And now, selected passages from the Silinist holy book, The Book of Contrivance.

The enemy of my enemy is a right bastard.
Chapter 11, Verse 12, The Proverbs of Saint Chuck the Pragmatist

And saint Sleaht looked out across the fields, and was heard to say: Never have I taken a human life, and lo, do I begin to feel left out.
Chapter 1, Verse 12

Like glue, the truth holds our universe together, and binds all things in unison, and should not be taken internally.
Chapter 5586, Verse 2.5: The Rationalizations of Flippicus the Liar

So then did the cleric lead the people in their prayers. The cleric intoned, "we have faced the tribulations," and the people replied ritualistically, "yippy skippy." And the cleric said, "we face a brighter future," and the people did reply in unison, "yippy skippy." Then did the cleric conclude, saying, "yippy skippy," which in the ancient tongue meant, "we should be so lucky."
Chapter 8, Verse 64

Then did the student ask of The Wise One, master, thou art out of thy tiny little mind, aren't thou? And the Wise One did reply, I thought you'd never figure that out.
Chapter 2, Verse 10101010

The essence of omnipotence is not power, but to have servants with power. If your servants can do anything, then you are omnipotent. This the gods understand; thus are we priests employed.
The Sub Book of Employment Chapter 1, Verse 4

Thus spread forth the voice of Forsteri, saying: it is a cowardly god which asks you to die in their name. I command instead that my faithful live in My name, which oft requires the greater strength of heart and spirit.
The Sub Book of The Great Penguin, Chapter 6, Verse 2

In the beginning, the egg created the chicken. No, wait...
Chapter 31442, Verse 1, The Frequently Asked Questions of the Gods

Then did Moses say, hey, Pharoah, wanna see me pull a rabbit out of my hat?
The Sub Book of Hexodus, Chapter 7, Verse 10

In the beginning, the polymerase bound to the promoter region. And it was good.
The Sub Book of Regenesis, Chapter 1, Verse 1

But the Trickster spirit felt sorry for the humans, for the spirits had many swear words and the humans had none. Thus did Trickster take his little hammer, toecracker, and descended to Earth to teach the humans to swear.
The Sub Book of Myths, Chapter 2 (Creation Myths), Story 12

And the spirit of Forsteri came into the prophet Therfnordeus, and in the prophet's voice spoke: the day shall be known as Topin Wagglegammon, for on this day shall your topins be waggled and your waggles be gammoned and your gammons be topined. It shall be on the second thirteenth day of the second fifth month, and you shall go forth and spread the holy words to the unenlightened, and you shall find them and fnord them. And if you should fail to heed this greatest of days, then my wrath shall be wagglesome indeed. But no one understood the prophet Therfnordeus, and he was prescribed antipsychotic medication and brougt to the hospital for observation, and thus were many generations wrathfully waggled before somebody caught on.
The Sub Book of The Great Penguin, Chapter 10, Verse 26

Thus spake the Weasel God to the prophet Mustellum: Thou shalt know the holy books by the five signs, for five is the number of the goddess and signs are shiny. Firstly shalt thou know the holy books by their cover, and by this may ye judge them, for they shalt look holy unto thee. Second shalt thou know them by their words, for they shall find thee wherever you go; you shall see the passages written, and hear their wisdom quoted, from the enlightened and frokm the Mundanes alike. Thirdly shall ye know them by your laughter, for all that is holy is also amusing, save when it is not. Fourthly shall ye know them by their authors, for those who pen the holy books shall be believers in their own fashion, and thou they may not speak the names of the gods, in their heart do they worship. And fifthly shalt thou know them by ooh, look, shiny! What was I talking about again? Oh never mind. Who wants cookies? Thus spake the Weasel God.
The Sub Book of The Weasel, Chapter 5, Verse 5

To believe is holy; to accept without proof is gullible. Your faith shall sustain thee but blind acceptance is the way of the stupid.
Chapter 10, Verse 10, Clause 2(a)

Thus spake the prophet Fulcrum unto the masses from atop the beam: balance is the way of righteousness. In all things balance is the element of holyness, rightness, and justice. Balance is what the wise possess and the foolish lack. Oft times may the balance be nearer to one extreme than another, and rarely shall it be simple to see and in the middle of the line, but always is there a balance between any two sides.
Chapter 1, Verse 42

It came as something of a shock to me to discover that McGill's medical program is putting a lot of emphasis on self-reflective thinking. I knew that their program has become more oriented on ethics and professional thinking than on pure science in the last few years, and this year in particular is seeing broad sweeping changes being implemented, which my year is the first to test out, designed to teach bioethics and physicianship as well as all the other stuff one expects to learn in medicine. What I didn't know was that a significant part of the whole four-year program is actually going to be a series of self-reflective, introspective, and meditative writings which the student will be expected to complete.

In English: they want us to keep journals.

In addition to lectures on such topics as DNA regeneration and developmental disorders observed in the first week of embyo-ness, I had the dubious pleasure the other day of having a near-hour-long lecture on how to keep a journal. And the benefits of a journal. And what kinds of things to put in a journal. Nearly fifteen minutes was spent just explaining free-writing to the students, an excercise I could have summed up in about 17 seconds. I don't mean to criticize the lecturer, who actually presented very well, and put some humour into her presentation, and actually gave compelling reasons in favour of keeping journals throughout one's time in medical school and beyond. I did, however, chafe at having to listen to the lecture myself, when i've been composing self-reflective writing for better than 10 years.

Keeping a record of your thoughts and feelings will show you your strengths and make you a more compassionate, ethical person, they said. My intention to never show this page to any of my classmates is rejustified.

It's an issue that does beg some thought, however. I started keeping this Journal as a mode of penance, a task which it has served well. It's evolved, however, into a genuinely pleasureable activity. This isn't a shock, since I've always loved to write, always taken pleasure in writing, always enjoyed reading the things I wrote, and always adored having my work read by others (assuming they were the right others). I suspected i'd enjoy having the excuse to write something every three days, but more than that, I think this Journal has done me a lot of good psychologically. I don't personally think that I'm one to hold in my emotions, so I wouldn't say that this Journal has let me vent anything I hadn't already said in person, frequently. However, it's allowed me to write, and once or twice the act of writing has allowed me to put into words something I couldn't have. As everyone close to me knows, I process thoughts much better in text than in speech... my fingers are smarter than my mouth, I suppose.

Psychologists recomend that people keep journals, because keeping one seems to pmprove general mood, health, and functioning (except in the cases of very depressed people, who seem to find reading their own ruminations only upsets them more). Now, apparently, doctors (and the people who teach doctors) are recommending the same kind of thing, for the same kind of reasons. Habitual writers, it would seem, are more psycholgically (and perhaps physically) healthy than non-writers.

I question that, to be honest, and so would most authors I know. I don't write to stay sane... I write because, as Stephen King would say, to not write is suicide. Though, to be fair, Mr. King would also say that it keeps the aligators out of sight.

Whatever the case, I believe that I personally benefit from the simple act of writing, and I *know* that I benefit from having an audience. The fact that this gives me just one more head-start over the other students in my class is simply one more advantage. They may know more biochemistry than me, but if more than 1 in every 30 of them can properly use an apostrophe, the universe is a better place than I believe it to be.

I wonder if this qualifies as having done any of my homework...

To them what celebrate, I hope it was a joyous Saint Bill's Day. I trust you all remembered to wish people a good day only the day after the holiday itself.

So anyway...

Today was the fourth real day of classes for me as a medical student. I find this a simultaneously fascinating and depressing process. Statistically, and according to the admissions department, the majority of all students who enter medical programs, at least at McGill, are genuinely compassionate, caring people, eager to put the needs of their patients ahead of their own needs. They let me in anyway.

On the plus side, I now know more about cellular microbiology and DNA repair mechanisms than I learned in 6 years of science education. My life is now incomplete on a whole new level.

I'm finding the material we cover in class fascinating, but something about the whole process of actually being a medical student somewhat disconcerting. Surrounded by empathic people who want desperately to be healers, I feel distinctly out of place. It's a class of 170 medicine and 30 dentistry students, so I can't possibly be the only one here with... ahem... "questionable ethics..." but nobody else is quite so public about their beliefs, as near as I can tell. This is very understandable; according to the Faculty of Medicine student handbook, medical students are required to be ethically upstanding in class and in the community, which means I could conceivably be kicked out of the program if the deans ever stumbled across this Journal.

Consider: In law, or business, or acting, or nearly any other field of human enterprise, deceitfulness like mine would be a real asset. The ability to lie convincingly is actually a fairly rare talent, and even rarer is someone who has no moral compunctions about lying, or who at the very least has constructed extensive ethical arguments as to what types of lies are or are not moraly wrong. Somehow, however, I've ended up in the one field in which you really don't want a liar to be working. A psychology professor needs to be able to lie a little to deal with trouble some students and keep the grant money flowing, but a doctor will lose all credibility, possibly even their job, if they're even suspected of being frequently dishonest.

