Matter

Flight of the Ideator: The Offseason

As you may or may not have gathered, I’m an NFL football fan and I enjoy making analogies to my favourite sport whenever possible. There I was on January 12th, 2017… after nearly five years of fulltime employment, sacked from my blindside and out of the game. Flushed into the offseason and a rebuilding process. Of course, that wasn’t clear right away.

It’s been just under a year since things took a turn for the better: social media have been reminding me of anniversaries of the milestones on my flight. So, in the next few installments of this series, I want to share some of the insights I was having as I adjusted to unemployment. Flight of the Ideator: The Offseason (cont.)

25 Random Facts… 9 Years Later

So, with the occasional exception, I enjoy Facebook telling me what happened On this Day and the invitation to re-visit posts of the past. Lately, I was seeing references to a Facebook note “challenge” of sorts that was making the rounds NINE YEARS AGO. *Marty crawls into a hole and dies* “25 Random Facts” did what it said on the tin and you were supposed to tag 25 people in it and keep the ball rolling. Today is the anniversary of when I posted mine. Here’s what I shared then and my thoughts on that sharing now.

Join me as I judge my past self, won’t you?

25 Random Facts… 9 Years Later (cont.)

Flight of the Ideator: No Goodbyes

I’ve now worked for two companies that lease several floors in an office tower. Some employees use the building’s elevator to move between floors. I get the impression it’s not unusual to also have a fancy internal staircase, which fits the company’s interior decoration scheme and might be used by staff and accompanied visitors/clients alike. My favourite means of getting around a multi-floor office is via a fire escape stairwell. They’re quiet, almost always empty, and using them gives me the feeling of being a Downton Abbey-esque servant, making the operation run but being invisible (in a good, efficient cog-in-the-machine way – not in a self-devaluing feeling-underappreciated way). Flight of the Ideator: No Goodbyes (cont.)

When Gaming Is Off The Table: Personal Play

It seems fitting to interrupt the intensity of my Flight of the Ideator series with a post about worldbuilding, personal play, and the like. The kinds of things that were partially responsible for my sanity through my months of unemployment. And it’s been over a year since my last Dungeons & Dragons post here, so I’d say this is overdue.

Not unlike Colonel John “Hannibal” Smith, I love it when a plan comes together. That feeling when the stars align. When the hours in which friends don’t have work shifts or commitments interlock like Tetris blocks and thoughts of rescheduling blink out of existence. “FINALLY, we can play some D&D.” It wasn’t until I assumed the mantle of Dungeon Master, though, that I began to appreciate time spent thinking about D&D and that particular activity – play – in a more nuanced way. When Gaming Is Off The Table: Personal Play (cont.)

Flight of the Ideator: Calling For Change

It was just after four on a grey Wednesday in January. I was sitting at my desk, filling the last hours of my day with doing those little niggling tasks that remind you it’s a job. Not a dream, not a calling, not a passion. Not a career. And then my phone rang.

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about that day. And I’ve spent a lot of time thinking since that day. I’ve looked at it through each of the lenses of the stages of grief. As I write my way through this Flight of the Ideator series, I may not be able to do all of them justice because I’ve come out the other side, but I’m grateful for your continued curiosity. Flight of the Ideator: Calling For Change (cont.)