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otherkinI originally wrote this for my personal blog, but I felt there might also be some benefit in cross posting this.
I hate to draw from role playing terms to describe real world phenomenon, largely because it can distract the issue and overall confuse matters. However the RP game changeling has a fascinating concept that I see rarely talked about that I have experienced and feel has at least some relation to the real thing. They call it banality.
Now banality as White Wolf describes it is effectively the antithesis of dreaming and creativity. In the game as a result of exposure to banality the character can receive damage and ill effects. With sufficiently high levels of banality it can even destroy the characters soul.
Now as with many things from White Wolf they are dramatized extremes, but there is something relatively similar. Unfortunately I don't have an effective word for it except mundaneness and that doesn't really convey the feeling very well. This similar experience can somewhat be summarized as the experience of being in such a different culture from your own that the dissonance it forms becomes destructive mentally, spiritually, or even physically(in the form of stress response) to the person.
More specifically than this is that I often experience this sensation while at work(I work in a very corporate/mundane environment). I find that it does seem to be correlative to some degree on how spiritually attuned or invested the people I am around are. As cliche as it is the more artistic/creative stuff going on in general the less I experience this as well. I also have found that it seems to have a broad impact on me and makes it more difficult to analyze.
Quite frankly though it seems quite difficult to escape banality or even to appropriately address it to recover appropriately. About the best thing I've managed in dealing with it is trying to keep the space I live in away from work as creative and sustaining as I can, but this is only effective in a limited capacity. More it just softens the blow a little.
Has anyone else experienced something along these lines? How would you describe your experiences with it? Finally if you do experience this, how do you address these issues in your life?
-Lexie
I hate to draw from role playing terms to describe real world phenomenon, largely because it can distract the issue and overall confuse matters. However the RP game changeling has a fascinating concept that I see rarely talked about that I have experienced and feel has at least some relation to the real thing. They call it banality.
Now banality as White Wolf describes it is effectively the antithesis of dreaming and creativity. In the game as a result of exposure to banality the character can receive damage and ill effects. With sufficiently high levels of banality it can even destroy the characters soul.
Now as with many things from White Wolf they are dramatized extremes, but there is something relatively similar. Unfortunately I don't have an effective word for it except mundaneness and that doesn't really convey the feeling very well. This similar experience can somewhat be summarized as the experience of being in such a different culture from your own that the dissonance it forms becomes destructive mentally, spiritually, or even physically(in the form of stress response) to the person.
More specifically than this is that I often experience this sensation while at work(I work in a very corporate/mundane environment). I find that it does seem to be correlative to some degree on how spiritually attuned or invested the people I am around are. As cliche as it is the more artistic/creative stuff going on in general the less I experience this as well. I also have found that it seems to have a broad impact on me and makes it more difficult to analyze.
Quite frankly though it seems quite difficult to escape banality or even to appropriately address it to recover appropriately. About the best thing I've managed in dealing with it is trying to keep the space I live in away from work as creative and sustaining as I can, but this is only effective in a limited capacity. More it just softens the blow a little.
Has anyone else experienced something along these lines? How would you describe your experiences with it? Finally if you do experience this, how do you address these issues in your life?
-Lexie