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Episode 129: Part 2 with Anthony Waters!
128 Plays4 years ago
Hello, Podwalkers, and welcome back to another episode of the Goblin Lore Podcast!
cw, tw: suicide, suicidal thoughts, depression
Even though we have passed the months of May and September when we have our heaviest focus on Mental Health, we could not pass up a chance to collaborate with another fantastic guest to discuss Mental Health. Today is Part 2 and picks up where we left off last week starting an explicit discussion of Depression. We cannot say thank you enough to Anthony Waters for joining for this and for his willingness to be so open with the hosts. This is probably the most raw/emotional episode we have done and we hope that you feel comfortable listening. As always we have resources below for anyone struggling with mental health concerns.
Again we would like to state that Black Lives Matter (with a link to where you can offer support both monetary and not).
We also are proud to have partnered with Grinding Coffee Co a black, LGBT+ affiliated and owned, coffee business that is aimed at providing coffee to gamers. You can read more about their mission here. You can use our partner code for discounted coffee!
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As promised, we plan to keep these Mental Health Links available moving forward too. For general Mental Health the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) has great resources for people struggling with mental health concerns as well as their families. We also want to draw attention to this article on stigma from NAMI's site.
If you’re thinking about suicide or just need someone to talk to right now, you can get support from any of the resources below.
- National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-TALK (8255)
- Veteran's can Press 1 at anytime to be taken to the Veteran's Line
- Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741-741
- International suicide hotlines: A comprehensive resource list for people outside the US.
- IMAlive: Click Chat Now to access a live online network of volunteers through instant messaging.
- TrevorLifeline, TrevorChat, and TrevorText (LGBTQ+ crisis support): 1-866-488-7386, or text “Trevor” to 1-202-304-1200
- Trans Lifeline (US): (877) 565-8860
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You can find the hosts on Twitter: Hobbes Q. at @HobbesQ, and Alex Newman at @Mel_Chronicler. Send questions, comments, thoughts, hopes, and dreams to @GoblinLorePod on Twitter or GoblinLorePodcast@gmail.com.
Opening and closing music by Wintergatan (@wintergatan). Logo art by Steven Raffael (@SteveRaffle).
Goblin Lore is proud to be presented by Hipsters of the Coast, and a part of their growing Vorthos content – as well as Magic content of all kinds. Check them out at
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Transcript
Introduction and Content Warning
00:00:29
Speaker
Hello Podwalkers and welcome back to part two of our episode with Ant Waters. This is HobbsQ, this is the Goblin Lore podcast. And before we get into today's episode, as many of you know, we ended last week's episode on a little bit of a cliffhanger, kind of just getting to the discussion of depression and depression within the art community. At least that's where we were leaving off when we last talked to you.
00:00:56
Speaker
So I wanted to kind of give a warning for today's episode before people get fully into it. I've said on kind of Twitter and some other places that this is probably one of the most emotional and raw episodes that we have done. And that is because Ant himself talks about his experience with losing somebody to suicide.
00:01:17
Speaker
Once again, this is coming off the hills of Suicide Awareness Month. And one of the reasons that we wanted Ant on was to be able to discuss openly kind of all of his, just what's happened to him in his life. And we just wanted to let people know that
Sponsor Acknowledgment
00:01:32
Speaker
ahead of time. If you don't feel comfortable listening at this point, we completely understand. We also have resources for anybody having thoughts of suicide or self-harm in the show notes for the today's episode.
00:01:46
Speaker
We also wanted to just make sure that we are still paying attention to and thanking the Grinding Coffee Company who has done so much for us and allowed us as a cast to kind of be able to do things like charity events, to be able to kind of offer prizes and support. So we just want to say thank you once again and then we'll send you back to the show.
Mental Health in the Art World
00:02:05
Speaker
Thank you.
