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Episode 172: Calibrating the Hedonistic Balance
410 Plays1 year ago
Hello, Podwalkers, and welcome to 2023 and the triumphant return (after a few weeks off) Goblin Lore Podcast! Today the hosts look ahead to 2023 and discuss plans for the cast, and also ask you all to say... what would you like to see from your favorite Gobslugs this year?
Oh yah... we mention RoteRunner on this episode, use code MagicPurpose
Again we would like to state that Black Lives Matter
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!
We also finally have a Linktree with all of our discounts/resources
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As promised, we keep Mental Health Links available every episode. But 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: 988
- 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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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 hipstersofthecoast.com
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Transcript
Episode Introduction & Holiday Break
00:00:30
Speaker
Hello Podwalkers and welcome to the first episode of 2023 of the Goblin Lore Podcast and our first episode in three weeks. Holidays kind of came up. We were just...
00:00:45
Speaker
attempted to do some recordings and just everybody's schedule is what we said can happen at this time of year. We know that that's part of what has happened with us historically. So we are back and we are back with 2023 which is a perfect time to return.
Mindfulness & Intentionality in Planning
00:01:01
Speaker
Alex and I in the past have really liked to use these episodes in kind of almost a cliche way to just take a look at the year. Last year we really kind of talked about Roadrunner and that reminds me
00:01:13
Speaker
Alex. Oh, I'm just gonna go right now. Roadrunners is something that if you all want to listen to came about because of Alex buying one for me, and then us discussing it last year for New Year's. But we also had the creator on last year. And I believe that our code that he created for us for like 25% off is still good. I can say that it is because I used it a week ago. Okay, what is that code Alex?
00:01:42
Speaker
Um, I want to say magic planner. We'll figure it out and it'll be in the show notes. It'll be in the show notes. So rote runner, if people want to go back and listen to our episode from last year, um, is a mindfulness based planner. And I'm just mentioning it at the top because it is something that's worth checking out. It is something that, uh, you know, we, we Alex got me hooked on. I was more successful with it than I had been with any planner, which is to say that.
00:02:06
Speaker
I think it lasted like half a year and I have plans to pick it back up. But yeah, we like to kind of use the first episode of the year to kind of just look at where we're going, both as a cast and just as people.
Reflections on Intentionality
00:02:21
Speaker
Last year, we had a real focus on the show of intentionality. I know that it was a word that I brought up in almost every episode that we did last year was just intentionality and really focusing on
00:02:35
Speaker
Well, having that mindful approach to something where you're not going in blind and goblin-like as we tend to do. So to start us off for this year, well, I guess let's... Hey, I haven't done this in a while. Let's shout out our friends at Grinding Coffee Company.
00:02:55
Speaker
Um, yeah, they're, they're still amazing. They still support us and you can still use code goblin lore to get discount all of our discounts. And we do have discounts for original magic art. I personally am a brand ambassador for quiver. And I will tell you that people bought lots of quivers for Christmas. That was like a gift this year, apparently, cause it would roll in and I would just be like, wow.
Host Introductions & Inclusivity at OrcaCon
00:03:17
Speaker
Okay. We sold another quiver. Um,
00:03:19
Speaker
But yeah, so Grinding Coffee Company, yada, yada. Let's introduce ourselves. I'm Hobbskew. My pronouns are he, him. And let's just at least do introductions first. So Taya. Hi, I'm Taya. Happy New Year. Pronouns are she, her, they, them. I'm happy to be back for the start of this year. And Taya, you know, I just I don't know if this will come up in normal
00:03:48
Speaker
conversation so I just want to say you just got back from doing a really cool con and I was hoping you could just tell people just a smidge about it because I want to shout out that con too. I volunteer every year at OrcaCon which is a Seattle area convention that's dedicated to inclusive gaming. It's board gaming and TTP, you know TTE RPGs all weekend with a bunch of really awesome and heavily queer crowd. Absolutely love it. It's a great con. It's
00:04:18
Speaker
run by a great group of people and the whole idea that Khan essentially started is one of the gaming Khan not run by old white people because all the other ones around here are and they've really taken it to heart. It's absolutely fantastic and had a great time playing a lot of games this weekend.
00:04:38
Speaker
Awesome.
Work Challenges & Revisiting Topics
00:04:40
Speaker
And Alex, how are you? I'm tired, but that's for different reasons than last year when I was waiting for eight or 10 months to get a CPAP. I have a CPAP. That's neither here nor there. It kind of is though because we talked so much about it last year. Yeah. Anyway,
00:05:04
Speaker
I'm happy to be here. It's great to be recording again, and I'm just, I'm happy to. This is, Goblin Lore is one of my favorite things that I do, just in general, and getting to chat with two of you and other people as we get other people who want to
00:05:20
Speaker
come on this chaotic goblin place. It's fantastic. And we still have these people. They have them. Yeah, they do. Yeah. But also, I love this topic. And we go back to it a lot. And I'm going to say this again. It's kind of a weird metanarrative in this sense, because this is literally what we're talking about. But whenever we kind of revisit topics, I want to mention that sometimes
00:05:45
Speaker
One of the reasons we revisit topics is because there are things worth talking about more than once. There are things worth revisiting, rethinking about, and particularly when we can have new perspectives because time has passed or there's new people involved. That is also helpful. But just in general, I think there are things that are important to talk about more than just once.
Guiding Words for the Year
00:06:05
Speaker
that's why we we as a cast especially in the last couple of years because the first first like year and a half it was pretty pretty easy to like let's come up with new topics and then at that point there's still new topics but you start getting to god i really want to talk about this again but we talked about that and you know
00:06:22
Speaker
I mean, let's be honest. I mean, we've done two episodes of Slow Bad, and spoiler alert, Alex, I'm sorry. We will be doing Slow Bad again. I mean, all sorts of revisiting does happen in an actual way too. Yes, but I love this topic. I'm going to use this kind of as an excuse again to talk once again a little bit about the weird sort of thing that I've come to, though I haven't done it yet this year, which maybe is a good perspective to come to.
