2nd Jan

 Things, it would seem, are never plain sailing.

Caught up with my friend who I am gonna be doing games with yesterday. Finally. He had had a pretty crappy Christmas, disappointments in those close to him, which, whilst he presents an unflappable character have whether he fully realises it or not, laid him pretty low. Possibly. Very *very* low.

This is entirely uncharacteristic for him, and he has become to not put too fine a point on it, evasive, withdrawn, and subdued.

In any one else I would give you high odds of something of a crisis going on.

But he doesn't do crises.

Or perhaps hasn't done them so far in the more than 35 years I've known him.

The timing couldn't be worse, just as we are about to kick things in motion for something truly different, my friend is having a serious moment which unless I'm well off my mark is something of an existential crisis, rudderless, figuring out life, lack of self esteem, if not a dose of late blooming proper depression.

I have talked to him a little more today. But. Difficult. You hit a wall of "I'm OK". Followed by. Going to be offline for sometime, need to figure out life. Which is very much not "I'm OK".

My worry radar has kicked off to one of its highest alarm ratings. But. There's not much I can do about this other than offer help and wait.

So.

What does this mean for the future ?

Well. On the surface and given his repeated reassurances, nothing changes. In practice however things got just a whole lot more... changeable. In a simplistic world I would at this point tell him to cancel everything, go consider what he wants to do, be happy etc, to ensure *I* am not exploiting him or adding to his existential crisis or whatever. People confronting such demons, in my experience, need quiet and space and time and support. They do not need to be running up new companies and roles and shit. Far from it. There needs to be some healing time.

However. This is far from being a simple one size fits all approach. Pushing for such a thing and forcing him to stop and breathe could actually be worse for his sense of worth, purpose, whatever stew of things is adding up there.

Another concern is that his reassurances that everything is still in place smack heavily of the typical self destruction misery demons little "sure I maybe on fire, but I will still hold my thumb up". Been there, done that, got many many fucking T Shirts for it. And in practice. It's not reliable. At all. It's more like masochism.

Cut all the waffle. Simple bottom line.

On the cusp of kicking off something cool, exciting and new, the response from those involved should probably be of excitement and positivity and yada. Entering into it with an existential crisis and withdrawal... at the very least bodes ill. Regardless of whether it's related or not, the seismic wobble is a concern. What's one of the rules of thumb for mental crises ? Do NOT make decisions or enter into things whilst you are in that state of mind. Your judgement sucks. Your thinking is wacky. Stop. Breathe. Make no choices other than those immediately in front of your nose.

Let's make no mistake here. My major concern here is that my friend is OK. I have my scout badges in suffering. I go out of my way to help those suffering. And he has just tripped all the suffering safeties and the red light has come on. Fairly suddenly. Fairly unexpectedly. But on looking at it, not exactly unsuprisingly. Everything else is secondary to helping him be ok. How do I help him get a sense of... purpose, fun, whatever back. Of course, yeah, my own nutcasery should be checked, it's not my place to go ride around fixing everyone. But. Fuck that. I help where I can. So yeah.

All that being said, the disruption and risk to my life is pretty damn high given possible random inputs and cannot be ignored. Worst case scenario being I quit, start getting into it, only for my friend to pull out, and leave me on my own.

This is not about second guessing my decisions. But it certainly does change the equation. Levels of risk. How long I can afford to go. Long term impact. etc. Change the variables of a situation and of course you need to reassess, consider plans and what direction is now most sensible.

The variables of the situation have indeed changed.

So, you have to think of the scenarios.

Lets say my friend is good to his word, his crisis either resolves peaceably, or he simply shrugs it off much like he's done everything else in the past - in which case, no strategic impacts are felt, and everything continues on. Tactically, the impacts are already being felt regardless. Here I am discussing it for starters. And. Down the road. I think it will colour decisions to a larger extent.

On the other hand.

Lets say my friend has an existential meltdown, moves to the Shetlands, becomes a hermit.

My options are :

1) Tear up all my plans for doing games, deal with and suppress all my feelings about current work failings et al, and continue on grinding away at my current role. With possibly a deal less care about it.

2) Go find a job elsewhere which could very well be similar shit different song as to 1). Plus. I am really not sure I could do this - I cannot be doing with the bullshit of office fuckery.

3) Scale back my current work schedule dramatically down to a skeleton set of hours that would allow me to either tread water financially or slow burn out - slow enough that I can sustain that for a very long time, if not indefinitely.

4) Believe in myself, go ahead with the plan regardless of support, and see if I can fly.

The risks go from low to high respectively. The payoffs go from high to low respectively.

On paper, at least.

But life is not on paper. It's a lot more fucky than that. And my thinking and timing for just quitting and doing games is still *very strong* high risk or not. And I suspect, one way or another, in the long run, I'd be ok anyway.

So. I'm sticking with 4. Regardless of what happens with my friend.

But I am reserving an option to do 3) should I really feel the need for it. 3) isn't a bad option by any means. In fact it's probably the most sensible. 1) I feel, is probably out of the question. Unless I do a mind wipe and end up giving up on caring what the fuck my output is. Just punch in. Punch out. Grind it. 1) is not going to happen. 4) needs to happen. I need to see where all the dominoes fall from this.

It's just a pity that everything has become a good deal more stressy, anxiety inducing and uncertain. And the cherry on the cake is my friend is now adrift with the dark fairies, and I can't do a lot to help him. I don't blame my friend for this. Shit happens. And such crisis - whether you label them as mental health wobbles or just existential crises - don't happen on a neat schedule. They are unruly, do not give a fuck about any sensibilities or timescales and will do as they please. And to be honest. My friend is longgggg overdue such a wobble given the hurdles he has faced. Nevertheless, the follow on impact to me is dramatic and consequential.

All in all. A kind of shitty start to 2022.

Eh well.

Trial by fire and all that.

Since when has my path ever been easy.

In a perfect world I could really do with an easy(ier) ride for once. Ho hum.

Fuck it. Do the thing. Semper Victor.