00:02:06
Speaker
You know, Alex is kind of bringing us over to this anxiety piece to it, you know, it does kind of transition us to the other thing that you and I talked a little bit about, you know, when we we start talking about this, which is, you know, this shows a lot about kind of mental health. And I've been very open with my own kind of depression and anxiety. And I know that talking about that, even within the field of psychology, it's often kind of, you know, it doesn't get talked about, right? Like,
00:02:33
Speaker
prescribers or providers or therapists having mental health issues is something that's generally kind of skirted around, but much like most mental health is in our own community. And when you and I were talking, you kind of were like, well, you know, like, as I would expect, there is mental health concerns, I am sure, in the art community.
Ant's Personal Story and the Stigma of Mental Health
00:03:02
Speaker
Because I want to touch directly on something that you were talking about. This is something that is very important to me. My dad was a psychiatrist, and he worked in the Air Force for a number of years in the capacity of a psychiatrist, and then he mustered out and started his career as a psychiatrist.
00:03:34
Speaker
the winter of 1976, he committed suicide. And mom, I found out later, had tried to talk to him because he had gone over the space of a little over a year from being young,
00:03:57
Speaker
run a little ragged but okay to deeply depressed. There was some land, a little patch of land we owned, and Dad would just go out there and go wandering. He would go, quote unquote, duck hunting on the Platte River, never bring back a duck. He was just going there to be by himself. And Mom confronted him at one point and said, you know, look, you are a psychiatrist. You ought to know that
00:04:27
Speaker
you need help, you need to go and get help. And his response was, I can't. Because at the time, dad was, if I got my story right, if I remember it right, dad was the head of the psychiatric association for part of the Midwest. There was an organization that he was the head of and he told her, I can't go get help. If I get help, everyone is gonna know.
00:04:56
Speaker
it's gonna get out and that is gonna be the end of my career.
The Aftermath of Suicide and Seeking Help
00:05:02
Speaker
Just as I wanna get this out right away, speaking as somebody who has lost a parent to suicide, anyone who's listening to this, who is a parent and is considering suicide, please don't. You are desperately needed.
00:05:22
Speaker
You are not nearly as broken as you believe yourself to be. You are not broken at all. And you are needed. You are loved. And your loss will do immeasurable damage. It is not at all the case that you are doing more damage to us by being around. That you are more of a burden to us being around, no matter how hard it possibly can get. You have no idea how hard it's going to be for the people left behind.
00:05:52
Speaker
They're gonna miss you so much and they're never gonna be able to ask the question to you. Why why did you do that?
Art as a Coping Mechanism
00:05:59
Speaker
I actually wrote a book about this back in in 2000 call 2013 called the little book of pain which is about Coming to terms with my dad suicide and I did I did that within the context of My own depression and suicidal ideation
00:06:23
Speaker
I had gotten to the point where I figured out where I was going to do it and how. And that led to a conversation with my therapist. She said, has it ever occurred to you that your dad killed himself? Because that was not the narrative that I grew up with. The narrative that I grew up with was that it was an accident.
00:06:53
Speaker
It was not an accident. No one puts a bullet hole in the center of their head. When they work with guns their entire life, that doesn't happen accidentally. And I had figured out, it's like this is, it's hard, it's hard to generalize about depression because I think everyone's experience
00:07:22
Speaker
You know more about that than I, but I am curious about this because for me, depression was like, it was like being a walking corpse, waking up hurt, being alive, just hurt. It just interaction with people, hurt.
00:07:53
Speaker
just walking about doing my ordinary day, just everything. It was like everything was walking on the field of broken glass. And the thing that made suicide appealing was that it would stop. It's like if this is the best my existence can possibly be, I don't want to hurt anymore.
00:08:23
Speaker
That question that my therapist asked was magical because it made me question the narrative, the family narrative. And it helped me start digging my way out of my own suicidal ideation and slowly out of my depression to start exploring my dad's suicide through art.
00:08:52
Speaker
The therapist I was working with used the concept of the inner child. She described it as when a traumatic event happens in someone's life and they're young, it's almost like a snapshot gets taken of that kid of me at age seven, and that kid gets sort of shocked into place.
00:09:19
Speaker
And I grow up, but I kind of grow up like he's a seed and I grow up around him, but he remains. And all of the pain that he experienced remains. All of the trauma that he's trying to deal with, the world he does not understand, all of that stuff remains.