00:06:51
Speaker
my quasi New Year's resolutions slash journaling slash planning system that I've kind of evolved over the last 15 years of just trying to sit down and make some sort of plans. And honestly, like, mindfulness tools like the roll runner have helped, but it's just like, trying to come up with some way to do, you know, some planning and some thinking about things.
00:07:16
Speaker
And I've just, at least for me, it's helpful to have a framework, but also a framework can be restrictive. And so I found this is a great one that is a nice skeleton that I can change how I approach it every single year. So there's the flexibility while at the same time gives me a starting place, but that's.
00:07:32
Speaker
for later in the episode as we get there. Hey, Alex. Yeah. I'm talking. Should I go with my... Because we have a question of the day for this episode. Well, yeah. So at the beginning of the episode, I kind of mentioned the word intentional. And that was a word that came up a lot last year. If you go back and listen to new episodes,
00:07:52
Speaker
It really was woven into a lot of what we did, even just starting off with Alex giving me the road runner and us talking about it. There was there is an intentionality to how the road runner is structured.
00:08:06
Speaker
in terms of just mindfulness and mindfulness-based planners or just more purposeful planners, I think is what it's called. And so we talked a lot about intentionality and it made me get to thinking about, well, you know, that was kind of what I felt was the word of the cast last year. I really found myself identifying with it. And so my thought was to start us off with just each of us kind of picking a word
00:08:29
Speaker
to kind of highlight where we see ourselves going this year, where we see it. You know, I always talk about like the New Year's is just like a I love New Year's resolutions, but not in the classical sense of like these should statements. I think that's where people run into is like, oh, I I'm going to use this as I'm going to stop smoking. I'm going to start running. I should eat better. Right. And we've talked about like that's why they fail.
00:08:55
Speaker
And so it is a good time to just take like stock. And I think that one way, and I've heard other people talk about this, is to kind of pick a word for the year. So I had put this out in my head to you too, even though it turns out I didn't actually say anything until like two hours ago. So I thought about it and assumed you both had and apparently you didn't because you can't read my mind. But yeah, so I thought we would each do kind of a word
00:09:23
Speaker
that we can riff off of and talk about the purpose of today's episode. How I kind of envision today's episode is I want to talk about a few things. I want to talk about the cast. I want to talk about ourselves, like where we see ourselves going this year, kind of goals we may have or thoughts that we have.
00:09:39
Speaker
where we might see the cast. And then I want to open it up for hopefully to get some feedback from the listeners where you might want to see us go this year with the cast. Is there things that you want to see us do? As Alex says, we're approaching five years. We're approaching 200 episodes. So that's kind of the framework really rough and starting it off with the words. And Alex, you charlatan, let's have you start us off. Yes. So I'm going to go with.
00:10:08
Speaker
I found this word, it works. It doesn't quite feel perfect, but I'm going to go with calibrate. As I said, I haven't sat down and started my stuff for this year, but I took a quick little think sitting down before we started to record. I thought through the different parts of my life and the way I structured these things.
00:10:28
Speaker
I wrote down notes for several of these areas and basically all of them are I need to assess where I'm at with this and try to work out what my plan is moving forward. I need to take a look at these areas so it's just as an example and I have no idea who I've talked to about this. I think I may have mentioned this on the cast I may not have but I started playing World of Warcraft Classic again last fall.
00:10:53
Speaker
When I played that a year and a half previous, that was what I did. I put lots of time, and then I started playing WoW retail at the same time, and yeah, playing and rating it actively in two WoW's is a lot. It was a very lot, like two or three months, but that was my hobby. I had a few other things. I did some reading up. I do a couple other games here or there on the side of, see, I've been doing the podcast that whole time, but that was my time, and I don't want that relationship with this game now.
00:11:24
Speaker
But I did want to go back and spend some time with friends that I had made at that time. I wanted to renew the relationship with them and the easiest way to do that is to play the game and meet up twice a week to go do stuff or maybe more if we're feeling it.
00:11:40
Speaker
So over the last few months, I feel I've got a good spot with that, but it's kind of parked for the rest of the year. Honestly, one of the things that I need to assess or calibrate is my engagement with magic as a whole. I still love being on the podcast. I love being part of the community. I enjoy playing the game, but I don't play nearly as often as I used to. And I don't know if that's going to change.
00:12:06
Speaker
So for me, I think that's a good word. And there's all sorts of stuff with work that fits that too. I talked a little bit before the cast with YouTube, but like there's stuff going on in my work right now where at least temporarily, hopefully next week this changes. But at five years in my current role coming on six, I'm the longest 10 year person in the team right now. We have someone else who has had a really unfortunately unexpected
00:12:35
Speaker
absence and someone who retired at the end of the year, but that means that I the last few weeks have really had to step into a position that I was not really expecting to be in, where I'm kind of the person who knows everything.
00:12:51
Speaker
So, you know, when, when my coworker comes back, hopefully next week, um, that'll change somewhat because they are more experienced. There's stuff that I don't know that I'm going to have to learn from them, but it does mean I'm at this point now within this job, in this career, where I need to start looking at where I'm going and what the next year, two, three years are going to be. Cause I'm going to need to change where I'm at, where I'm at is going to have to shift. And I just have to decide what that shift is.
00:13:19
Speaker
Okay. Calibrate. So you got to follow everything for the rest of this episode based off of calibration. Yep. That's it. That's the only word you're allowed to really use for an adjective. Yep. Yeah. Taya, would you like to go? I know that. Sure. You also were given the last minute because I, yeah, that's how my brain works. I, uh, in true red mage and goblin fashion, I'm going with hedonism.
00:13:48
Speaker
Um, this is where I just do what I want to do. Okay. And, you know, I want to play more magic. I want to travel. I'm planning on going to whatever they call them now, magic fest or magic con Minneapolis. I'm going to go, uh,
00:14:06
Speaker
I'm going to go travel some other time as safely as I can, given the continual plagues. But I'm just going to do what I want to do this year, and I'm going to have a good time doing it. And part of that is doing this podcast. That's one of those things I want to do.