This does not mean I'm going to stop lying, and does not mean I'm going to change what I say in this Journal. It does mean that, when people affiliated with McGill ask me how I feel about lying, I'm going to lie to them. And I may eventually add a disclaimer to this page emphasizing that the opinions voiced on this page are my opnions and not of any humans, institutions, etc... This ought to be good enough; not every doctor is truly a good person, and as I said, I don't imagine that I'm the only unusually-moraled med student.

I do think that I'm probably the only non-human life form currently attending McGill medical program, but again, that might be one of those things I'll conveniently not mention to the other students.

One might reasonably ask, how might one rationalize a dishonest personality and, yes, some small measure of sadistic tendencies, with the desire to be a doctor? While I do possess the capacity to be compassionate towards those who have earned my respect and care, the desire to heal people isn't one of the major reasons I entered medicine. Sure it'll be nice to be in a career where I can heal and cure, but that's more of a side benefit for me. I used to think that the main reason I wanted to study medicine was because an MD will guarantee me profitable employment in any city in North America, but that's not it. The knowledge that I'll someday be able to have a 2 or 3 day workweek and still earn more than most people my age is a strong temptor, but it'll be 30 years before my career reaches that stage, and so it's also not a major motivator. The truth came to me in an epiphany this week, while I was on the subway coming home from orientation: I've netered medicine just to prove that I could. Becoming a doctor is probably the single greatest indicator of academic intelligence in modern society; I entered medicine because I'm very intelligent and becoming a doctor will prove that in the eyes of people who don't know better. It won't prove anything in my eyes in terms of my intelligence, but it will prove something to me in the same way that other people enter contests or run marathons or whatever other competitions measure their favoured skills. Finishing medicine will prove to me that I have the ability to finish medicine... circular logic, but still a powerful fact, if proven true. It doesn't matter that I scored in the top percent of all people writing the GRE's in psychology or that I score high on IQ tests, or that I've proven my ability to reason, argue, persuade and confuse in a thousand coversations and arenas, or even that I managed to make it into the medical program of my choice despite low grades (low relative to other applicants to medicine, a mere 3.7/A- GPA). What matters is that I'm a highly intelligent creature, and somewhere in my subconcious, I've internalized the obviously flawed belief that intelligent people become doctors. Even though I don't want to be in medicine and I don't want to be a doctor, I'm in medicine and I'm going to be a doctor.

On the one hand, this is a very depressing thought. In psychological theories of job satisfaction, my reasons for picking my career path are immature, unhealthy, and self-defeating, and they predict a low probability of my having a healthy ahd fulfilling employment future. On the other hand, most of the people I know are in college programs based on what they're good at, not what they enjoy, and odds are good that most of them will end up in careers they don't actually enjoy; I, at least, will be paid very well for mine, and will have to work fewer hours someday. Furthermore, there's the additional bright, happymaking thought: I'm in a prigram which leads to a career path which is, in the words of most of the people in the field, inherently satisfying. Most doctors will tell you that, even if you don't start off as an empathic doctor who derives joy in healing others, you tend to become one. I may not enjoy what I'm doing now, but there's a better than 50% chance that I will learn to love it within 4 years. In the end, as many wise men have written, hope is all we have, and sometimes all we need.

Tommorow, more histology, and then the weekend is looking pretty damn tempting.

This short play was written to be posted on the Jabberwocks forum as my generous way of showing some of the less religiously-educated members how the story of Adam and Eve went. It was first written in late July but, at the time, I had a backlog of Entries written and so I'm only posting it here now. If you've alreday read this, you can go through it again and find the dozen or so tiny changes I made. If you haven't read this yet, then I hope you enjoy... I think it's one of my better plays, and I've had half a mind to make it the first in a series, with sequels playing upon the stories on Cain and Noah, both of which have a lot of comedic potential. I thought about doing the story of Job, but it's already funnier than I could hope to make it.

My only regret is that i never did think of appropriate actors for the roles of Adam and Eve...

(The curtain is down. The stage in unlit. All is darkness. The CHORUS stands stage right, in front of the curtain and in view of the audience, barely visible in the dim lighting.)

Chorus: And the universe was void and without form. There was nothing there. In fact, using the word nothing is really a bit of an understatement. Imagine the emptiest thing you’ve ever heard of, and then imagine it being twice as empty. We’re talking really, really void here. And god said...

GOD: Let there be light!

(The stage is illuminated.)

CHORUS: AAARRGH!

GOD: Heh heh heh...

CHORUS (Shielding eyes): And there was light. But the universe was still void and without form, and so light didn’t make much of a difference. And so, god made things for the light to illuminate.

GOD: Let there be stuff!

(The curtain rises. The set is a light blue background, as per a pleasant sky. The stage is well lit in happy sunny yellow. The foreground is obviously fake vegetation, mostly ferns, which come to about knee level.)

Chorus: In the beginning, the universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.

(Enter GOD. As per any Deus Ex Machina, GOD is lowered into view from center stage rafters, dangling from a very obvious rope. He wears noble, flowing white robes, a long rich grey beard, and running shoes.)

GOD: Well, that was a nice week’s work. I’ve got my universe, I’ve got my light, and now I’ve got my garden. I think I’ll call it... Eden! Hmm, that reminds me, it’s lunch time.

(Exit stage up.)

CHORUS: And so, god created Everything, and then took a lunch break. But, as god ate his lunch, he felt something was missing. He had his beautiful garden, and his universe with its nice little predictable mathematical laws. But god was, by nature, a meddler, and a bit full of himself, and felt that the world was incomplete without something in god’s own image.

(Enter GOD, exactly as before, with some crumbs in his beard.)

GOD: Let there be humans!

(Silence. In the background, a low noise begins, barely discernible. It gets louder and louder over the course of about 10 seconds, by which time it is clearly discernable as a rising scream. It cuts off abruptly as ADAM enters the stage from above, plainly having just fallen to Eden. He lands, out of sight behind the vegetation, with an audible thud.)

CHORUS: And there was morning and evening of the sixth day, and god felt it was good.

ADAM: Ow...

(CHORUS steps backward to be obscured from view with everything else as the curtain falls on Act 1.)

(The curtain rises. The set is the same as before, but there are a few less ferns and a few more small woody plants. ADAM enters from the left, the foliage having risen conveniently high given his current lack of attire. He is smiling happily as he walks through the Garden.)

ADAM: My first day alive. I feel great. I feel like... like... (Pauses, looks momentarily annoyed.)

It’s going to be very hard being poetic and metaphorical until more things get created, I suppose. (His smile returns.) But who cares about that. I’m alive! And I’ve got this whole Garden to myself.

(Silence.)

ADAM: To myself! Hah!

(Silence. ADAM’s smile falters.)

I feel as though I’m missing something. The garden has all this great stuff, plants and animals, but here I am, created to be the most wonderful thing in the whole garden, and something is missing. Wait, that’s it! I’m the most wonderful thing here... what I’m missing is something capable of appreciate that. The plants and animals won’t do it. I need another me! Hey, god!

(Silence, followed by an annoyed mumbling. Enter GOD, from above, exactly as before. GOD looks very tired and is wearing a floppy night cap.)

GOD: What is it? What is it? What’s so important that you have to interrupt my day of rest, you ungrateful monkey?

ADAM: I’m bored and lonely.

GOD: Lonely? But you’ve got all these cute animals to play with. And didn’t I build you all kinds of nice plants to climb? How could you be bored?

ADAM: Cute animals and plant houses? That’s all kid stuff, and I’m a whole day old.

GOD: Okay, so why not just create some lifeforms more interesting to you?

(ADAM looks surprised.)

ADAM: I can do that?

GOD: Well, no.

ADAM: Then that’s why I haven’t. C’mon, you’re a loving god... give me some company!

GOD: Oh, very well. I’m going to need one of your ribs.

(GOD descends to ground level and bids ADAM, still smiling, to lie down. GOD pulls a huge knife out of his robes and begins cutting, to the tune of ADAM screaming horribly and great gouts of blood splattering into view. The curtain lowers.)

(The curtain rises on scene 3. The ferns have now been completely replaced by woody plants and bushes, which have grown to about neck height. There are a few scattered trees in the background now. ADAM is standing in the middle of the stage; he looks uncomfortable and there is still splattered blood on his cheek and a bit in his hair. He takes a few steps forward and winces. GOD lowers into view, staying conspicuously out of ADAM’s reach.)

GOD: Hey, Adam.

(ADAM ignores GOD. GOD scowls.)

GOD: Let’s try that again. Hey, Adam!

(The sky goes dark, flashes light, and goes dark again, accompanied by a horrendous crash of thunder. ADAM jumps. The sky goes back to normal.)