Creativity and Mental Health Dialogue
00:09:40
Speaker
And so I started talking to this kid by drawing. He's like, okay, so what do you want to draw? What do you want me to draw?
00:09:55
Speaker
He's got a mouth on him is what you're saying. He was mad at me. He was furious at me because I abandoned him. That's how that's how that part of me felt. It's just you ignored me. For decades you ignored me. So I'm going to let you have it.
00:10:24
Speaker
that felt sometimes really vivid. But by translating it to art, it felt more normal. It was easier for me to deal with the concept. I could just say to the kid, all right, so just draw how you feel. And it was a transformative experience, art-wise, because the drawings didn't have to matter. They were not client-specific.
00:10:54
Speaker
And that gave me a greatly way to play with style. Something that artists lose track of as they get more and more professional is the importance of bad drawings. It's really, really, really important, I believe, to give yourself permission to draw like crap.
00:11:25
Speaker
Because when you choose to tap into that part of yourself that is not associated with professional skills, is not associated with your parental duties, your duties as an adult, it gives you a chance to go back to that little kid inside you that only drew because he wanted or she wanted or they wanted to draw. That's it. They wanted to create. You set yourself free.
00:11:51
Speaker
And that also leaves room for feelings to come out. I have to stop here at this point and ask, have I just like driven us off into the desert? Not at all. So I mean, I mean, absolutely not. You just even starting with your story of thinking of your dad as the military. I mean, from my mindset of that, you know,
00:12:21
Speaker
Given my job and what I do I'm used to the people who didn't say anything because it meant they would no longer be in the military and I am used to the co-workers that And I I'm guilty of this myself that are gonna, you know
00:12:36
Speaker
not admit to it because as you said, people would know. This is me calling in sick when I was at a miserable job at a different place than I am now and just calling in sick because that would be seen as acceptable. Giving vague symptoms of just sinus issues or whatever is going on is acceptable when what I needed was a day off.
00:13:03
Speaker
because it wasn't talked about. And I
Storytelling and Mental Health in Fiction
00:13:05
Speaker
will say that within the field, it's becoming more acceptable. I don't think we're there yet. At all. I mean, definitely not at all. To think, as you're kind of saying, I just think of this idea of the creativity piece and where that gets
00:13:25
Speaker
You know, the directions that that can take, the directions that actually dealing with this can take when it comes to art or creative outlets. God, that can go a lot of different ways. You know, you mentioned this with your, the inner child piece, and that's, that's a direction it could have gone, right? I mean,
00:13:45
Speaker
I think of the times when this cast has had to take hiatus and we've been very open about it. Alex and I both, you know, we've had to take breaks because.
00:13:56
Speaker
Like, we can't do it. Yeah. I mean, and that's a thing that we early on, we kind of talked about a little bit. That was a part of the cast, but as, as we've gone, because we're, we're a little over three years now of this, of this cast and having these conversations is very important. And this is something that is very important to Hobbs and I as, as we've gone, this has become a central tenant of this podcast is to have these conversations, not every episode is going to have them, but
00:14:26
Speaker
that our podcast is a place where we have these conversations, because they're important to have. I'm fortunate that I work in an office job, but my company is becoming a lot more open to talk about things like this. In fact, this year, for the first time, we actually did stuff in May for Mental Health Awareness Month. They had some panels talking about some of this stuff, and they had a panel where the
00:14:53
Speaker
LGBTQ employee group worked with the veterans employee group to have a talk about suicidal ideation. I'm fortunate that in my workplace, this is a thing that we are starting to talk about more and make a space to talk about more, but that's quite so important for me to be part of a creative outlet like this where we're trying to do the same thing here and create that space.
00:15:20
Speaker
I mean, it's interesting because you talked about the going back to your art in some ways. This was how we've chosen as a way for us to keep engagement with the game. Being able to find the stories that Wizard has put in that kind of speak to some of these mental health aspects, even suicide. I mean, we've talked about it. We just got out of Suicide Awareness Month where we revisited a planeswalker Gideon.
00:15:47
Speaker
who definitely was maybe more on the passive side but was willing to put himself in the way of danger because, you know, Nicol Bolas flat-out teases him or just basically calls him out and is like, you don't really care if you live or die.