00:14:24
Speaker
my plan for the year and you know you all talk about attentionality and calibration and Doing things with purpose, but I'm a red mage. I don't plan in advance. I just burned my way through everything And that's working out so far. Yeah, I mean pretty good, right? Like I was gonna say like it's overall been working. So Yeah, say as as a as a lore hold mage. I I respect
00:14:51
Speaker
the hedonism and that sort of approach, because I just have to plan it, then I can light it all on fire. That's how my brain works. I have to plan my hedonism well, as long as I do that. Yeah. Yeah, I just kind of dive in. And, you know, whether that means spending more time with people I love, dating more people, just being out trying to
00:15:21
Speaker
experience things that that's my plan for this year is just to do, do more. And, you know, like things like the convention I just finished really, you know, kind of just fuels that fire to want to do more and be involved and, you know, just do things I want to that I enjoy.
00:15:41
Speaker
Well, I do want to highlight, you know, yes, there's a very red mage quality to it. You also did say safely. I mean, in the sense of like, you're still very mindful of, you know, you're not just running out on like masked and no, I, yeah, I mean, like the convention that I was just at, you know, required full masking and everything. And that's something that's kind of important to me. So, you know, there's obviously I'm taking a risk in some things, you know, I've,
00:16:08
Speaker
I am going to go on JOCO Cruise in March, even though I consider that a little risky, but they rolled over my payment two years in a row, and they're not going to do it again this year. So I either go or give up that money. So I guess I'm going on the cruise. And I recognize that's a risk. And I mean, that's where my full color identity being just guy, that's where the blue and the white comes in is doing that risk now. So that red is just so big. That really does drive everything.
00:16:39
Speaker
So my word for this year, actually, it better be good because you're the one who had actual planning. Yeah, it actually is because it. So it also feels not very red, but I will I will debate that. So so my word for this year is actually balance.
00:17:01
Speaker
I almost made the joke that you were gonna have to go in between the two that the two of us and then you actually do I did I mean but but but they're like this is
00:17:15
Speaker
So hilariously, it actually goes along with some of the things that both of you all are saying. So there's a lot of things that I want to do this year that's kind of a return to the things that I've missed. So GP Richmond, or Magic Fest Richmond, whatever. I have a command fest. I don't even know. Whatever it was. I got together in Richmond. And I did it in a way that, you know, I talked about risk management. As I think you mentioned, Taya, I did a whole episode about my choice to go. And
00:17:44
Speaker
That was something that was huge for me.
Hosting Magic Fest & Community Events
00:17:46
Speaker
And leading up to then finding out that we were gonna be getting an event here in Minneapolis, I've just been, that's just been on my mind. I've literally been planning for how to make this a party, a goblin party, which is funny. That out of four cities, they're doing four of these this year. They're like, yeah, Minneapolis, that's where we wanna be. I'm happy, I'm so excited, but I just,
00:18:12
Speaker
I'm still a little confounded by it. Hey, I'm going to take this as them understanding that the Goblin Lore podcast and associated other community members have been, I don't know, I got nothing other than just joy. But I mean, I am I'm really excited that it's going to be here. And, you know, that the we talked
00:18:34
Speaker
Over the last two years, Alex, you know, I think we talked about this idea of con experiences and magic moving towards that and command fest Richmond. We saw hiccups. We saw a magic fest Vegas and we saw where they fell short, right? And each iteration were even with Philly were seen where they're.
00:18:55
Speaker
And one of the things that they're improving with is they're actually allowing for con submissions, right? Like we can submit a panel. In fact, that's one of my plans for the year. You know, if I'm looking at the balance here, I want to be able to throw my love of magic into the areas that I have the brain power for, which is you're saying, Alex, with the relationship with the game.
00:19:18
Speaker
It may be a lot less playing, and that doesn't matter. It doesn't mean I need to not have a relationship with magic because I'm not playing anywhere near what I used to be playing. Nor do I need to. We talked about this from day one. One of the reasons we love this game is you could never play the game. Yeah. I genuinely spent two years not playing. For me, it's tough to play the online.
00:19:45
Speaker
electronic variance of the game. There's nothing wrong with that. I'm glad they exist and that people love them. But it's hard for me because as much as I love building decks, there's some good expression and there's some creativity and there's some things that I love there. By and large, the game itself is not the main reason I want to play Magic. It's a good game to get a group of people that I want to hang out with together and then I get to hang out with them and do this thing that's fun.
00:20:10
Speaker
Over the last four years, I've seen that it's a platform for me to be able to marry the two things that are important. And I think this is where the balance comes in. My jobs kind of hit some snags in terms of like I'm at a cap of where I can go without greatly changing things.
00:20:33
Speaker
But yet I'm able to do this podcast or as people may know, since I've now completely outed myself because the Dungeons and Dragons group that my VA does got featured in the Minneapolis paper, like I'm finding ways to do that. And so it doesn't involve me needing to play commander now.
00:20:51
Speaker
This is where it's balanced because I still do need to play because the things that have become important to me over the last two years or this podcast, having a voice or a place to be able to talk about mental health and other things like reproductive rights and everything else that we talk about on this show and events that I'm involved in. So it's like the fact that I can get involved with charity work, I can get involved with us
00:21:16
Speaker
pitching a panel and like I have full faith like I literally the moment I saw that we were going to be able to before Taya had even fully joined the show because we hadn't gotten that far I reached out to Taya, Michelle, Chase and Alex and was like well we're we're pitching something right like this is the perfect
00:21:38
Speaker
idea. This is what I want from the game, even if I'm not playing. And that's where I think that this balance piece comes in. And this is the year where I'm having a full reexamination of my relationship with Magic as a playing game or a trading card game versus way more of the community. And that word balance also means, I think, you know, Alex, you and I have talked about
00:22:05
Speaker
healthy and unhealthy relationships where people's entire identity get wrapped up into something. And for a long time, I'm not saying my entire identity has been wrapped up in magic, but I also think that's one of the reasons I've been able to do better about managing online interactions and managing, you know, whatever the drama of the day is and still feel that I can engage in Twitter without it becoming overwhelming, which it was.
