to learn.

The games I've been in present ethical dilemmas. Trying to sort through them seems like a good. Its much easier to take the most virtuous stance when you don't actually have any power or responsibility to make an impact. A recent example from my game, our group is acting as a scouting party searching out a dangerous area and preparing the way for a much larger and more vulnerable group, we encounter different potential threats, some more aggressive than others. Dilemmas we've had to think about, when attacked by a pack of ambush predators do we allow some to escape when their attempt to kill us backfires, potentially exposing our allies to the danger? Do we stay hidden from a dragon heading overhead in their general direction or do we attract its attention putting ourselves at risk? What do we do about a pack of large animals that could be very dangerous but are usually non aggressive unless threatened?

I guess the question is, is it good to think about these scenarios or is it bad to put yourself in a situation where you have to think about such things? I remember a quote by Nagarjuna saying something to the effect that he feared becoming a ruler, because then he would be forced into situations where he would have to face tradeoffs and make decisions with some negative karmic consequences. Like I've said before though, for me, I've made the decision to some degree that I am engaged with the world and the world is messy, the most ethical decision many times comes down to one of several bad choices.

So I'm not killing for a game, I'm imaginarily killing for imaginary meaningful reasons, which can be ethical in nature. And I am learning things, which are good for me in some ways.

I appreciate there are ways for some characters to play without killing, but that is a relative rarity. It’s worth thinking carefully about.

It is hard to play a %100 pacifist character in D&D and should be agreed upon by the other players in your game. My understanding is there are other TTRPGs that are better suited to a pacifist playstyle. My knowledge is pretty limited, but Call of Cthulu is a fairly popular one that doesn't have combat.