00:16:02
Speaker
That was one of the stories of if you were feeling like that's literally one of the village like tons this guy says, you know, I'd kill you but I don't think you'd mind it. So yeah, basically, like, yeah, I'm like even live or stay and die. I don't really care. I don't really care. And he's like, but I don't think you really care either. I mean, basically, and had to like, Gideon had to confront himself a little bit in that moment.
00:16:24
Speaker
Yeah. And so that's what, you know, when you think about it with the art, the story, the art, things like that, the character of Karn, you know, I think of the I'm looking at your Vanguard art right now. There's some stuff to do with Karn that is actually, you know, kind of really is depressing. I mean, the whole Mirrodin thing we talk about is basically like, that you talked about that pain of doing anything that Karn basically
00:16:53
Speaker
walks away from stuff because he just like cannot.
00:16:57
Speaker
deal with doing anything. In our first episode about Karan, we talked about Karan and it literally calls out and Karan was depressed in this point because of these things that there was a point in time where he's like out in his own plane, he's on his own world like out
COVID's Impact on Mental Health Awareness
00:17:15
Speaker
looking on the multiverse trying to find something just to see what's going on and everywhere he's just seeing the bad stuff and we kind of talked about that in our episode like that's
00:17:25
Speaker
That's a thing that happens for some folk. I know myself, there's times where there's these filters where I'm not seeing the good things. All I'm seeing are the bad. I'm like, this is right in the story for this character. And right on for them incorporating that kind of stuff, taking the being willing to go outside of the tropes of science fiction and fantasy and humanizing these characters.
00:17:53
Speaker
Again, I think that's a really important thing about genre fiction that maybe gets downplayed. I can't speak to it directly because I'm not fully involved in all aspects of the community. But, you know, women and bustiers and wizards firing
00:18:19
Speaker
magic missiles and dragons is like, OK, that's that's fun escapism. But if you can write a story that resonates with the reader such that they start thinking in different ways about themselves and whatever part of their journey they're on, that's a that's an example of a really successful work.
00:18:46
Speaker
And something else that I do want to throw out, this is just a little bit catty of me. Um, but I think one of the great benefits of COVID is that a whole lot of people are suddenly discovering what anxiety feels like. Um, I, you know, I do not mean to diminish anyone's experience, but for people who experience anxiety,
00:19:16
Speaker
very difficult to express to help people understand what an anxiety attack feels like, what it is like to feel anxious leaving your house or, you know, I don't know, feeling like you're going to be in trouble if you make the wrong choice of which cashier you pick trying to get out of a grocery store. You know, it. It has helped in many ways, I think it can be used maybe
00:19:43
Speaker
as a way of helping people understand mental illness, to help have them, to let them know, okay, that anxiety you experienced, multiply it by 10 and make it every day. And that is what it is like for somebody who experiences intense anxiety, this all-pervading low-level fear that you've got ratcheted up to about 10 and make it an all-day thing. That's what it's like
00:20:12
Speaker
for someone who is experiencing anxiety, analogues.
Language, Stigma, and Resource Scarcity
00:20:17
Speaker
I feel like they're really important as far as mental health is concerned.
00:20:22
Speaker
And you know, I think that this is, you know, giving a little bit more room to for some of the language piece, you know, I'm, I was, as we're sitting here talking, you know, looking at some of the posts that you've made in the past, like on, you know, from the Little Book of Pain, looking at words like we've talked about on the show, like schizo, or being like, Oh, I'm so OCD, and just not necessarily realizing
00:20:47
Speaker
The impact of that, you know, um, like, oh, I like to be organized that that must be an OCD thing versus what, what actually is debilitating about these things. We'd, you know, um, yeah. Do you need to clean your bathroom 12 times and, and make sure every window is locked in your house five times before you can walk out the front door? Right.