Critique of Resolutions & Goal Setting
00:22:32
Speaker
And that's where that balance has come in. And I've also discovered my like love of photography, which is the joke being, I think we now, given that we've now been talking and I don't know when we started recording, I am looking at going harder at that.
00:22:48
Speaker
hobby, which is also another expensive one. So I'm going to have to make sacrifices. So my word is, is, is balance. And my word is always, I always am shooting for the gray, but I think with magic this year, it's going to take it to even the next level. Yeah. No, I liked that. And I was going to make some reference to Aristotle because that's part of his, uh,
00:23:11
Speaker
my weird little couple of philosophy classes I took at the U before I stopped going when I was thinking about pursuing that as a major but that was his thing was it was an all things balance like that in all things moderation like that was a big part of his philosophy which is why his more than some of the other philosophy systems were ones that appealed to me yeah I love I love that the balance and things and trying to
00:23:40
Speaker
I think that definitely fits. Honestly, all of these can really work well together, all three of the words we have, calibrated, balanced, and hedonism. I honestly think this all works. Frankly, all of us have read in our color pie, which is why this is so great, and I think there's so much chaotic goblin energy in this podcast that we make together.
00:24:02
Speaker
But it's finding that place for just doing the things that make you happy. That is so important and it gets lost so easily, especially in conversations like this. And this is, as you alluded to, Hobbs in the opening. One of the reasons I love talking about planning, especially around the beginning of the year, is because I think so many conversations about New Year's resolutions
00:24:26
Speaker
frame it or look at it in such an unhelpful way. Let's call it an unhelpful way. I wanna say bad or it's not good, but it's like if it works for some people, it works. But I think by and large, the way those are framed is so unhelpful because like you say, it's I'm going to quit smoking and then the first day you miss, well, then it's done, it's over. I failed my goal of not smoking for the entire year. I failed my goal of doing exercise. And the thing is is most of these are about,
00:24:54
Speaker
the things that aren't going to necessarily make you happy on their own. It's not, I want to be more healthy so that I can X or Y. It's not, I want to be able to run a marathon because this is a thing I enjoy. It's, I'm ashamed or I feel bad because I'm fat. I want to lose weight.
00:25:14
Speaker
which is not bad to necessarily lose weight, but it's coming from a negative thing. And it's not looking at trying to build something positive, trying to build something good for you. And so they just feel bad, whether you're succeeding or not. And I
00:25:29
Speaker
That is part of having these conversations. I think it's better to frame things like building goals in the smart way or whatever. It's building goals that have measurable things and that you know what you're building towards. For myself, I'll talk about my weird little thing real quick. I have six parts of my life that I sit down and I think about. This isn't just, what are my goals?
00:25:54
Speaker
This is where do I feel like I'm at in my life right now in this category? So it's vocational, financial, recreational, social, personal, and physical. I had to play with language at the source because I loved the idea of them all having the same end sound there. But the point is, my job, where my money, my finances are at, where my social life is at, my hobbies, all of these parts of my life, where do I feel like I'm at?
00:26:23
Speaker
And where do I want to be? And so it's not just about, I want to do this very specific thing. It's about thinking about, there's a lot of introspection in it. And for me, that can be really important because I get lost in the weeds, as I probably have twice in this sentence since I started talking. So having a system, having something like this, that's not just about make this goal, it's sit down and why do I want, what do I even, how do I even feel about my job right now?
00:26:52
Speaker
Before I even worry about what my goals are, because I can't make a goal if I don't know how I feel about my job right now. And so I sit down and in each of these six categories, I have my current state. That's the first thing. Where do I, what do I feel about this? Where do I think I am? And then I've looking forward and that's where I start to think about where do I want to go?
00:27:11
Speaker
That works for me. Like I said, it's a thing I built for a while. It's taken me a while to get to this. And I also, very specifically, don't try to sit down on the first of every year and write it. Last year, I started writing this thing in December. Well, it would have been December 21 for 22. This year, 23, I haven't even started it yet.
00:27:31
Speaker
I sit down when I feel I have something I need to sit down and start writing. I'm thinking about it around the end of the year, around the beginning of the year, and then I start to work on it through that time. I give myself the time to work, excuse me, work through it. I don't know. I'm sorry, you two. I feel like I've been talking for a long time.
Career Changes & Adaptability
00:27:48
Speaker
You, you've described your calibration process. You're fitting right in on your word choice. I mean, the process you described is calibration. Yeah. And I think it's, uh,
00:28:01
Speaker
It's an important process to go through, especially the way you describe breaking down your life into segments and taking the time to think about each one, where I have trouble thinking about what I'm going to have for lunch tomorrow.
00:28:20
Speaker
I'm already starting off the new year with a lot of change. I start a new job tomorrow. Um, I left my last job the last week of the year. So that's pretty big. Um, and yeah, for me, it was kind of like, I wasn't even planning on getting a new job, but got, you know, a recruiter reached out and with a really good offer. And now I'm here and that's kind of the way that I go through, uh,
00:28:50
Speaker
following things is just, you know, kind of following where life leads me. And it's definitely the opposite of thoughtful and mindful planning that you perform it. I like how you broke that down and kind of decide where you want to set your goals and when you, you know, you could talk about when you're ready to set your goals, what they'll be.
00:29:18
Speaker
I like the use of the word calibration because calibration is like a fine-tuning. It's like you start broad and then you can kind of top-down approach it to where you're... You don't have to have the answer now, you just need to have a direction. Alex, you need to at least have these categories because it gives you a framework because you know that you don't do well without having some sort of even fake imposed structure. We've talked about this.
00:29:43
Speaker
Yeah. And for me, again, to go back to the lore whole thing, there's some years where I will really come back to this three, four, five times throughout the year. There are some years where I come, like one year I literally did a mid-year check-in, like this was my review at work. And then there's some years where I have not even looked at my 2022 setup since I finished writing it.