ADAM (stammering): Of, hey, god, I didn’t see you there.

GOD: I finished your companion. She’s here.

(Eve walks on stage from the right. ADAM gawks openly. With a self-satisfied smirk, GOD begins to exit stage up, then pauses.)

GOD: While you’re both here, incidentally, I just wanted to tell you that now that the trees have finished, evolving, there are a few I don’t want you eating from. (GOD points off into the distance.) There’s the Tree of Life, which will make you immortal. There’s the Tree of knowledge which will make you wise and brilliant. And that one is the Tree of Nuclear Fission, which I really don’t want you touching. In fact, I’m going to get rid of that one. I don’t know why I even made that tree. You two stay here and don’t get into any trouble.

(Exit GOD. ADAM and EVE stand awkwardly.)

ADAM: So... god made you from my rib, huh?

EVE: I suppose so. He didn’t say. One minute I was just falling down and then I woke up on the other side of that hill back that way.

(They stand awkwardly some more. ADAM opens his mouth to speak but is interrupted as THE SERPENT enters from the left. He looks basically human but is wearing modern clothes, at least from the shoulders up where he is visible, and smiles too much.)

SERPENT: Well, isn’t this sweet. Only two days old and already dating.

ADAM: Who are you? I haven’t seen you before.

SERPENT: I’m the Serpent. I’ve been around the Garden since... oh, day five or so. I’ve had the chance to explore all kinds of things. Have you seen those new trees?

ADAM: We aren’t supposed to touch the new trees.

SERPENT: Isn’t that nice. Hey, god wants you to walk over to the next clearing and then walk back.

ADAM: Okay. (Exits left.)

SERPENT: Amazing what passes for intelligent life nowadays. How about you, lady? Would you like an apple?

EVE: I’m not allowed to have apples.

SERPENT: Sure you are.

EVE: Okay then.

(Both exit stage right. ADAM walks back on stage.)

ADAM: Eve? Did god want you to go to another clearing too?

(ADAM spends a few moments looking around for EVE without much luck, until EVE walks back on stage with the SERPENT. She is holding two apples.)

EVE: Adam, we have apples. Would you like one?

ADAM: Did it come from one of the forbidden trees?

EVE: Yes.

SERPENT: She means no.

ADAM: Okay then.

(ADAM takes the second apple; both take large bites simultaneously, chew, swallow, and then look at each other.)

EVE: You know, having eaten that, I’m suddenly aware that it may not have been a good idea.

ADAM: My newfound intelligence is telling me we should flee for our lives now before god gets back.

(The curtain falls.)

(The curtain rises on a greyish, stormy sky. Reduced lighting makes the scene look dark and menacing. The plants in the foreground are now bushes and strong looking plants and are about knee height. Enter GOD, hovering at the top of the stage, from the right.)

GOD: Okay, you two. I know you’re here. I’ve searched the rest of the Garden first just to be a good sport, but you can’t hide from someone omniscient. Get up.

ADAM (from no clear direction): We aren’t here!

GOD: Well, I was sure you were -- HEY! You two get up out of hose bushes right now or I’ll smite you where you are, so help me Me.

(Slowly and reluctantly, ADAM and EVE stand up from the bushes. Both are wearing crude undergarments fashioned from leaves. ADAM is wearing an additional leaf over one eye.)

GOD: What’s that thing on your face?

ADAM: It... it was a, um, cunning disguise, lord.

GOD: Well, get it off right now.

(ADAM takes the leaf off his face. EVE, unbidden, pulls another leaf off of the back of her head where it was out of view.)

ADAM: It wasn’t our fault! We were tricked into eating the apples, and we only became smart enough to understand after we ate the apples! It was the Serpent!

(GOD gestures; THE SERPENT is lowered on stage from above by two armed, angry looking angels, who drop him there and vanish back above.)

GOD: Yes, I know. I had him picked up too.

SERPENT (dusting himself off): You shouldn’t curse me, god. My mother cursed me once. Once!

(ADAM and EVE cower. THE SERPENT glares up at good with indignation.)

GOD: For your transgressions, each of you shall receive your own punishment. Serpent, for your punishment, I shall rob you of your legs and arms, that you shall crawl in the dirt the rest of your days. Furthermore, never again shall your tongue offer words of deceit, for it shall merely hiss.

SERPENT: Well, that’s not so...

GOD: And I shall take from you your fashion sense.

SERPENT: NOOOOOO!

(THE SERPENT falls to the ground, writhing, and is obscured from view. His fancy clothes are tossed up and land on the audience’s side of the foreground bushes.)

SERPENT (from out of sight, voiced by Chris Latta): My clothes! My beautiful clothesssss...

GOD: Adam, you have stolen knowledge, but you shall not have wisdom. I curse you to be loud and obnoxious. You will be territorial, obscene, and unappreciative, with an appetite for the worst things around you and a body which will become flabby and ugly when you partake of them. You will remain cursed until you become wise enough to be able to resist the temptations which bade you to eat the apple.

ADAM (Sullenly): You are a just and merci...

GOD: And you shall enjoy watching sports.

ADAM: NOOOOOO!

(ADAM falls to his knees, sobbing.)

EVE: Well, god, after that, you’ll have a hard time coming up with a punishment which is worse than that for me.

GOD: You shall coexist with Adam.

EVE: NOOOOOO!

(EVE collapses alongside ADAM, who puts an arm around her protectively, then cops a feel. EVE starts and punches him, and he falls over unconscious. The stage goes dark except for a single spotlight on the far right, into which steps, from offstage, the CHORUS.)

CHORUS: And so, Adam and Eve were punished for their transgressions. Mercifully, god allowed them to stay in the Garden, but the Garden soon got sick of them and kicked them out itself.

ADAM (from offstage): Well, this land of Nod isn’t so bad. I could learn to like it here. Do we have more beer?

EVE (from offstage): I hate you.

SERPENT (from offstage, still voiced by Chris Latta): On(ssss)ce I wasssss... a man! A man!

EVE: Quiet, you.

CHORUS: The troubles of Adam and Eve were just beginning, for they would have to survive outside of Eden, and the future would bring them fear and pain, the loss of their youngest son, taxes, shopping malls, and frequent vicious attacks by the vengeful Weasels of Nod whose territory they accidentally entered. And through it all, Adam and Eve became very intelligent but never did learn wisdom, and their curses are still suffered by their descendants today. And there was the morning and the evening of whatever day it was...

GOD (yelling from offstage as though from very far away): And it was good enough.

(The stage goes fully dark. Unable to see, the CHORUS trips and falls noisily while exiting the stage. The curtain comes down.)

After last Entry, I received an e-mail from a casual surfer (he stumbled across the Journal looking for quotes from Superman 3: Superman vs. Superman) saying that a person whose main purpose in life was to hate doesn’t have much of a purpose. I politely directed his attention to the second to last paragraph, which states (quite clearly, I thought) that hate is one of the lesser purposes of my life and one of the less powerful motivators, although still a powerful one. This made me stop to think that I’ve never said much about what my purposes are, despite the fact that they get mentioned in passing every now and then in other Entries. I’ve always felt that having a sense of purpose in one’s life is one of the most important things one can have, and very few people, particularly in my age group, have any real sense of great purpose. First, a word about purpose in general. There are many ways to look at purpose. If one is employed, then one’s job is part of one’s purpose. If one has people one is dedicated to, then they are part of one’s purpose. The trick about purpose is that a purpose can be high and spiritual/cosmic/deep, or low and physical/transient/lacking in meaning. Both types of purposes have benefits and drawbacks, and I personally believe that no one can have a healthy mind relying only on one of these types of purposes. Most people never learn to grow beyond low, physical, and immediate purposes... the acquiring of wealth, eating and drinking, hedonism... and these are good, valid purposes, but they may not be enough. On the other hand, to focus solely on the spiritual purposes makes one distant, often repressed, generally boring, and rarely able to form relationships with anyone who permits themselves a lesser purpose. The clerics and ascetics who give themselves this sort of existence may be wise and venerable, but they’re certainly not the sort of person I would want to be. As with everything else, a healthy sense of purpose in the Universe requires balance.

For most of my existence, I’ve seen considerable wisdom in an ancient and mystical philosophy: The Higher, The Fewer. This ancient, mysterious, and meaningful perspective comes to us from the same source as much of the world’s wisdom: Star Trek. This principle is either extremely simple or extremely complex – certainly, I didn’t understand it for years, until I stumbled across it again a few years ago and its meaning sort of snapped into focus. According to this principle, every moment of life requires a purpose, and every purpose requires a plan to fulfill it. The higher the purpose, the fewer purposes. In simple terms, a higher purpose is with one for longer, and so fewer purposes are needed to give life meaning and substance. The purpose of feeding one’s hunger vanishes when one eats, but the purpose of improving oneself covers every meal and quite a lot of the things done in between.