00:21:09
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, that was happening. Okay. No, then you're not OC, right? Yeah, it's just it's that minimization piece of language. Yeah. Oh, it's always one of my favorites because I have a I had a close friend when I was growing up who has schizoaffective disorder and it was it was terrifying for his family and it was
00:21:45
Speaker
When you experience a psychotic break, or no, I'm using the wrong pronouns, when he experienced a psychotic break and then they found meds that would bring him down, he suddenly had to confront these things that he had done and said that
00:22:05
Speaker
Was he was like he had vague memories of doing some of these things, but it was literally like some that's me That was I did that why would I do that? and oh man, it's It is no wonder that people who struggle with schizophrenia So often end on the end up on the street. We don't
00:22:31
Speaker
We don't provide a whole lot of resources in this country to help somebody who can have such a profoundly painful and difficult interaction with reality. Whatever that is. Yeah, whatever reality is. Sorry, I mean, what's interesting is even psychosis, schizophrenia, these are topics that, you know, we're
00:22:57
Speaker
of you know, ones that we've done pieces on that we want to do a full because it's actually it's what's interesting is that is actually my that's that is the main area that I that I actually work in. So so yeah, you know, so that I have a real personal stake in in the language associated with that but also just kind of the the stigma even you know, we got stigma around everything the stigma with psychosis just to me I mean, I'm biased because it's what I work in day in day out but
00:23:26
Speaker
Oh, and an FBA, right? So you're working with people who, in many cases, have run out of resources. And were there last line of defense before the street? I mean, yeah. I mean, I always say I am in the benefit of working for—this is where there is a benefit to working for a VA.
00:23:47
Speaker
We do have some resources that people may not know about when it comes to things like psychosis. You know, this is very far afield from where we started this conversation. But it is something I've always wanted to kind of, you know, that I have mentioned on this in this show before is it's kind of funny, the VA is basically the US's answer to socialized medicine. And when it comes to things like schizophrenia, schizoaffective bipolar, some of what we call the, you know, the serious mental illness,
00:24:15
Speaker
That's a good thing because there is hope. There are treatments. There are options. There are resources that are available because we're basically socialized medicine because they're not profitable. They're intensive. They would not be paid for by an insurance company. So I kind of laugh. I do joke that the VA is basically socialism.
00:24:44
Speaker
I'd love for more people to realize that. Social Security socialism too. It's amazing how many people don't get that. You know, here's a system that you pay into and the next generation or generation before gets to benefit from that. And then the generation ahead of you will do the same.
00:25:04
Speaker
because at a certain point you will be too infirm to be able to do any kind of meaningful kind of work, and I don't mean meaningful in the sense of fulfilling, but paychecks so you can eat. We have a very black and white version of what it means to be useful to society in conversations
00:25:33
Speaker
around the country and even the world. And I feel like it's worth throwing out there.
Creativity-Mental Illness Link and Support Systems
00:25:42
Speaker
A lot of people who are crazy creative, amazing human beings, also struggle with, in some cases, crippling, debilitating mental illness. There is some sort of cruel joke that often pairs great creativity with significant mental illness.
00:26:03
Speaker
These people don't have some kind of support. They can't contribute to society. And the society, in this case ours, loses out if we don't get that music, if we don't get that writing, if we don't get that photography, if we don't get those plays, those movies. Our society suffers. It's just a different way of looking at value than money.
00:26:31
Speaker
And I feel really strongly on this subject because considering where you work, you know, I have some experience with VA hospitals because of my brother. And if they were not there, I don't know that my brother would be alive today. If it weren't for VA doctors, I don't know that he would be alive today.
00:27:02
Speaker
Yeah, there's another downer I brought in. Merry Christmas, everybody. I mean, I know I did. Yeah, this is I think is our typical behavior to then like almost I want to be silly about it because it is that serious, but it's also that's the whole point is we're talking about it. Yep. And there's there has to be room for humor in here because it is so it is such a serious and painful
00:27:32
Speaker
subject that you got to be able to you got to be able to risk some humor in there just to relax the tension so it can build back up again. There's a limit. Don't worry, we'll we'll return you all to feeling uncomfortable in a couple of minutes. We just have a little reprieve. We need a little bit. I'm good. I can do it. Lay it on me.