00:30:07
Speaker
in like February last year. And it's like some years I really need that some years I'm just fine with this being not necessarily a time capsule thing but it's like I sit down at that point in time where am I at what am I thinking about and then like now 2020 beginning of 2023 I'll go back and look at it and that and that'll help jog some things in my mind but oh yeah you know this was something I was thinking about and I didn't really do anything in this direction and
00:30:32
Speaker
Or maybe I won't find anything like that, but that's a thing that I can find sometimes. It gives me those starting points that sometimes I completely ignore later. I joked about the, I need the structure so I can burn it down, but that sometimes is what I do. But at least for me, it gives me that starting point. I need somewhere to start. Sometimes I want that whole structure to build everything around. Sometimes I don't, but I always need a starting point. And so I found this is a perfect way for me to always have a starting point.
00:31:03
Speaker
I really want to highlight in some ways, so something that kind of stood out to me with your idea of hedonism, Taya, is like you tend to end up still heading in a direction. And I actually think what's hilarious is it capitalizes off of chaos theory. So I don't know if I've discussed this when you've been on before.
00:31:29
Speaker
but there's a theory behind vocational pursuits, like looking for jobs that is based entirely in chaos theory, which is breaking that down to like the simplest is that random events happen frequently, right? Like that's the whole idea of randomness. Random events happen. You just have to, they appear random because we don't think, like you said, you weren't looking for a job or recruiter reached out to you.
00:32:00
Speaker
I can give an example of I was in California this past week. I was visiting with a high school friend who happens to be married to a movie star whose friend plays D&D and we got talking about the D&D group at my VA and he wants to pass on that article to them.
00:32:22
Speaker
That's chaos. That's red. That's random. But at the same time, I had to be in a position to start a conversation to just capitalize on that. And I think that that's where that hedonism piece is. There's a responsibility to it. There's certain things that you're enjoying, but as you've said, there's a risk management. But you were also just setting yourself up to where if this comes along, you can do it. Yeah.
00:32:50
Speaker
recognize i'm in a pretty privileged place where i can do stuff like that and it's uh and yeah it's you know it's like for the job is i've been doing this career for you know almost 20 years so i kind of have you know i have a background that tends to do things like attract recruiters so it's not necessarily random as much as
00:33:16
Speaker
you know, I've kind of positioned myself in a good spot. I'm in a high demand career that's always having people look for, you know, look for new hires. And that's actually one of the first things I have to do on my new team is hire people, which is always challenging in my career. Because it's just so competitive and
00:33:40
Speaker
Yeah, part of it is just putting yourself in that position and that does require some mindfulness or planning.
00:33:48
Speaker
I've kind of worked at what I do for a long time and I've developed my career in kind of the direction I want to go. I just, I'm not the kind of person who can easily answer that, where do you see yourself in five years question? Because I honestly don't know where I, you know, I don't know where I'm going to see myself because a lot of times I just follow my comfort level. And, you know, if I get to the point where I would like to, um,
00:34:19
Speaker
find something where I could stick around five years or more. The talk earlier about only being there for five years and now being the one with the most experience is kind of amusing to me because my last two jobs is I've gotten to the point where I've been there 18 months and had the most experience on the team.
00:34:44
Speaker
And a lot of times just end up in that position where I'm looked for as the expert or I've got the longest tenure. And that's pretty common in my field. And the idea of even being in a job for five years is sort of unusual. So there's kind of that continual change and turnover.
00:35:08
Speaker
I'm always looking for something new, but I had to put myself in that position to begin with to make it happen. Yeah. So with me and Balance, I will say that the reason that that's my word for this year is because I don't tend to do as well with Balance over historically.
Personal Balance & Memory Preservation
00:35:28
Speaker
Uh, I tend to throw myself into things, especially things that I get really excited about. Part of this is, you know, part of this, it's always ends up being my depression coming through because I chase whatever feels good and right. And then I want to keep going in that direction and I can get deep enough in that at times I'm not really enjoying the thing that is meant to be the enjoyment and.
00:35:48
Speaker
to step back and to actually say, okay, I might need to spend this year re-examining. My relationship was something that I've been, I mean, if we want to look at Twitter as being kind of like the entry point to a certain level of, what's the word I'm looking for? Degree of engagement, level of engagement, that's different than what most people have. I've been on for 10 years and I joined to be part of Magic.
00:36:14
Speaker
It's a daily thing. I check it, right? Like, it's a very important, huge part of my life that has made things like moving to Minneapolis possible, right? Like, part of what I moved is that I knew I had community here. There's been a lot of things there. But I do think that it's important that I am examining my relationship with the community and with the game and with things that I think may be problems.
00:36:37
Speaker
It's just a, I, so that's what I kind of like, that was my thought, right? Like originally I wanted to see as we're talking about this, how it relates to magic. I'm wondering what people are thinking in terms of just their, their words or whatever it is. What are some things that you're hoping to maybe see for, let's just start with the cast. I mean, Taya you're.
00:36:58
Speaker
newer to us because you wanted to return to casting. So obviously this opportunity presented itself and you jumped at it, right? Once again, in that chaotic way, you kind of just threw out a tweet. Alex and I had talked behind the scenes, but we just kept like slipping our mind as most things do. And sorry, it's like it does. Alex and I have great conversations and we forget them.
00:37:23
Speaker
but like I saw your tweet. So like you put yourself out there in some ways for. Yeah. Yeah. And just kind of jump out there. So, you know, what, what I'd like to see for, you know, the coming year for the cast is, you know, I'd be interested in seeing, um, you know, where our conversation goes. We have, you know, another six months of the phyrexian medicine, you know, keeping that,
00:37:53
Speaker
It is kind of diverged from the cast as we can to respect Alex's position. And then what do we have to look forward to afterwards? And we're looking at Eldraine and Ixalan and we have some really, probably some
00:38:12
Speaker
really positive stuff towards the end of the year to look for that's going to be kind of a palate cleanser after sipping all of this glistening oil for a while. And I'm looking forward to that and bringing in more of the lore again onto what we do. And I'd like to be able to bring in the past lore as well and talk about
00:38:37
Speaker
the story ties and where we're going and just like to keep bringing on some really great guests. That's something that the cast has always done is had some awesome guests that have expertise in their areas and are willing to talk about it.