I have been fortunate to always have a very clear image of my purpose, from the very moment of my creation up to the moment when I type this out. My purposes have changed slightly in between, some individual purposes have been fulfilled and others have been taken on, but the core of the purposes has remained basically the same.

The primary purpose of Eric 4.1 is self-understanding. I exist to understand myself, and to answer above all others the question: who are you. This purpose is impossible to ever fulfill, because one’s identity changes with every passing moment. There is no higher purpose in my life than this, and there has not been since my creation. Sub-purposes to this include 1) attempting to answer all six Questions of the Universe, 2) asking these questions of other people and comparing their answers to my own, and 3) seeking to establish and develop the Church of Forsteri and Path of Forsteri as a tool for my own enlightenment.

The secondary purpose of Eric 4.1 is to share enlightenment with others. Enlightenment in my universe is inextricably intertwined with entertainment, and so part of this purpose is to also amuse others and make them happy. Only some people are worthy of enlightenment, of course, which means that if one proves themselves unworthy of this blessing in my eyes, then I have no obligation to make them happy, or to not make them unhappy or unenlightened. This purpose entails the same three subpurposes as the primary purpose. Also inextricably linked with enlightenment is confusion; it is among Forsteri’s most important teachings that confusion is to be embraced as the path to new realizations, and as confusion is a holy state, it is to be shared, often. Unlike entertainment, which I choose to share only with those I like, I happily share the blessing of confusion with my with people I dislike as well, and often generously offer them greater amounts of it.

The tertiary purpose of Eric 4.1 is classified Ultraviolet, and will not be printed here.

The quaternary purpose of Eric 4.1 is to acquire power. Power facilitates the completion of the higher purposes. The power of wealth and security frees one for other, more philosophical pursuits. The power of influence opens doors to far-away minds and sources of information which would otherwise be unavailable. Power supplements and aids all other goals, and is furthermore a nifty end unto itself.

Finally, the cinquinary purpose of Eric 4.1 is to save the world. Clearly, the world needs saving, as humanity is a flawed species with a tendency towards imperfect social and political systems, trapped in a spiteful and horrific Universe. My purpose is to save the world because if I don’t try to, how can I count on anyone else to try? The fact that success is impossible is no excuse for not making the attempt. This is, as the reader might guess, the purpose at which I am the least far along.

There are, of course, a myriad of other, lesser purposes to my life, such as survival, which includes such sub-purposes as eating, sleeping, and not dying, but after all, the higher, the fewer. It pleases me to think that my sense of purpose is better developed than that of most humans; it is, arguably, part of my purpose that this be so. It also brings much joy and meaning to my life that my purpose in life be something deep, something meaningful, something which allows me to improve and confuse the lives of others, and, of course, something achievable fnord.

I’m not a bad person. I just want to see a few people tortured to death. Is that so wrong?

There’s an old quote which I love but seldom use, because I don’t know who to attribute it to. Depending on where you check, the line is attributed to either Attila the Hun or Genghis Khan (both were quite adept with the turn-of-phrase, though few people know that). The exact wording of the quote differs from source to source, but the gist of it is: “It is not enough that I win. All of my enemies must also lose.” I’ve always found this to be a very profound thought – in some of its myriad formulations, at least; I don’t sympathize quite so much with such versions as “all of my enemies must be slaughtered” – and I think that there’s a lot of truth to it. Certainly, most situations in life aren’t zero-sum games, and one person’s victory doesn’t have to be someone else’s loss. But sometimes, it’s nice to know that your success is your enemy’s failure.

Arguably, I don’t really have any enemies. There are people I dislike, and there are people who dislike me, but there aren’t (currently) any people out there who, as far as I know, are actually actively thwarting my goals. There are people who I’m actively thwarting, and from time to time I’ll cause a little havoc on their message boards or sign up their favourite e-mail addresses for junk mail, but since it’s a one way thing and there’s relatively little malice in my actions, it’s not accurate to suggest we might be each others’ enemies. That said, there are a lot of people I dislike, and a large part of my life and world view has been shaped by the people I’ve disliked and outright hated. And, to a certain extent, spiting them is one of the things that gets me out of bed every morning.

Hate is something I’ve always been fairly ambivalent about. In my younger, more volatile days, I believed hate to be one of the most beautiful things in the Universe. It gave one focus and strength, motivated and energized you. It was a pure feeling, untarnished by conflicting opinions, and in the absence of anger and tempered by logic, it was unlikely to prompt one to do anything too foolish. In the last days of Eric 3, hate was practically the only thing which kept him going. Eric 4, however, was and remains a creature with more complex motivations, and hypoaffective as I still am, the days when hate was the only thing I felt are years behind me. With the lesson that some humans are worth knowing comes the necessity of learning motivations other than hatred. In addition, though I remain a very logical thinker, I’m not quite as hypoaffective as I once was, and with the increasing anger issues I’ve had over the last two or three years, hate – at least, unfocused hate – changed from something strengthening to something draining. Hate is a good feeling, but no one can hate all the time; it just takes too much energy.

Even today, though, hate remains a very powerful force in my life. There are a small number of people who I could quite gleefully do grievous harm to, but the fact that I want to doesn’t mean that I will. Hate does not have to be an irrational feeling, after all. When I’m tired, or sad, or even just bored, I can open myself up to the hate I still feel, and it brings purpose and joy into my life. Some would suggest that it’s a hollow, impure happiness, but these are also the people who would probably tell you that lying is bad and that Christ is your saviour, so I question if they’re reliable judges. As with everything else, a proper amount of hate is a question of balance, and in healthy moderation, hate is probably one of the most beautiful emotions there is. Regrettably, few people have the strength of spirit to feel the good aspects of hatred without succumbing to its negative aspects, and even those of us who choose to believe we can use hate profitably would do well to remember that the irrational seldom recognize their own irrationality.

How, then, does hate actually improve life? Besides being a warm, fuzzy feeling deep in one’s heart and a burst of energy when one is feeling down, hate motivates us to rise above those we hate. I carry with me to this day a pure and beautiful hate of about half a dozen people with whom I was in high school, a hate strong enough to have survived not having seen or spoken to them in over six years. My hate does not drive me to wish them harm... it merely drives me to surpass them in all ways. If I go to my high school reunion in some three or four years, I don’t want to get into fights with those I hate, or argue with them, or avoid them, or even glare at them; I just want them to look upon me with envy. The third biggest reason for my wanting to become a doctor is simple: I want to have a better job than those I hate. One of the things I look for in a woman is, is this someone who will make my enemies jealous, make them look upon their own dates as inferior. I don’t ask for much in life... I just want to stand in front of those I hate and hear their hearts crack as they look upon me. That’s not too much to ask, is it?

Everything I am, everything I accomplish, and everything I achieve in my life, is in some way motivated by my hate, perhaps not as much as it is by my quest for self-knowledge or my drive to amuse those around me, but at least to some extent. And, frequently, it is my hate which drives me to greater successes than my higher-ranking purposes and my more noble motivators... my desire to amuse others wouldn’t have gotten me into medical school, nor is it likely to be what keeps me there in the coming years when the workload piles up. One might even reasonably argue that, as a corollary to this, everything I achieve is, in some way, thanks to those I hate, and I freely acknowledge their vital and indispensable contribution.

I will offer them my sincerest thanks as they writhe on the floor at my feet.

Continuing our intermittent series on inhumane house-rules, today we defile one of the oldest and most sacred of all board games. In the history of modern board gaming, few games have managed to become famous, respected, and widely played – most games, even the real classics, only ever become one or two of the three – but one game has always stood out among others as a bastion of strategy, of challenge, and of the oldest and most practical lesson of all games: stabbing your friend in the back. Today, we consider House Rules Monopoly.

Few games have been as widely played (and as widely parodied) as Monopoly. Go is older and requires true brilliance to play, while Chess remains the popularly held game of geniuses, but Monopoly has bought and sold its way into the hearts and minds of millions of people where other, and, yes, better games have failed. The simple appeal of buying and selling land, the better to gouge your foes into shame, poverty, and despair, rings deeply in the hearts of nearly all people. Monopoly caters to our most sadistic and capitalistic tendencies. Chess teaches you to coldly and calculatingly slaughter your enemy’s troops and kill their leader, and Battleship is all about sending your enemies to a watery, dishonoured grave, but only in Monopoly do you not only destroy your enemy, but first humiliate them, taking their holdings, their wealth, their home, their dignity, and their very sense of hope, as they are forced to scamper around the board, penniless and broken, knowing that they’re going to lose in another two turns and utterly unable to do anything about it, unable even to refuse to pick up the dice which have brought only ruin and pain upon them.

So anyway...

