Orentil

     The reason I haven't written for weeks is, frankly, that I haven't been able to center myself.  All the various things I've had to do don't account for all the time that has passed since I last wrote, and there have been plenty of evenings during which I had the time to write at least a brief entry.  But I haven't had the means, as it were; I haven't managed to quiet my mind, to relax, to feel comfortable enough with my own thoughts to put them to paper.  Either that, or I've just been too mentally fatigued even to want to write.

Home lies behind...

   
     Perhaps because the sun's shining, or because I've had a productive morning, or because today I'm better able to control my mind, I have the urge to write again.  I suppose the obvious reason is that I have embarked on a new project and want to introduce it to... well, to nobody, really.  But I don't think I'd have any desire to do so if I didn't happen to feel able to write anyway.  A few other things have been percolating over the last weeks, and I hope to verbalize them in the next day or two, but I've got to get back into the swing of things, and this new project seems like a sensible way to do it.

     This is Orentil, my one and only toon on the Landroval server of the game Lord of the Rings Online.  I've derived immense pleasure from this game, but in past months I have often had trouble enjoying it properly.  I rush through parts of it, get distracted by the "gaming" aspects, get bored or dispirited, and then abandon it.  I suspect I have the same difficulty with the game as I do with writing: something prevents me from slowing or calming myself down enough to get anything out of it.

the World ahead.

  
     I'm going to try, really try, to use Orentil only as a diversion and not as a distraction; that is to say, as way of making myself think, and even enjoy, rather than as a way of filling my head with enough noise that I drown out the noise I make myself.  In terms of the game, that means immersing myself in it, and I've drawn up a set of mental rules governing not only what I do in the game but also how I can approach it from outside Middle-earth.

The long shadow of Time.

   
     I've always been a little leery of getting drawn too deeply into this game, which is foolish because it's no more fantastical than the daydreaming I do during classes.  I guess that despite having played it for, what, almost two years now, I disapprove somewhat of the idea that a person of my age and prospects should occupy his time with something virtual rather than something real.  That's the same argument that people level at fiction in general, especially as it pertains to the imaginary.  Since I've never found the argument to hold much water with regard to other media, it'd be inconsistent to let it interfere with my own immersive exploration of this game.

A pint in the Mad Badger.

 
     I'm starting to run on a bit, so suffice to say this new project is simply a facet of my effort to settle myself mentally,  as indeed is this blog.  The moment it becomes a chore, I'll have to lay off a bit, but until then I intend to take advantage of all Middle-earth has to offer.

Sunset over Big Staddlemere.