Fighting With Despair

Some of you may know this, but others do not.  I have had an ongoing battle with depression for most of my life.  That feeling of hopelessness called despair, is even now, a constant companion.  Fear of failure stalks me at every turn.  The feeling that I need to succeed to be happy is my one ambition.  But deep down, this primal fair of being useless and amounting to nothing is the most notable idea in my thoughts.

Every day, I question myself about what I am:  An author that is still struggling to gain a reader base. A Human Rights Activist who fight for Autistics and Jews around the world.  A retail worker desperate to get away from the constant cycle of intense work with little reward. A social outcast who has too big of a mouth forcing his friends away.

This is me being honest about how I see myself.  This is me being truthful about my flaws as a human being.  I pray every day that I can find my way in the world on my terms.  Ethos is my hurdle to cross and my greatest enemy.  For when I am taken seriously, I can reach my goals.

This is a catch 22 of course.  To be taken seriously, people need to listen and for people to listen, one must be taken seriously.  I find it discomforting to say the least the lack of faith those around me seem to have in my abilities.  

I can only escape into the worlds I weave for so long. Only save fictional worlds from destruction for so long before I am pulled back to reality to be reminded of the real dangers of this realm.

Each day I continue walking forward is another day of depression defeated, but even the strongest man will tire eventually when carrying heavy shackles with every step.  And while this self doubt remains in my heart, those chains will endure.

Jarlaxle Baenre

Surprised? I did warn you I intended to write a blog post on him.

This post is dedicated and about one of my favorite fictional characters of all time and quite possibly the greatest example of magnificent bastard in fantasy. (Even if his brother Gromph constantly outsmarts him)

Jarlaxle Baenre is a Drow Elf that is quite difficult to describe.  You could call him Elf, Pirate, Ninja, Wizard, Mercenary, Trickster, Deus Ex Machina, or all of the above and it would be true.  He has a magical item for every single occasion and has the ability to plan thin gs so far in advance that its impossible for the reader or the characters he interacts with to figure out anything hes up to.

In the more recent books, it has gotten to the point where Drizzt and friends don't even question what he is up to.  they just know its best to do what he recommends.  In addition, when other characters question Drizzt about if the Drow can make such claims, the famous Ranger tends to respond "Its Jarlaxle" and that tends to answer any doubt.

He's always in it for himself, bu that usually means a profit and some good fun.  Also important, he will never completely betray Drizzt due to a promise he made to the Drow Ranger's Father.  And trust me when I say that this is a guy you want on your side.

When I say magical weapons for any occasion, I mean any.  He can block mind reading, summon a bird from his hat, shoot acid from one wand and other magic from another.  Has a never ending supply of throwing knives and hes always getting cool new toys to add to his collection. 

While coming from an undisputed family of badass, Jarlaxle manages to stay ahead of all the other characters and that to me warrants him as my favorite in the whole series.

On a Favorite Series of Mine

This week, I got the fantastic chance to delve once more into the newest installment of one of my favorite Authors of all: RA Salvatore.

His Legend of Drizzt series which is now 30 books strong (and counting) has kept me captivated for years when I first jumped into Homeland and was shown the dark intrigue of the Drow.

In this latest book, titled: Vengeance of the Iron Dwarf, the epic tales of everyone's favorite Drow Ranger and his Companions of the Hall continue as they group fights against a massive Army of Orcs, Drow, Frost Giants, and even White Dragons.  I do not wish to give spoilers in this post, instead I will be giving praises to the author and this series as a whole.

I have read every single legend of Drizzt book that exists as well as many other stories within the Forgotten Realms Universe.  Salvatore always manages to bring me back to his books with a lovable Dark Elf and his equally lovable friends.  I must not also ignore the fact that like myself, Salvatore favors Dwarves over Elves. Many other authors do not share our love of the stoic and very very brave folk. And not just because modern Dwarves are based heavily on the Jews either as another of my blog posts has highlighted.

This book also gives me the chance to revisit my favorite Drow in Forgotten Realsm (and its not Drizzt) who also happens to be my favorite Magnificent Bastard in all of Fiction: Jarlaxle Baenre.
I will certainly be dedicating a blog post to this awesome character in the future, but for now, just know that he makes an appearance in this newest novel.

Salvatore's incredible ability to create magical items with such uniqueness and skill has in no small part helped me create the ones that are present in my own books.  And the creativity of the magic users he write about also in no small art have helped me make the more pragmatic ones well... pragmatic.

To say that I enjoy his writing style and stories is an understatement.  I would recommend all of my friends who have a knack for Fantasy to read his writing.  It will not disappoint I promise.