00:38:55
Speaker
Bring their own stories with them and that's something I want to see happen this year and you know, I think we've already we've had discussions of people to bring on in the near future and I'm really excited to see where that goes.
00:39:09
Speaker
So I am curious with that, you know, coming in, being able to basically put your stamp on the show right away. I mean, there's a reason we asked you to come on. We feel that you already meshed in well with what Alex and I do. But like, you know, there's a lot of flexibility there. How can you bring your hedonism to this season?
00:39:28
Speaker
or this this year or this this month? Like, I think, you know, I think I've kind of already done it with, you know, some of the episodes and just like pitching the holiday episode stuff is just I have an idea that comes to mind and I like, can we do this? You know, and I really am. You know, I am the goblin chasing the shiny object. I come up with something. I'm just like, well, that sounds neat. Why don't we talk about it?
00:39:58
Speaker
And I hope that brings something to the show and, you know, kind of drives, you know, we're closing it on 200 episodes, five years. Um, you know, hopefully I can bring some, um, some chaotic energy to, uh, what we talk about over the year. Yeah.
00:40:19
Speaker
I've said the nature of this show and Alex and I talked about this when Joe left and we had to make a decision. We both said that there really is nothing, what was awesome about just the framework that we had from Joe, the framework that Alex and I decided to piggyback off of is,
00:40:37
Speaker
It really is something that there is no end point that unless we want to. Right. And I think that's the other thing. We're all three people that can step away from this. We've talked about this a little bit. You know, you mentioned your privilege with your job. We can do what we want to do, which to me has that hedonism aspect of we can do what we want on the show. Right. Like we don't have we're not beholden to
00:41:06
Speaker
Like if things go south or numbers aren't as good on an episode, but we're happy with it that we have to be worrying about that. Yeah, I mean, and it fits in and the Heatnism thing fits in a little bit too with something I've talked about here and there. I know a couple of times in the cast, but again, it's been a lot of episodes and years. But like one piece of black's color pie that I very, very specifically have been trying to
00:41:31
Speaker
Cultivated myself is maybe a weird way to say it, but it's one of the things that I really have been trying to very specifically be more active in or more cognizant of, both for myself and for others, is the whole idea that each person knows best how to take care of themselves.
00:41:50
Speaker
And so for A, I have to have been giving myself the opportunity to take care of myself and take the time to identify and just do that. But also that is a good thing sort of externally, give other people the opportunities to make those choices to take care of themselves. And that's a thing that honestly, I think that's why
00:42:16
Speaker
By and large, people stay at the company I'm at as long as they do. And there's a little bit in the financial industry. The financial industry is just weird. I'm still, one of our systems is in DOS, and we still use that. It's just a strange place. Wow. And there's half our listeners.
00:42:35
Speaker
half our listeners are like, what's dos? I yeah, it's there's there's a section in it where you can't actually use backspace button it like breaks the program and I joke it's because it was invented before the backspace which isn't true, you can use it in other parts but it's
00:42:50
Speaker
It's a thing, but part of what I think, by and large, my company is good at is it allows the people to do what they need to take care of themselves. That's why we've got some vacation time and stuff like this is where I'm very privileged. I actually, in America, work for a company that, by and large, in its actions, seems like it cares for the people who work there, which is sort of revolutionary, and it sucks that that's the case, or maybe noteworthy, and it sucks that it's noteworthy.
00:43:19
Speaker
That's a thing. And so for myself, again, to kind of try to bring it back to the cast, and that's where I think he-dism is a great word, and it kind of fits that sort of idea, or in a corporate term at least has good synergy with it. And so that's part of why I love that word so much, Dan. I think that's such a great
00:43:43
Speaker
Focus it's such a great focus and a thing to keep in mind even as for myself I have other things that I'm sort of thinking about that's I'm glad especially you bring it up on this episode and like this is sort of your word for the year because that Will help me not lose that maybe because that's a thing that I will in in trying to build this system and
00:44:04
Speaker
which is always too elaborate. There's a reason I love Rube Goldberg machines. I will often lose track of the trees for the forest because I'm building this thing. And then it's like,
00:44:17
Speaker
But am I having fun? Like, is this actually worth all the effort I'm putting into? I am a person who I have weird places where I'm very organized and places and some places where I'm not. But one of the things that I do genuinely right now in front of me, I have Google Docs and Google Sheets tracking stuff from my hobbies. I like making lists. I like making spreadsheets to track things.
00:44:41
Speaker
One of the things I did over the holidays was make a spreadsheet of all of my commander decks and split them out by color identity and which color identities I'm missing and update my online deck list for the ones that might have been out of date. And so sometimes I do organize stuff. It doesn't happen a lot, but sometimes it happens.
00:45:03
Speaker
And like for me, there's a thing like I use some of them a lot. And then there's ones what I've kind of been doing a little bit in the background here is then there's ones from like three or four years ago, I haven't looked at in that in at least two years. I'm like, Oh, this is it's a weird time capsule for me. It's a way in a sense, it's a way for me to kind of build some memories for myself that are external to my own brain, because I don't always keep track of memories in my own brain very well. And that's where
00:45:32
Speaker
system that I explained is also part of that for myself. I can go back to 2016 and I have these goals written out for 2016. And that is a vision into my past that I have not had for a very long time. Oh, I have one from 2013. Alex, I made an oof sound and I want you to be very clear that that sound was because
00:46:01
Speaker
I've been discussing this a little bit more and more, but I've legitimately been diagnosed with depression since I was 18 years old.
00:46:12
Speaker
It took me a very long time to realize that my memory is like shit. And I feel robbed a lot of times and it's only been in the last couple of years that I'm getting angry about it. But it is one of the things that's helped me discover why I think I like photography and why I like now having a cell phone in my pocket.