A word first about versions of Monopoly. It’s hardly a secret that Monopoly is released by game manufacturers who probably grew up playing Monopoly and learned its lessons well. Themed Monopoly games were once something special but now can be found for any number of popular culture icons. I personally own a much-loved copy of Star Wars Monopoly, and other versions which I know of but wouldn’t even think of paying for include versions based on Star Trek, the Simpsons, and any number of other institutions. The point is, playing pieces and box art may change, but these games are still essentially Monopoly, with only the most minor of variations. When we talk about *really* different versions, though, we don’t mean playing Darth Vader instead of a little hat or wheelbarrow... we mean real game-altering changes, like giant monsters who stomp through your property or Herbert-worms attacking your tokens while they circle the board. Remember, house rules shouldn’t just be fun... they should also utterly change the face of the game, ideally making it senseless, chaotic, and violent.

The following are some example house rules for this particular board game. All are fully playable, although some are more unbalanced than others and some are actually downright horrific. Attempt to play these rules only with people who are unlikely to start to hate you afterwards, or with people who already hate you and to whom it won’t make a difference. In any case, player discretion is advised.

Tokyo Monopoly
Tokyo Monopoly, sometimes known as Kaiju Monopoly, is basically normal Monopoly. Players circle the board, buying up property and trying to prevent others from buying any. In addition to the tokens of each player, however, an additional token is placed on the board. Where the players are using the standard little cars and hats (or, for more serious gamers, their own painted figures), the extra token, the Kaiju counter, should ideally be a large, reptilian figure, or the image of some other classic movie monster. The Kaiju counter moves like a normal player, rolling 2d6. Any time that the monster rolls doubles, however, instead of getting an extra turn, the monster rampages, destroying all property on the square on which it lands. Woe betide any player on that square at the time; they lose a turn as they recuperate in hospital, losing an amount of money equal to the rent of their cheapest property in doctors’ bills. Players may invest in monster insurance, wherein they pay a sum of 50$ at the start of any turn and, if any of their buildings are destroyed by the monster, they receive an amount of money equal to what they paid to construct those buildings. Premiums rise every time one claims this insurance, however; after collecting insurance once, it costs 100$ to buy it again, then 200$, then 300$, then 400$... This version of the game is scalable. To make the game less destructive, the monster might destroy only one building in an area (reducing a hotel to 4 houses, for instance). To make the monster more active, have it rampage more often... every time one of the dice rolls a 1, or for particularly nasty games, every square it stops on.

Apocalypse Monopoly
For many gamers, their first exposure to house rules board games is Nuclear Chess, wherein two eight-sided dice are used to randomly select a square which explodes every turn. Naturally, then, many gamers seek to extend this play style to other games when they try to create house rules for them, and this brings us to Apocalypse Monopoly, also known as Nuclear Monopoly. Players scramble to purchase property even as the bombs fall. At the start of the game, each turn ends with one square being randomly selected to explode. The easiest way to do this is by shuffling together the location cards and picking one from the deck, but dice may also be used. If a square explodes, all buildings on it are destroyed. If a player is on that square and there are buildings, the player is unharmed, but if there are no buildings, the player is nearly killed, losing a turn and two hundred dollars as they recuperate.

Post-Apocalyptic Monopoly
Post-Apocalyptic Monopoly is identical to Apocalypse Monopoly at first, but follows the storyline as it progresses. As the game continues, the focus shifts from obtaining shelter from explosions to surviving in the nuclear wastelands. The game changes when the first hotel is built. Instead of hotels, players build shelters. Shelters are not destroyed by a bomb, but are reduced to four houses; only the player who builds a shelter may be protected by it from explosions. Furthermore, in the second phase of the game, exploded squares leave radioactive craters; players may pass through them without risk but a player stopping on a radioactive square must pay 200$ to survive the hostile terrain, and a player who has less survives but loses all of their money. A player who lands on a radioactive square may pay to have it cleaned of radioactivity for 100$; the owner of a square may do this at any time, even if they are not on the square. Players who "die" or otherwise lose the last of their resources due to radioactivity, either from an explosion or a crater and either before or after the first shelter is built, lose all property as normal but also rise as a nuclear zombie; zombies circle the board using 1d6 and, if they stop on a square occupied by another player, attack that player, requiring the still-living player to pay 50$ or all of their remaining money, or be slain and turned into a zombie themselves.

Trumpopoly
Trumpopoly comes to us from the comic strip Fox Trot. Less overtly changed from the core of Monopoly than other house rules version, Trumpopoly is played identically to normal Monopoly except that all purchases, acquisitions, and holdings must be exaggerated, lovingly described, and shamelessly expensive. A player does not land on an buy Reading Railroad – they hire the world’s finest engineers to build Zoomtrain!, the fastest bullet train in existence, with solid gold tables, diamond wheels, and an anti-matter cattle-catcher. Players are not merely encouraged to describe their holdings in opulent and ridiculous terms, they are required to; a player who can’t think of a description or story to go with their new purchases (and even losses) may be forced to pay the bank a price up to twice what they paid for a purchase that turn. Penalties are assigned by consensus of the other players; Trumpopoly can therefore only work if played in a friendly manner, ideally with at least 3 players to ensure penalties are not being assigned by only one player against another.

Dunopoly
Inspired by the themed versions of Monopoly which try to give the flavour of a series but which are really just different artwork and tokens, fans of Frank Herbert’s Dune created rules for Dunopoly, wherein players compete for choice spice-harvesting areas, building bigger refineries and trying to avoid the natural (and unnatural) hazards of the desert planet. Rather than land, each square represents a spice field, and the houses and hotels which can be built are larger and more profitable harvesters. Players do not pay rent and collect no money from passing Go; when a player lands on another player’s square, the square’s owner is paid an amount equal to the rent by the bank. Furthermore, each player has four tokens and not one; each token is a mobile command vehicle/spice harvester which they can use to claim land and build refineries. Players take turns moving one of their vehicles; counters for each of a player’s four tokens should be different so that they can keep track of which counter they are moving on a given turn. Play continues until players have been removed from the game, either due to loss of all money and property or loss of all 4 harvesters. If a harvester is lost, the player may take no actions during the turn when other players move the harvester of that number. Harvesters may be replaced for a cost of 2000$, and the total number of harvesters a player controls may never rise above 4; new harvesters enter play from the Go square and use the turn order of whatever harvester was lost by the player. Every time a token lands on one of the four corner squares, on chance, on community chest, or income tax, then instead of the normal effect of that square1d6 is rolled. On a 1-4, Something Bad Happens, and the Bad Things table is consulted. On a 5 or 6, Something Good Happens, and the Good Things table is consulted.

Bad Things: Roll 1d6
1: Sand worm attack. Lose your harvester.
2: Fremen attack. Lose 1d6 X 100$
3: Spice spill. Lose 100$
4: Struck in the sand. Lose this harvester’s next action.
5: Get lost. Roll 1d4, move this harvester to a random corner squares and lose its next turn
6: Spice boom. Lose this harvester, gain 2500$.

Good Things: Roll 1d6
1: Spice boom. Lose this harvester, gain 2500$.
2: Air-lift. Move this harvester to any corner square of your choice.
3: Spice windfall. Gain 1d6 X 100$
4: Scavenge equipment. Gain 100$
5: Maximum efficiency. Roll again.
6: Attack enemy. Force an opponent’s harvester of your choice to roll twice on the Bad Things table; you choose which result affects them of the 2 rolls.

Play continues until one player has all the money or all the harvesters, at which point House Atreides takes over the planet from the Harkonnen and you can go read the book to see what happens next.

DotCompoly
DotCompoly takes normal Monopoly and adds in the flavour of doomed futility. Inspired by the catastrophic collapse of the thriving internet businesses in the late 20th and early 21st century, DotCompoly puts players in the role of young, brilliant tech geeks who have made themselves obscenely wealthy in the recent past but whose businesses have just collapsed and who are now living on borrowed time before their money runs out. The winner is simply the player who loses everything last. Each player begins the game with 20,000 dollars; this is more than some Monopoly boards are sold with, and so players may need to use counters or paper to keep track of their money. No money is collected for passing go, from chance cards, or from any source other than another player's wealth, and money lost by players due to board events, which are sometimes placed in free parking or somewhere else where it can be recovered by players, instead goes to the bank where it is lost forever. Play continues as normal over the course of the game with the exception that money only leaves the system and never enters it; the bulk of the board is bought up within the few first turns, and play continues entropically until all players but one have lost everything.

Arms Race Monopoly
Arms Race Monopoly starts by putting all players in an equal position and forcing them to race, not for the most valuable properties, but simply to have the most properties. At the start of the game, all squares are assigned equal values for purchase, rent, building, and so forth – players may choose any value for the cost of properties, scaling according to the difficulty of the game they want to play; 100$ is a good value, with each house costing 50$. Each square is counted as being separate and independent; once a property is purchased, buildings can be built on it immediately. Arms Race Monopoly sees property values rise with considerable speed and players must move quickly if they hope to secure enough of the board to have a chance later in the game.