Questions to my Readers

So I have decided every so often to write a Blog Post to gain feedback from my viewers.  This is one of those posts.

I seek to write about an assortment of topics that are relevant in today's world as well as provide insight into ideas that are important to everyone.  I also seek to educate about issues that many are too afraid to bring to the table.  To this end, I have some questions to ask my viewers to help improve my blog.

1) What topics would you like to see discussed?

2) What Posts are your favorites/ones that you dislike?

3) How do you feel about the format of my blog?

4) How easy/difficult is it to actually comment on my blog?

5) Areas of my writing that need work/you seem to enjoy?

6) Blog posts that seemed random and did not contribute to the rest of the posts?

7) What other feedback do you have for me?  

I hope to see some comments below.  If not, I will take a guess that the 4th question is the cause of the problem

Ways People Try to Make the World a Better Place That Do Not Work

There are lots of people who in the world who strive to improve the world.  sadly, many of them are misinformed about how to go about doing so.  Today I will outline these ways that people are failing to improve the world.

The first way I will outline, is the person who refuses to use plastic bags at the grocery store.  The logic they use is the less plastic bags they use, the better the environment will become from lack of use.  Lets ignore the fact that these people make it a nightmare for anyone who works retail, and instead look at the environment.

Plastic is made from oil.  Oil is the main way that fuel is created in our society.  When plastic bags are used less, then the production of bags goes down.  Instead the oil is used for fuel which increases green house gas emissions.  In addition, this slows down the overall use of the oil.  So long as oil is a viable source of fuel, investors will be less likely to invest in greener sources.  As much as idealists want to think that a majority of people care about the environment, what most people care about is how they can make as much money as they can as quickly as they can.  Those who wish for the wealthy to invest in green energy, they do what they can to help the oil run out.

Plastic may not be good for the environment, but it does not contribute to greenhouse gasses like most other petroleum products do.

While we are on talks of clean energy, lets not ignore the one source of clean fuel that investors already stick a lot of money into, but that environmentalists are opposed to.  I speak of course of Nuclear Energy.

People fear Nuclear Energy due to the risk of a meltdown which has the capabilities to destroy large swaths of land.  What people forget though, is the chance of a meltdown is so small that there is a greater chance of being struck by lightning and attacked by a shark in the same lifetime than experiencing this disaster if one was to live near nuclear plants their entire life.

Still people carry their fears from the Cold War, where Nuclear apocalypse has been over dramatized and over romanticized.  Yes Nuclear fallout is very very deadly, but we cannot put poison in the air from coal natural gas and oil just because we fear a nuclear explosion that it is more than highly unlikely to ever occur.

The third and the one that the most people do poorly, is donating to the wrong charities.  There are a whole lot of charities out there that claim they are non for profit, but that just really means that they are not paying taxes on the money they earn.  Always, and I repeat, ALWAYS check to see the percentage of money donated that goes to charity.  If the charity does not list this information, do not donate. They cannot be trusted.  By law they have to list this data.

If the money mostly goes to the business, once again, do not donate.  It is sad that this rule of searching will eliminate most charities.  Its an indicator that greedy people will do what they can to sucker money out of their pockets.

Hopefully as you read this, you can do what you can to help the environment.  And also you hopefully will not fall for these tricks like so many others have.

Purim and what it means this year

Tonight begins the Jewish Holiday of Purim.  Quite frankly this is the greatest Jewish holiday ever.  We read a special biblical text called the Magillah and are commanded to get completely intoxicated beforehand.  The reason for this is so that as we rad the story of Esther, we cannot tell villain from hero.

For those of you unfamiliar with all the other fun parts of Purim, basically imagine this:  Combine Halloween, Christmas, and America's St Patrick's Day into one holiday and you have Purim.  Sounds pretty awesome right?

Well now that I have my fun being silly, I'm gonna talk about what we read in the Magillah, which is anything but silly.

I doubt there is anyone who will read this post who is unfamiliar with the Holocaust, but this is not the only time that antisemitism has reached such a point that an entire nation was calling for the death of all Jews.  Oh no, the story of Purim is one other such story.  This time, the threat came from Persia.  The adviser to the King, a man named Haman, wished to see the Jews destroyed due to the actions of one man, Mordechai who refused to bow before him, stating "I only bow before G-d"

Haman set out to trick the King of Persia into destroying the Jews.  The king, who researchers have discovered was none other than Xerxes the First fell for the trick and wrote a declaration for the destruction of the Jews.  Being that many of the Jews in the world lived within the Persian Empire at the time, this decree would have been catastrophic if not for one very brave individual.

This young woman was Esther.  Today we fast just as she did before she went before the king.  Now I think its needed here to explain a little about her.