00:46:35
Speaker
And why I like to take photos all the time like I feel like I feel like I'm such like I'm taking photos of my food I'm taking photos of this but like it's because I want to go through them because I literally at times Could not tell you or I can't bring up an emotional tie to events that I know happened and so that just hit me hard so that was definitely a
00:46:59
Speaker
meant to convey that not. Yeah. Wow, that sounded bad. And then I just let Alex keep going. So I understand that I know that. But at the same time, one of the things to be cognizant about when you're a content creator doing podcasts like this is also to know that the listeners don't always know what the the, you know, the people making the content know. And so I appreciate you taking the time to clarify that too.
00:47:28
Speaker
If I understood that I I think it was a good thing to clarify that So Alex with for you calibrate.
Podcast Contribution & Content Structuring
00:47:36
Speaker
Yes, that's we're gonna stick with these words. I am I am milking this for everything that it can be How does that affect what you think for the cast this year?
00:47:45
Speaker
Well, it's how dare you choose that word. It's the thing I got to tell myself every year. This is the year I'm going to sit down and I'm going to try to do more stuff for the cast. Honestly, maybe it's the year that I need to sit down and assess what I'm thinking about for the cast, the goal that I haven't hit for the last three years. Because one of the things that I kind of
00:48:10
Speaker
maybe fancifully want to do. And maybe I need to just kind of, again, calibrate or reassess what I'm aiming for. Or say it out loud so it's on tape. Yes. I'm building there, Hobbs. I can't use 10 words when 20 will do.
00:48:31
Speaker
One of the things that, I don't know, episode 18 or 19 or whatever, I think a lot about the Nissa and Burnout episode. It was the first episode, I want to say it was the first episode, that I sat and I wrote the whole thing. Maybe there was the friendship with
00:48:47
Speaker
that might have been the first one. But as one of those two were the first episodes of the cast that I sat down and I put a bunch of work into writing out the pieces and doing some research. And a big part of what makes this cast is the conversation, especially as of late. I'll say that that was a thing Joe brought more organization and prethought out stuff that we sort of jumped off of and then went back to and then jumped off of.
00:49:14
Speaker
So we're sort of the style that we've drifted into with Hobbs and I, especially I suspected to take a year to release the episodes you've recorded with us. And especially talk about goblin energy, I think we'll have the conversation as the centerpiece. So having those high, you know, big structured episodes is not necessarily what we need to be doing. But in my head for the last few years, it's been like, I want to sit down and write out some of these episodes and have this I have
00:49:41
Speaker
I have one that I talked to you about Hobbs actually four years ago that I still haven't finished writing the show notes for. But that shows you part of why I think I haven't hit that. And now that I'm talking this out, it's like, well, yeah, maybe the point of this year is for me to reassess sort of my preconceived notions about what that means to sit down and work on the cast. Maybe there's different ways for me to go about coming up with new episodes and building sort of some content for us to make content around.
00:50:09
Speaker
Um, so I don't have any specifics right now, but that, if that was an answer to your question, if it wasn't, you'll have to ask it again. No, I think it was because, you know, one of the things that you've talked about is, you know, your creative outlet, you talk about like the writing con for, uh, seventh street, fourth street, fourth street. Um, you know, that's an element of storytelling that you really enjoy and elements of narrative that we've brought into the show are things that you've talked about wanting to actually write out more detailed show notes. Like.
00:50:38
Speaker
sketching out some episodes and so that's what I was wondering because there are some episodes as you're saying that to me I always worry about like episodes getting too big. Yeah and the thing is and I'm just getting more frustrated at myself again like you're talking about getting frustrated
00:50:54
Speaker
But it's like, I've had episodes where I sort of do that. We've had some episodes like that, where I brought, it was you, Hobbs, myself, Reinhardt and Chase, like when we did the heroic sacrifice episode, where we kind of brought in ties from the story stuff I talked about with Reinhardt a lot, brought in the stuff that you and Chase and I will talk about with mental health stuff, but in particular, when we did the suicide ideation episode with them.
00:51:21
Speaker
Well the first time they were on the cast that was what around four was episode forty eight forty nine like that was the first time chase recorded with us. So it's like that brought a lot of that stuff together and honestly that was the it was a thing I'd had in my head it was a great recording I one of my proudest episodes that we've done I love that episode.
00:51:40
Speaker
But honestly, while we were doing it, in the back of my head, because I'm a charlatan, I'm thinking, I did not do as much prep on this as I wanted to. I wanted to have this stuff written up. I wanted to have that stuff written up. I wanted to research some more things or just record in it because it's hard to organize four people, let alone Chase, who is amazing and super busy, so they're hard to schedule with. We just got to go with what we got.
00:52:04
Speaker
And kind of couldn't – I don't want to say I couldn't enjoy it. I definitely enjoyed the recording. But it's like if I just let go with some of that stuff, I'd have enjoyed it more, I'm sure. See, it all comes back to hedonism. It's letting go, right? Like of expectations, things that we talked about on the show. It comes to calibrate too. It's calibrating my expectations, thinking about
00:52:28
Speaker
What am I expecting? And what's realistic to expect for? And what's even good to expect for, if that makes sense? What even is worth it, if that makes sense, or would be good for the show? If I have these expectations, if my expectations calibrated to a certain style that doesn't fit how we best work,
00:52:50
Speaker
That's not a good calibration. That's not a good expectation. Even if it would be good for different people or a different style at different times, there's nothing wrong with doing that thing. But if it doesn't fit what we're doing now, then it's not great. And there's nothing wrong with that. So I guess me and Balan, so where I see that for the cast this year, I see it coming in with
00:53:17
Speaker
I want to make sure that we're giving, I want to make sure that we're giving weight to the things that need to be given weight and that we are also still having fun, which is something that is easy for us to move away from. The lighthearted episodes are ones that we can just actually, are food episodes we haven't done in a while, right? Like things that we've built in that I think are important to do, I think they're necessary to offset the fact that we have been willing to, and I want us to continue to be willing to,
00:53:47
Speaker
hit heavier topics. And I think that that's where to me this show
00:53:53
Speaker
And it very much is a goblin element to me. There is the ability to have both, as we've talked about the legends of the goblins and the better representation that we've seen, that there is this move to the, levity is important, so is community. And those are the two most important elements to me of goblins. When we talked with Spice, that was what it came down to for me. Moments of levity, they need to have some comic relief. There needs to be room for humor
00:54:22
Speaker
In while also saying like there's shitty and horrible things in this world That we need to not sweep under the rug and we need to not just ignore and there is room for both You know, I think of when I say balance like there is room for both of those things I think of this as kind of that thing where like if you're not like people will make this remark when you're
00:54:43
Speaker
You know, if you're not, I get it with that, like the whole idea is like you're, you express something that's, that, that you really enjoy and people are like, well, why aren't you thinking about this negative thing that's happening in the world at the same time? Well, we're humans, we're complex, right? I can do both. And I think recognizing that there is a balance between enjoyment of the game, enjoyment of the community, the things that are funny while also saying like, Hey, let's talk about mental health. Let's talk about representation, whether it's.