00:27:57
Speaker
Well, I mean, I'm thinking, you know, you alluded a little bit to this kind of topic. You know, I kind of, in our Discord, we were kind of putting out the question of, you know, we were going to be meeting with you. And one of the questions was asking if depressions changed or led to any development in your style of art. And I mean, I guess in this way, we're even talking about, it sounds like this may have been a very long standing thing and maybe even, I don't know, I'm just going to throw it out as that question and then just let you take it.
00:28:28
Speaker
You know, one of the characteristics of my mind, of my mental illness, is my mind never shuts up. My mind is a really, really noisy place. At this moment, I got a song playing through my head. It's an unwanted inner soundtrack that I cannot turn off.
00:28:53
Speaker
and often in conversations like this it's a subject matter that's really important to me so it's easier for me to screen out the background noise but often if I'm trying to concentrate in a situation where I'm maybe not as suited to like mathematics I'll have a couple other voices come in and they're not I'm not talking about voices that are
00:29:18
Speaker
Saying everyone says you smell and you know or I am God and we need to have a discussion because there really are people who need to die There
Therapeutic Art and Ant's Journey
00:29:29
Speaker
are voices that are echoes of previous conversations They are echoes of previous conflicts That I've had with people situations where I believe I have humiliated myself or it made some terrible mistake That's offended somebody and it's replaying in my head as I am trying to talk to somebody
00:29:50
Speaker
So one of the ways that I dulled that noise when I wasn't working is I was I work on my own projects and you know again ADHD I'm awesome at starting things and I can create worlds really easily that's kind of how I do
00:30:16
Speaker
as one of my therapists said to me, you have a really hypertrophy and imagination. And I was like, that's an awesome word, hypertrophy, opposite of atrophied. It was of great benefit to me until I really started facing my mental illness, accepting that it was having a significant impact on my life, my ability to work,
00:30:45
Speaker
my ability to interact with friends, to even have friends, maintain relationships. It wasn't until I started having a conversation with that little kid and just letting him draw whatever I wanted that my art really went through a transformation.
00:31:07
Speaker
again, going back for a step, it was transformative to let the little seven year old kid drop and not care, not sit there and go, that's not what an arm looks like. That's not how you shade an object that's being hit by two light sources. You know, it's none of that. I didn't let any of that interfere. And suddenly, really weird and wonderful and dark and funny art started coming out.
00:31:38
Speaker
I would say that, yes, having done that, in one way or another, I've continued to do it ever since.
Ant's Novel and Mental Health Exploration
00:31:47
Speaker
I have gone long stretches where I haven't done personal therapy art. But when I look at some of the projects that I'm working on now, like one of the projects we can talk about eventually is I've got a novel I'm working on. Mental illness is
00:32:09
Speaker
It's not a direct feature of the novel necessarily, but it reflects a lot of my experiences about the wholeness of handling depression and of being around someone with bipolar disorder and issues of suicide and all that kind of stuff. So very long-winded way of answering someone with a yes.
00:32:36
Speaker
We like long winded and, you know, conversations. At least two tangents. Endings that don't really end. We are kind of, Monty Python would have been goblins and we're okay with that because we sometimes, we're the worst at transitions. So that's perfect. And we definitely have had episodes where we've taken like three callbacks to figure out where we had started the conversation.
00:33:06
Speaker
Which is usually the mark to me of a good conversation. I would agree. I would agree. But I mean, you were kind of saying this. So you mentioned novel. I mean, as in, is it just written? Is there a visual medium to it or? There is a visual component to it, which is a whole range of personal art that I'm developing that is a weird synthesis of
00:33:37
Speaker
my art therapy and more commercial looking work. It's like I'm turning, what's a good analogy? I'm saying to the little kid, sit in my lap and we will drive this Formula One race car. And I'm kind of going to let you drive it, even though you can't.
00:34:00
Speaker
I will, you know, you tell me what you wanted to do and I'll tell you where, I'll help make sure the car gets there.
Art and Narrative Integration
00:34:07
Speaker
I'm creating a range of art that will go with the novel that does go in some very dark places. The novel itself is a prose, it's a work of fiction, it's prose. It's...