Esther had become the Queen of Persia after the former Queen, Vashti had been exiled for refusing the King's summons and so he had brought every female in the land to him and not one he decided had beauty equal to Esther.

Esther happened to be Mordechai's cousin and as such, when Haman declared the death of the Jews due to his actions, he went to her and they decided that since both were Jewish, they needed to convince the King to undo the decree for the sake of Judaism.

Unfortunately, even the queen could not enter the King's chambers uninvited.  When one entered these chambers unannounced, one of two things would happen.  Either the king would raise his staff, and the onlookers were allowed to enter, or he would not move it which was a death sentence to anyone who was entering the room.

After Esther fasted for a day of intense prayer to G-d, she bravely entered the room.  Her prayers were answered though as she was permitted to enter.  She did not immediately unmask Haman for the trickster that he was immediately, instead, she played a massive gambit game, that resulted in Haman being killed on the very gallows he built to kill Mordechai.  Also every one of his known children were killed right beside him.  (there are rumors that a few escaped and that Hitler himself may be related to one of them)

Sadly, the King could not undo the proclamation.  What he did instead was made it legal for the Jewish people to fight back.  And fight back they did and despite the fact that they were facing the infamous Persian Immortals, they came out victorious.

Now that you have the history lesson, let us get the what that means for the Jewish people today.

Yesterday Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke in front of the United States Congress about a Nuclear Iran.  A country that seeks to destroy Israel and ultimately the Jewish people.  For those of you who are not so great at Geography, Iran and Persia are the same place!

The Persians are once again trying to kill us, only this time, we have a country of our own.  As Bibi (his nickname) said so close to the truth last night: "If Israel needs to stand alone, it will stand" The story of Purim teaches us that when we fight for what is right and defend ourselves from evil, we will win.  And that evil is right there in Iran.  Even if there is an equal evil known as Isis fighting them, we cannot consider Iran an ally because they fight another one of our enemies.  To quote Bibi again: "The Enemy of my enemy, is still my enemy"  These words are absolutely true and form a number of plot twists in my own novels.

I am sorry President Obama and John Kerry.  I may have voted for you and on most issues I stand with you, but when it comes to Israel and Iran, you cannot continue down this road of appeasement.  It will only lead to death when dealing with men with murder in their eyes and genocide in their hearts.

New Lessons from a Video Game that Defined my Childhood

There are three video games I played frequently as a child that could easily be described by this title, but of the three, one of them really stands out.  As a child, there were quite a few things I got out of the game that I will spend this post describing.  9/11 was still fresh in my mind and the plot of this game gave me a lot to think about in regards to Al Quida, but now as an adult, there is so much more to observe as I can really understand the many many elements of racism that make up the incredibly complex plot.

The game I am speaking of is Tales of Symphonia.  A game that not only defined my childhood, but also helped define my writing.

When I was young, I became fascinated with the idea of angels being evil and religion being used to deceive and control the world.  But that was not all that fascinated me about the game at the time.  9/11 had just happened a few years prior, and the idea that the Desians (who to me represented Al Quida) and Cruxis (who to me represents the establishment) were really the same group and use fear to keep the world under their control by ensuring there is always conflict.

After my life was changed forever by terrorism, this idea really resonated with me, and my lack of trust in the world certainly was helped along by this game.  But now as an adult, I am able to understand more about the other theme of the game, racism, and every single one of its facets.

There are 4 mortal races in Tales of Symphonia:  Humans, Elves, Dwarves, and Half Elves.

The racism stems from Humanities discrimination of Half Elves.  In the back story of the game, Half Elves were targeted by hate crimes.  This is turn forced many Half Elves to become inherently hateful of Humans until they returned the hate crimes in kind.

Coming into the main game, most of the villains in the game are Half Elves still holding hatred of Humans in their hearts and declaring their superiority at every given moment.

On the flip side, the Half Elves that are not part of Cruxis and the Desians are treated with intense hatred in Sylvarant and in Tethealla they are treated even worse.  In that country, they are considered below slaves even.  They are executed without question of they are found guilt of any crime no matter how petty.

The ones who are scientists are locked in labs never allowed to see the sun and forced to work without much sleep for unrealistic expectations for their Human masters.

This perpetration of racism going back and forth making the hatred intensify for every party involved is exactly what one of the greatest issues facing our society today.  People hold on to the past and even though they are justified for their hatreds, keeping the hatred alive, ensures that the world will never move forward from the past.

Instead of learning from the past, we are instead just letting it happen again and again.  More lives will continue to be lost in this war that can have no winner until all sides are willing to be the bigger man and move on.