00:55:13
Speaker
sexuality, gender, race, whatever it is in magic, like let's talk about where these problems are and we've been willing to do it. And I think that that's something that I want us to continue doing. Balance for me means we start, I start working on planning the mental health charity event, which is a big portion of mine. It has a lot of ties to the show that I make sure I have a good team around me and I don't end up streaming for
00:55:41
Speaker
16 hours of the 24 total that we were on or whatever. You know what I mean? Like to the point where I was a blubbering mess and just falling on camera, which people love. Don't get me wrong. That might bring in donations. I need to be able to think about where that balance lies.
00:56:01
Speaker
You know, where is my expectation for what we do for Magic Fest Minneapolis? People are going to come to town. I'm going to want to see and be with everybody. And that's not going to be realistic. So what do I do to balance that? And what do I do to balance the time that I need alone? Because Alex and I have talked about the Ambervert thing. You know, the idea that we both are people who like
00:56:28
Speaker
I don't know fully how where you fall in this. I know you mentioned it a little bit when we were talking about recording for this weekend, but like we're people that like to be engaged. We're also people that need recharge. Oh definitely. I mean my like I said, I volunteer for Orca Con. My responsibility is managing the quiet room and that was something where I just.
00:56:49
Speaker
Kind of got Kind of volunteered myself for because they just added it as an afterthought one year or kind of a oh this would be a nice to do and I went up and thanked the director of the con for doing that because I you know Stinking away to be someplace quiet every once in a while when you're in the middle of a con even if you're having a lot of fun is something I need to do and then I Became in charge of it. I've been in charge of it for several years and
00:57:17
Speaker
That's always how you get involved in volunteering for cons. Yeah, I was going to say that. Yeah, you have a great idea and you suggested and then now you're the person. Yeah. So it was, um, yeah, I am very much that way where I need to, I love doing those things. I love being involved, but I also, I need my quiet time and I need to be alone and.
00:57:39
Speaker
Usually by the end of like a magic fest weekend, I am burnt. I always try to take the day off after the Monday after to just relax before going back to work. And I had to learn. That's something I had to learn. Yeah, I learned that after doing lots of conventions that. Take that day off to have at least a day between the con and go back to work. Yeah, so it's super important for me to.
00:58:09
Speaker
So for me, for the for the cast this year, I just want to see it keep going. I love doing it. Right. Like I thought about this. Like, you know, when when times have been stressful and I've had a lot of stress that this is you're hitting at the perfect time of just like a confluence of after holiday stress and traveling and everything else. And, you know, I had to I have to re continually reevaluate my relationship with the game.
00:58:31
Speaker
And so I've actually added a second big project this year that is completely not magic related. I'm still in the early planning stages, but I've decided that I'm proud of my photography work where it is so far, and I'm going to try to do a calendar that I can actually put out this year of 12 photos that I did and do something that's in a completely different realm of my comfort in terms of creativity.
00:58:58
Speaker
But like I'm adding that in as kind of a balance to my relationship with magic. So. Yeah, I think that's a that's probably a good place to wrap it as a nice balanced.
00:59:14
Speaker
Well we calibrated from moment one and you know we're making sure that we're still allowing for proper levels of hedonism when everybody comes to Minneapolis. I think that feels like a good place to end this. So I'm actually not going to because
00:59:31
Speaker
I'm throwing out there that I would like to hear from people like this is one of those ones that we don't know we ask questions online we talk in our discord which if you're not in our discord like go join it if you like our show at all because honestly I am in very few discords that I'm active in and
00:59:50
Speaker
That is one of the most activist chords I'm in across all of them. Yeah, it's a great group of people. And so I know that they'll give us feedback. I want to know from people out there, like, what would you like to see from our cast? Like, I am always of the mindset of, like, let us know.
01:00:07
Speaker
Yeah. And if you don't have like a specific things like what that we've done, have you enjoyed more than other things? Sure. Yeah. What kind of hedonism do you want us to get into this year? Right. Like, do you need us when we have Magic Fest Minneapolis to run like a chop style episode in my kitchen where Taya might light something on fire and burn down my house? I mean, like, do you want that? Because we can do it. I think I might want that now.
01:00:38
Speaker
And that's our show for today. You can find all of the hosts on Twitter for now. Hobbs can be found at HobbsQ, Tay can be found at Taya Transcendence, and Alex can be found at Mel underscore chronicler. Feel free to send us any questions, comments, thoughts, hopes, and dreams to the Goblin Lord pod on Twitter, or email us at goblinlordpodcast at gmail.com.
01:01:00
Speaker
If you would like to support your friendly neighborhood gobsugs, our link tray can be found on our Twitter account and in the description of today's show. This has everything from various discount codes to the link from our Patreon. The music for today's show was by Wintergotten, who can be found at vintergotten at bandcamp.com. The art was done by Steven Raphael, who can be found at Steve Ruffle on Twitter. Goblin Lore is proud to be presented by Hipsters of the Coast as part of their growing Vorthos content.
01:01:27
Speaker
Check them out on Twitter at hipsters MTG or online at hipstersofthecoast.com. Thank you for listening and remember goblins like snowflakes are only dangerous in numbers.