00:34:25
Speaker
letter to the authors that fired my imagination when I was a kid, H.P. Lovecraft and Lord Dunsany, who, and M.R. James, a whole range of the early crazy fantasists from that era, the folks that followed Edgar Allan Poe, is specifically
00:35:07
Speaker
made up not of a mechanical biology, but a dream biology, if that makes any sense. The general thrust of the novel is it's from the Edwardian era. And it's what would happen if one of those great expeditions they used to have in the Victorian and Edwardian era, we're going to go and find Lake Victoria.
00:35:42
Speaker
dimensional portal. Wow. Only their concept of where they're going is totally different from the reality of where they're headed. They think everything's safe. They think everything's, this is this wonderful, strange, magical world and they are, they're on the pathway that monsters follow from hell to the material world.
00:36:12
Speaker
And the art component is going to be, so I mean, is it going to be like separate from it or is it just going to be kind of an interspersed, like pieces that you're doing? I've done a huge amount of concept work. So the ideal, for me, the ideal situation would be hardback version of the book with a book that goes with it that is all in concept art. But I'm approaching it in a way
00:36:51
Speaker
called The Electric State, Tales from the Flood. Actually, Tales or Things from the Flood and Tales from the Loop, Tales from the Loop was turned into a series on Amazon Prime. The thing that I love about his books is they are little snippets of human experience with paintings that are not traditionally illustrative. They're a scene out of
00:37:21
Speaker
version of 1980s Sweden that never was. And you'll have people interspersed in there, but none of us people are in your face. So you don't see clear renderings of faces. You see kids in outfits, like Wellington boots and rain jackets. And you see them from the back, or you see them jumping over puddles. You are given a chance to kind of put yourself into the artwork.
Art as a Shared Experience
00:37:57
Speaker
artwork that is, it seems to be kind of coming out kind of darkly allegorical. So some of the art will directly connect with the subject matter of the book and some of it will just kind of be what it would be like if you stopped along this journey and looked in the left window instead of the right one. I'm really excited. Yeah, this is
00:38:25
Speaker
Oh, believe me, I am holding back so hard. I mean, what I'm hearing is when, when, once you actually get to this point, you just have to come back. Okay. I mean, I'll take that on. Yes. Yeah. Because this conversation has just been fantastic. I have to thank you so much because, you know, we set you show notes. They're fairly sparse that we like to, we're people that tend to do better with kind of,
00:38:55
Speaker
letting the conversation develop, which I think it has. And because of that, we don't know where it's going to always go. You know, you and I have talked a little bit beforehand, but I just knew basically, this was something that seemed like it was a good fit. And I just want to thank you for being like you said, even
00:39:16
Speaker
Even just asking at some point, did I just pull so far afield when to me I'm like, wow, I'm just sitting here thankful that we have a guest willing to go there with us. Oh, when you wrote me and told me what your job was, the first thing my mind did was go back to the experience of my early twenties and
00:39:49
Speaker
And the first time that he had a psychotic break, he ended up at Letterman, the VA hospital that used to be on the Presidio. And so we spent Christmas at the Presidio.
00:40:21
Speaker
That winner made a really powerful impression on me. And one of the things that was most powerful about it was seeing the compassion and care with which they were being treated, these people who in many cases had been abandoned by their families. And that stuck with me ever since. So when you wrote me and said, that was your job, it's like, I want to get to know this guy more.
Podcast's Role in Mental Health Advocacy
00:41:17
Speaker
talking about your own experience, you're bringing it from the standpoint of the person experiencing this on a day-to-day basis in your world. Hobbes is the same thing with you. We both, I think all three of us share struggles with depression. So when I found out then that you had a program that talked about mental illness to say, oh my God, can I get on it?
00:41:41
Speaker
I want to talk to these guys about it. I really want to talk about this because it doesn't, you know, especially in the professional world, it is still something you just don't talk about much. You do run a risk of
00:42:19
Speaker
your professional life as well. So thank you so much for having this program and hosting people, giving them a chance to talk about their experiences. Thank you so much for coming on. Like it's talk about myself when I first started going through, I think that the two most helpful, most important things for me was first talking about my experiences and the second was listening to other people talk about theirs. And so it's
00:42:48
Speaker
really important for us to have other folk like yourself come on and share your experiences and be able to kind of be part of that. So we really appreciate that. And to me driving home that point that you made earlier about without this possibility, we've talked a lot about the gathering portion, the fact that the game is magic, the gathering.