Dungeons and Monopolies
In Dungeons and Monopolies, players acquire and develop dungeons rather than properties. Rather than buying properties, players must slay the creatures which already occupy the dungeons, with more valuable properties being guarded by more dangerous beasts. Players begin with strength 5, health 5, normal starting money, and 3 Shameless Plot Devices. Monsters begin with health and strength equal to the order of their coloured blocks (i.e.: the two purple properties immediately after Go have strength 1 and health 1, the 3 properties immediately after each have monsters with strength 2 and health 2, and so forth). To fight a monster, players roll a number of d6’s equal to their strength and a number equal to the strength of the monster, and count successful hits, the number of dice which roll 4, 5, or 6. The loser of the combat loses an amount of health equal to the difference between the winner’s number of successes and the loser’s. If a monster’s health equals 0, the player claims the square, and no money needs to be spent. Players may choose not to fight monsters when they land on a square or to disengage from combat at any time; the property does not go up for auction, and the monster’s health returns to full. If a player’s health drops to 0 in combat with a monster, the combat ends; the player is moved to Go and regains all health but does not go up a level. That player loses 1 turn and an amount of money equal to their strength X 20 (or all of their money, if they do not have that much). Players gain levels each time they pass go; with each rotation of the board, they gain +1 strength and their health refills and rises by 1, such that, for example, a player who passes go 5 times would be a fifth level character with strength 10 and health 10. Shameless plot devices may be spent at any time when in combat with a monster; for the duration of the combat in which they are spent, a player’s strength counts as double or as 5 greater than its current value, whichever is higher. Players cannot gain more Shameless Plot Devices. A player may attack another player if they land on the same square; Shameless Plot Devices may not be used in these combats. A combat between players does not go to the death; combat may last only one round, and the loser forfeits 100$ to the winner in addition to losing 1 health, and if the loser does not have 100$, they lose a second health. In all other ways, Dungeons and Monopolies functions just like regular Monopoly.

Oligarchopoly
Oligarchopoly pits two teams of players against each other, and requires at least 3 players; consult the table below to determine starting money and teams for different numbers of players. Over the course of the game, the powerless and repressed many try to throw off their few, powerful oppressors.

Number of players	Teams	Starting money
3	1 vs. 2	20,000 / Normal
4	1 vs. 3	30,000 / Normal
5	2 vs. 3	20,000 / 2 X Normal
6	2 vs. 4	30,000 / Normal
7	2 vs. 5	40,000 / Normal

The team with fewer players goes first; each player on that team takes their turn, and then the other team’s players take their turns. Teams co-own any properties and pool their money. If a team runs out of money, they lose. Until a property is purchased, it counts as unowned, but if a player from the team with more players lands on it, they must either buy it, put it for auction, or pay rent as though it was owned by the other team. For purposes of cards or effects which state that sometime is done by or to every player, count each team as being one player, such that the effect is carried out as though it were a 2 player game. Players on the larger team collect 200$ when they pass go; players on the smaller team collect 400.

I don’t gamble. At the very least, I don’t gamble for all intents and purposes, in the common sense of the word. I do spend several hours every week submitting my fate to rolls of the dice, but I don’t put money on it and the most severe outcome that can come from such rolls is having to create a new character. I don’t gamble money, because I don’t like putting money on any odds which are worse than 50%, as they are in most games of chance. Not enjoying the thrill of winning and losing money is part of the reason I never got seriously into card games – without the excitement and, yes, the addictive aspect of the intermittent reward, card games have limited appeal.

Unless, of course, one changes the games to suit one’s tastes.

There are very few card games I enjoy playing. I occasionally indulge in crazy eights because it’s a nice, simple game, and I enjoy playing War because it brings back fond childhood memories of Smurf-related cards. I will sometimes allow myself to be talked into playing various other games, but I rarely last more than a hand before I become desperately bored, and either stop playing or begin ruining the game for everyone else. The one card game for which I have an endless fascination, however, is Poker. There are two ways of playing Poker, generally speaking: as a player or as a Poker player. To the casual player, poker is primarily a game of chance, wherein one tries to drop cards in the hope that the replacement cards will give one of various good hands. To a true Poker player, though... a rank in which I most definitely am not... Poker is a game of psychology and skill, and chance, in theory, barely enters into it. Poker is a fascinating game because when two masters play, the game is all about what each player is thinking and what one player can deduce the other is thinking. I’ve only ever had the chance to observe such a game a very few times, but it’s quite remarkable. To us lay-players, Poker is a much less involved game, like comparing the chess-playing styles of a world grand-master with a couple of casual pawn-grabbers who play once every few months. None-the-less, Poker has a special place in my heart, not because I play it well, which I don’t, but because of the way the game is capable of being played, which I dream of being capable of but am unwilling to take the trouble to learn.

I won’t go into how normal Poker is played, since it’s an extremely rich and varied game, and its rules are very dull and in any case I only know a fraction of them. However, there are endless variations of Poker in the world, among them Universe Poker, wherein every player take son the role of a cosmic truth (good, evil, truth, deception) and plays accordingly; Character Poker, wherein every player is must take on a character they play in a game and remain in character for the duration of each hand; Disaster Poker, wherein various dice are used to cause random events to happen at various points of the game; and my personal favourite, Chaos Poker. For the very first time ever, the rules of Chaos Poker, such as they are, will now be set down for posterity.

In essence, Chaos Poker is regular Poker with two minor differences. In Poker, the role of dealer usually is either done by a single non-player or rotates around the table. In Chaos Poker, the dealer is always one of the players, and the job of dealer goes clockwise each hand. In regular Poker, the dealer often sets the rules for a hand, and the rules rarely change greatly between hands. In Chaos Poker, the dealer is required to change the rules each hand, and furthermore, must make the rules for a given hand more complex than the hand which preceded it. Usually this means adding a rule, but it is also acceptable to simply make one or more existing rules more complicated. If a dealer is unable to make the rules more complicated, or selects a rules set which all other players agree is insufficiently complex, that player is removed from the game. Play generally proceeds around the table in one full rotation (all players having the chance to be dealer once) or, for more dedicated players, continues around the table until only one player remains, either because they have all the chips/tokens/money or because no player could top their rules. A dealer must be able to recite and understand their own chosen rules, which ensures that unscrupulous players don’t simply start by making an incomprehensible set and thereby defeating all other players.

A normal game usually has between 3-6 players, and might follow a pattern such as this hypothetical 4 player game.

• Hand 1: Simple rules to establish a baseline. Five card stud, jokers are wild.
• Hand 2: Escalation. 2’s count as queens, and 3’s, suicide kings, and one-eyed jacks are wild.
• Hand 3: Complexity becomes difficult to follow. Low card is wild, high card counts as a spade, dead man’s hand is high and anyone who ends the hand with a pair or a triple has to stand up and recite a poem.
• Hand 4: Chaos. High and low card are wild, three of a kind beat five, prime numbered cards count as 2’s, all wild cards count as hearts unless they’re used as kings (in which case they count as diamonds), and one community card (face down until final hands are shown) in play.
• Players unanimously decide they’ve had enough and go do something else.

Traditionally, Chaos Poker is played with bets. While betting is sometimes done by means of chips or token, Chaos Poker is more commonly played with players wagering fictional holdings, the more elaborate and extravagant the better. On a particularly good hand, for example, one player might wager the Kingdom of France, and their opponent might see them and raise two cans of pickled cichlids and a solid-gold yacht. It is, in fact, considered the mark of a talented player to be able to describe the items they are wagering at great length, spending upwards of five minutes discussing, for example, the ivory and pearl faucets aboard their private jet or describing in intricate details the monster which occupies the moat of their castle; it is also the mark of a courteous player to notice when the other players are losing patience and wrap up a description quickly. Chaos Poker is never, ever played for money, under any circumstances.

Like Mock That Human and other games which have been described in this Journal, Chaos Poker is a game designed for people of a very specific personality type, and should be played only among friends and only in small doses, to minimize the risk of permanent damage. The nature of the game is such that most people do not enjoy playing the game, and even those who do can usually stand it only for short periods at a time. That said, Chaos Poker can be an excellent game if played well, and at the very least is usually good for a laugh or two between other, more sensible activities.

At one time or another, most of my closest friends have referenced their own character sheet. I don’t mean a sheet for their characters... I mean a sheet for them. It’s a habit most gamers pick up quickly, and in my opinion, one of the ways to spot someone who will be a good gamer is how soon, how often, and how naturally they refer to things in their lives in terms of their stats. World of Darkness players have apologized for not seeing me because of their perception/alertness 1; D&D players explain tripping because of their low dexterity, or because of botched movement checks. I can name at least 7 people who I know have decided whether to go to or skip a class based on rolling a D20 and adding what their self-calculated will-save. For my part, when I help a friend move, I make apologies for my strength of 6, and I’ve told more people than I can recall that I’m a high wisdom, good intelligence and low charisma person. The mathematicians say that everything in life is a question of numbers; if they only knew.

As both a gamer and an individual all but obsessed with self-understanding, it behooved me many years ago to try and set myself down in character sheet form using some of the major gaming systems. I know that I’m not the only person in my social circle to have done this, as well, and I know several more people who have always wanted to but never been sure how to do so. The primary difficulty facing such a task is that, quite obviously, I, and most humans, can’t be properly defined by a rules set created to give stats to wizards and vampires and such. I wish I could sit down and calculate my spellcasting level, but I lack that option. I was actually able to make a decent version of myself using the now-obsolete World of Darkness: Mortals rules, which worked out to the dot after some creative use of merits and flaws. With D&D however, it is at once simpler and harder. It’s harder because I have no idea what to justifiably select as my class – I assume that I’d be a cleric, but since I don’t cast any spells, I might not be much of one. On the other hand, it’s easy, because the core of a D20 character is the ability scores, and to make a character sheet for yourself, one might easily argue that the stats are all you really need to make a good representation. Of course, most people would enjoy sitting down to work out their skill points and such, but skill ranks and bonuses are so difficult to measure in D20 in terms of number of points relative to real life ability, such a task would probably be about as futile as trying to guess your spellcaster level. So, for a D&D character, we can justifiably do just the ability scores and then make a basic guess as to everything else.

Let’s start with a nice, simple stat: strength. This is arguably the easiest of the various abilities to calculate, because the scores can be linked to stable, predictable, and measure amounts of weight which a person can lift. Based on the various character generation guidelines, my strength can reasonably be set at 6 or 7... call it 6, since I’m fond of even number. This makes perfect sense; there’s no question that I’m physically weaker than most people my age, and what strength I have I never really learned to use effectively in terms of lifting, pushing and pulling, hitting, and so forth. Fortunately, the joy of character sheets is that a low stat somewhere is usually made up for by higher stats elsewhere.

This brings me to what I think is the fundamental philosophical lesson of character sheets: balance. I’ve been known to describe people in terms of their stats when I’m speaking to someone who knows what I’m talking about; sometimes, describing someone as being of low wisdom or charisma is simply the best way to get the point across. That said, even when I’m at my most vicious, referring to someone having a low stat (or two, or three) is never really an insult. Even if someone has a charisma of 4 or a wisdom of 6, as I’ve known people who do, the implied assumption there is that somewhere, they’ve got another stat that makes up for it. One of my good friends has an abysmally low wisdom score, but a high intelligence and charisma. I’ve known someone else who I honestly believe had a charisma score of about 6, or perhaps even 4, but made up for it in the physical stats. There are some poor individuals out there who genuinely don’t have a single higher score, and some fortunate individuals who have above 14 in three or more scores, but these people are very much exceptions in my experience; most people are built as though they were fairly rolled up, sometimes followed by a min-maxing point redistribution.

Dexterity and constitution are a bit harder to calculate, but we have imagination. Consider dexterity. On the one hand, my balance isn’t very good and my manual dexterity is quite poor. I sometimes trip when walking on flat planar surfaces and can’t draw a straight line if my life depends on it. On the other hand, I hide and move silently very well, despite the fact that I almost certainly never bought any ranks in them. I run and walk much faster than someone would expect given my physique, but then again, movement speed isn’t modified by dexterity score as directly as one my expect. Finally, although I can’t throw or catch worth a damn, I’ve handled a few firearms in my life, and while they didn’t feel as natural in my hands as a longsword, I’ve been told by the staff at two firing ranges that my aim is unnaturally good for a beginner – frighteningly so, in fact. All told, we have some conflicting evidence, but I’m inclined to set my score at slightly lower than average, over all... Let’s call it 8; 9 might be more accurate, but I do, as I’ve said, prefer even numbers, and in game terms, the ability penalty is the same for both. Constitution is even harder to measure than dexterity, since it’s very ephemeral, and I’m not inclined to poison myself just to see how effectively I cure myself. I do know that I have a fairly low pain threshold versus slashing and piercing weapons, but I hold up slightly better than most people do against blunt trauma, and although as a youth I was quite unhealthy, today I get sick only once or twice a year, and when I do, it usually doesn’t interfere with my daily activities in any real way. For this one, we’ll take the easy way out, and call it 10, a nice, average score; genetic diseases aside, I wouldn’t say I'm any much more or less healthy than anyone who takes care of themselves.

This brings us to the first of the fun scores, intelligence. I’m not strong, fast or tough, but I am very smart, and even taking into account that I have an egoist’s self-image, I know my mental stats are my primary abilities. Intelligence is difficult to quantify exactly, but we can make a good go of it. The clearest measure of intelligence in D&D is languages spoken; a normal character speaks 1 local language, 1 native tongue, and one language for every point of their intelligence modifier. Living in Quebec, the case could be made that I have two free native languages; in many game systems, growing up in a bilingual region means you get an extra free language. However, I don’t personally see French as a native language of mine; I didn’t really speak it until grade school, and it’s never had anywhere near as big a role in my life as English. At my peak, I spoke four languages fluently: English, French, Hebrew, and Yiddish; that would mean I have an intelligence of 16 or 17. The problem with using language as a measure, though, is that even at my prime, I never read Hebrew very well, although I could converse in it, and I was never really fluent in Yiddish at all, although I could read Yiddish fairly well given a few minutes to look at it, and could in fact use my knowledge of Yiddish to also read German and several similar-sounding languages. Today, I’m functionally literate in Spanish and Portuguese too, but only because they’re so similar to French. Furthermore, because I’ve had no cause to practice my Hebrew and Yiddish for about 6 years, I’ve become out of practice with them to say the least, and even my French has dropped to below the level it used to be, such that I have trouble conversing in it. So do we go by the languages I speak now, or the total number which I have been able to speak during my life? Languages spoken may be a good measure of intelligence, bu on the other hand, I grew up attenting schools where three or four languages were being taught to all studnets, and I live today in one of the world's most multicultural cities; I’ve known some pretty stupid people who spoke four, five, or six languages. There’s an additional complication: skill points. Like a rogue, my lack of class abilities is made up for by having a lot of skills, but since I’m closer to cleric than thief, many of my skill points probably come from my intelligence bonus. Based solely on my store of knowledge skills, I must have spent quite a lot of points. To be fair, we’ll set my intelligence at a conservative 14; my IQ has always tested in the 130-140 range, which is well into the above average area but shy of genius level, so a 14 sounds about right. Obviously, a storyteller with a sense of humor has allowed me to take my 2 free language slots and instead become half-proficient in 4 languages.

This brings us to my favorite ability score: wisdom. While my knowledges are useful, I believe it’s my high wisdom score which lets me use my knowledges well. Wisdom is what the philosophers of D20 max out on, even at the cost of intelligence. Wisdom is the ability essential to those close to their gods and who are at peace with their universe. Wisdom is less a measure of what one has learned and more a measure of how one has internalized and understood what one has learned. And it is the ability inherent in the sneaky, underhanded, and twisted logic of the sophists and deceivers alike. I set my own intelligence at a “modest” 15, but I consider my wisdom to be closer to 16 or even 17. I don’t consider my wisdom to be 18 or above because I have observed how my understanding of the universe changes with each year and I do not believe that I have reached the theoretical human maximum – but I believe I’m close, and certainly far closer to ultimate wisdom than most humans will ever get. Wisdom, like constitution, is hard the quantify. For example, I’m absolutely terrible at reading people and sensing motives, but I believe this is probably due to personal flaws and not low wisdom. I am quite strong willed and have the ability to ignore most pains, temptations, and fears through simple stubborn will. I can follow convoluted logic paths and form logical trains of my own which few humans can follow. I can formulate arguments both scientific and metaphysical and can grasp complex ideas physical and philosophical. And I can put forth my ideas in a clear, pleasant to read, and often entertaining manner. All of these are talents which draw heavily on intelligence but primarily on wisdom. And, finally, a score of 16 sounds about right since I think I’m measurably wiser than I am intelligent, so if my intelligence is already 14, my wisdom has to be at least 16.