00:43:15
Speaker
This conversation wouldn't have been possible,
Magic: The Gathering Community Impact
00:43:17
Speaker
right? I mean the synchronicity of just the way the world works, the fact that artists and players and cosplayers and writers and everybody
00:43:30
Speaker
interacts and forms these bonds to approach, to feel comfortable to be able to have a conversation like this with a person who designed game pieces and art for, you know,
00:43:46
Speaker
something that has gotten, you know, a lot of us through very, very difficult, tough times. As you kind of mentioned, I mean, I did the John Avon story of a person approaching with a piece of art mentioning their father's death. I mean, these are things that are only possible in something like magic and something like this game. And
00:44:08
Speaker
It just continues to amaze me to see these relationships that can be found. And as you said, you get to have that relational aspect that isn't just fully transactional. Yep. Yep. And there's something that I talked about before we were on air that I'm going to just go ahead and throw it out because I feel like it's important for fans to hear. Artwork, creating a work of art,
00:44:39
Speaker
It's not a single vector. You create a work of art, you put it out there in the world, and now it's not mine, it's ours. Magic really, to me, underscores the truth of that. Because players go out there, they play the game, they have a ton of fun, but they get a real experience
00:45:09
Speaker
back to us and they want a card signed because they love this card but they also love the art on it and they also then tell me an experience that they have had that is associated with the art, the art
Art Feedback Loop
00:45:24
Speaker
on the card. We now have a dynamic between us that artists rarely get to experience and that helps us
00:45:44
Speaker
At the risk of sounding, maybe not sounding, I don't know what the right way to put this is, but it makes us feel useful. Let me put it that way. You have an impact. I can say a little bit myself with the podcast, I get a little bit of that one. We have some interactions, some fans will let us know that listening to the podcast is even just a
00:46:11
Speaker
It's something I can put on on the way to work. It's something put on in the morning and it, you know, gets my day started. Even something as small as that is still like, okay, then this, this thing where in some ways it's, it's like Hobbs and I just, it's an excuse for the two friends to get together and chat and hang out. But it's nice to feel like we're putting something more than that out there and that people are getting something out of it. Oh yeah. I would, I would very much expect this to be something that resonates with a great many
00:46:54
Speaker
that imagination can sometimes be used by the mind for nefarious purposes and it is really good to hear conversations with people who both have experienced maybe what the listener has but also someone who's like Hobbes brings him
00:47:29
Speaker
things one can do to better one's circumstances, to make life a little easier to live and what a cool way to be able to connect with people and do good. Yeah, I often talk about in my life, I never would have thought five, 10 years ago that professionally I would be marrying these two things together.
00:47:55
Speaker
Yeah. What a jump effect. It is. It's amazing. It's beautiful. And just thank you so much for coming on.
00:48:09
Speaker
And that's our show for today.
Closing and Contact Information
00:48:11
Speaker
You can find the host on Twitter. HotzQ can be found at HotzQ, and Alex Newman can be found at Mel Underscore. Send any questions, comments, thoughts, hopes, and dreams to at Goblin World Pod on Twitter, or email us at goblinworldpodcast at email.com. If you want to support your friendly neighborhood gobsmug, the cast can be found at patreon.com slash goblinworldpod.
00:48:35
Speaker
Opening and closing music by Vindergotten, who can be found on Twitter at Vindergotten, or online at vindergotten.bandcamp.com. Logo art by Steven Raffaele, who can be found on Twitter at Steve Raffaele. Babylon Lore is proud to be presented by Hipsters of the Coast as part of their growing Vorthos content, as well as magic content of all kinds. Check them out on Twitter at hipstersmtg, or online at hipstersofthecoast.com.
00:49:05
Speaker
Thank you all for listening, and remember, goblins, like snowflakes, are only dangerous in numbers.