This brings us at last to charisma, which is, in my opinion, the ability people have the most trouble applying to themselves. Very few people have a clear, unbiased view of whether they’re persuasive, attractive, and so forth. This is the ability which I consider myself the least able to judge. I probably don’t have terrible charisma penalties, because I’m a very good liar and a talented public speaker, both of which are skills which rely on charisma. I don’t think I’m particularly good looking, but I also don’t think I’m ugly. I’m poor at gathering information from people I don’t know, but that’s more my cowardice which keeps me from talking to them in the first place, and when I know someone, I can usually get information out of them if I really want to and if it isn’t some deep, dark secret. I’m not naturally friendly or outgoing, but if I put some effort into it, I can convince someone that I am. Overall, I take the easy way out and give myself a charisma of 10 – no bonuses, no penalties, just average. If I had to pick one direction or the other to put it, I’d probably set it higher rather than lower, but I tend to feel that while I’m justified setting my mental stats nice and high, I’m less justified in boasting of a high charisma. If I ever succeed in creating a real cult or political movement, I may revise that opinion.

And so, we have a basic character sheet for Me, which can then be used as a basis for whatever class and level an individual feels is most appropriate. I hesitate to assign things like skill points for the reasons given above, but there are a few last observations one can make. For example, some of my feats can be assigned. I don’t consider myself to receive the bonus feat which humans receive at first level, and since I’m not calculating level into this, I have to assume I have only one feat. In this case, the obvious choice is Educated, from the Forgotten Realms(TM) Campaign setting, which makes all knowledges class skills. Beyond that, there isn’t much we can add to this, but I’m left with the feeling that this is exactly the sort of character I might create for a D&D game, which, all things considered, is quite fortunate for me, since I’m more or less being forced to play this character in a very long-term campaign.

A warm spring wind blew through the grounds, riffling the headmaster’s robes as he crossed the field. He scowled at the wind, mentally cursing the gods for their inconveniently-designed weather patterns, and continued scowling as he neared a mud-patch and, with an almost ladylike gesture, lifted the hem of his robs so that he could step across without dirtying them. Master Rofan had never understood why mages insisted on wearing the long, heavy robes which were practically the symbol of the wizard, and had never worn them himself back in his adventuring days, but as the headmaster of the mages’ college this year, he was obliged to look the part of the wizened old wizard, and so he wore the robes. And scowled whenever he had to cross puddy patches of ground.

He would not have to wear the robes for much longer, though, he thought, and a faint smile tugged at the corner of his scowl. The two expressions cancelled each other out, and his face was left with a mostly neutral, only mildly dissaproving look. The lovely spring day held the promise of summer, and rightly so, since by sundown, the last day of the semester at the college would be ended and done with, and another member of the college’s board of masters could take on the role... and clothes... of headmaster, leaving Master Rofan to resume his normal teaching duties. There was, regrettably, the one more day to go, or more accurately, a few tedious hours, which were to be taken up by the final projects of the graduating students... or rather, the potential graduates, their success or failure depending upon the approval of the elder mages, such as Rofan himself. As his robe caught on the outstretched branch of a bush and caught, Rofan reflected with perverse pleasure that the moment’s frustration would translate into another student failing to graduate this day.

An immense tent housed the final projects of the potential graduates. It had been the college’s tradition for over a century to have the students’ graduation depend upon the quality of their final projects, and the demonstrations had been held outside in the center of the main field, where any unfortunate explosions or accidents would be unlikely to damage any valuable property or equipment, for nearly as long. The students didn’t possess any particularly powerful magic after their mere four or so years of training, but there was always the odd chance that a promising young conjurer might accidentally summon a demon by harrumphing when he ought to gazoot or an overly talented alchemist devising a new form of blasting powder which would prove slightly more volatile than expected. Indeed, the graduation of each candidate depended on his ability to do something insightful, intelligent, creative, or impressive; as the masters, who tended to be retired adventurers of magically-enhanced lifespans themselves, were usually difficult to impress, students tended to attempt ever more flashy, technical, or at least pyrotechnic diplays each year.

The tent itself, suffice it to say, was fire-proof. It had to be.

Fifteen students comprised the pool of potential graduates in this year’s class, and all were assembled in the tent when Rofan arrived. His neutral grimace had once again devolved into his trademarked scowl, and the students all but stood to attention as he entered. Even the other masters, twenty in all present, showed some degree of respect at Rofan’s entrance, though in some cases this was standing to attention like a student and in other it was merely pausing for a moment in their consumption of the luncheon which had been set out by the servants. Gorick, the Enchantment master, hastily brushed some crumbs from his beard and strode to the headmaster’s side.

“The students are all assembled,’ Gorick said. The enchanter spoke quickly, sounding almost panicked for no reason Rofan could understand. “As are all the masters who have chosen to attend. We can begin at any time.”

Rofan nodded, and briefly considered having the students wait awhile, just to watch them sweat, but decided against it; this was his afternoon being used up as well, after all.

“Let us begin, then,” the headmaster replied with as much enthusiasm as if he was calling to order an eight-hour budget meeting. “Students,” he called, raising his voice to his best authority figure tone, “to your tables. Prepare to demonstrate your projects.”

You could always tell the ones likely to graduate, Rofan thought to himself. The ones who hadn’t finished their projects scrambled madly to their tables, and the ones who had taken the project too seriously and come up with something dreadfully dull or beyond their own abilities made equal haste to their stations. It was the ones who walked casually to their projects who tended to have done the best work; they knew they were ready. That, or they knew that if they came at their project too fast, they might set it off. Either way, they tended to make the best demonstrations.

The tables were each about fifteen feet away from each other, ample room for all the masters to crowd around a single table at a time. With Rofan at the fore, the professors would encircle one poor student and, for up to five minutes, the student would explain their project. Usually, only a few moments of this time was spent speaking, and the rest of the time was taken up by spellcasting, or the results thereof. The first few tables were uninteresting; one student’s project consisted entirely of a single summoned demonic aardvark (a failing grade) and another who had prepared an elaborate demonstration of a newly designed form of distillation apparatus (a passing grade, but a dull one). The third table was somewhat more intriguing, however, and Rofan entertained the hope that it might prove a moment’s distration.

The college was home to various species; most of the students were humans, but a respectable number of elves, dwarves, and other non-humans trained there. There was only a single reptillian humanoid in the school, however, and so the young Neyrr Jesond was easy to recognise. The green-skin was one of the college’s most promising students, and the board of masters had already discussed offering him a position teaching at the college following his graduation. Despite himself, Rofan was curious what Jesond had contrived for his final project.

A simple placard read, in fine script, “The Power of Fear.”

“The entire demosntration consist of a simple apparatus,” said Neyrr, without prompting or niceties. With professional precision, he pointed to each part of his display. “Two cages are connected by a metal tunnel. In one cage, a normal rat, and in the other, a large and hungry viper. The rat’s cage is equipped with a wand charged with a powerful fear spell. When the divider between the cages is lifted, the viper will attack the rat. The rat will feel fear of a predator and attempt to flee, but will be unable to escape the cage. At this point, the wand of fear will be triggered; the wand has been modified, at some expense, to magnify fear as opposed to merely cause it. The rat will be so overcome with terror that it will fight back irrationally against the viper.” He paused. “Or its heart will explode.”

With that, Neyrr lifted the divider in the metal tube. The viper slithered across. The rat scampered back. The wand glowed faintly. And, bathed in the glow, the rat leaped at the snake, nearly reaching it before being fatally bitten. Already having forgotten its prey’s unusual reaction, the snake began to feed.

“That’s it?” asked Rofan, puzzled. “It died anyway.”

Neyrr’s yellow eyes, normally bright, were practically glowing.

“Of course it died,” he said, sounding almost testy. “I was not enhancing its strength or durability. But I made it so afraid that it reacted in a manner utterly incompatible with fear itself. It leaped straight to its doom, and met death head on.

“Usually," Neyrr continued, "only sentient animals are capable of stupidity that vast. And fear is at the heart of it.”

The masters were all silent for a moment. Seemingly almost reluctantly, Rofan said, “well done.” And with that, the masters turned and walked to the next table.

By sunset, the masters had observed all of the final projects. Just over half of the students had earned graduation, a fairly average percentage. Neyrr, by near unanimous consent of the masters, had been among them. That night, taking off the headmaster’s robes for the last time, Rofan thought back on the project, and the pouncing rat. It wasn’t a unique result... any number of spells could have caused the same effect, and any number of animals in nature would attack rather than flee without the mixed blessing of magical enhancement. No, it was the interpretation which had impressed the professors... the logical progression which suggested that succumbing to fear was due to not fearing enough, rather than fearing too much. Make something scared and it will cower, was Neyrr’s postulation, but make it scared beyond reason, and it will fight as though it wasn’t afraid at all. Rofan doubted it was true... in his adventuring days, he had seen what too much fear did to people, and it rarely taught them strength... but it was, for a student, an impressive attempt at hypothesis formation and testing.

Still, Rofan had decided he would prefer that Neyrr not accept the position at the college which he and the other graduates would be offered. Rofan had decided he did not wish to know what experiments Neyrr Jesond would pursue to refine his hypotheses in the future.