From: [g c gst 1] at [pitt.edu] (Geoffrey C Grabowski)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
Subject: Re: How I was hassled for gaming
Date: 26 Mar 1995 20:50:06 GMT

Jeff Kesselman <[jeff p k] at [netcom.com]> wrote:
>>I think maybe the question should 
>> have been, 'does anyone out there find mundane women as pathetic as I do'?
>I find people who use the term "mundane" pathetic.

[good criticism of SCA / gameheads del'ed]

>Typicly in my experience "mundane" is a term used by these people in a
>derrogatory attempt to somehow suggest tha they are superior for NOT
>living in the real world.  A real over-compsenated inferiority thing.

I actually started using that term ('mundane') long before I 
found out it was in common usage in the SCA circle. When I said mundane, 
I meant, rather simply, that large portion of the world that lives a very 
Prufrockian existance. I probably shouldn't have posed the question, on 
reflection, since it was self-answering, or at least begged itself.

I didn't mean 'mundane' as in, people who do not live in a
fantasy world, so much as 'people who never escape entirely the bounds of
the mundane world'. And, yes, I find myself feeling a great deal superior
to people who have never stood in the breach at the Fallen City, or ridden
Blagdaross to fight the paynim, or looked out over a valley in the morning
and seen the fog lying there and been untouched. How could I not? The
stereotypical 'hard-headed realism' is at least as bad, possibly worse,
than retreating into fantasy entirely. At least people involved
completely in fantasy usually aren't obnoxious, in that they have that
sort of driving, materialistic edge to them. They have their own forms of
obnoxiousness, usually more annoying (I'm a vampire and the reincarnation
of Lord Byron vs. I want a big house, not fantasies) but less intrusive
(they won't try to rezone your neighborhood to keep the poor folks away).

While I find completely mundane people pathetic, I also find ones 
living completely in their fantasies to be so also, they just annoy me 
less. I just found long ago that people who live entirely *here* were 
disturbingly common outside of the 'fringe' circles, and wondered if 
anyone else shared my opinions, or had problems interacting with those 
folk on an even keel (I so often want to shake them and say 'wake up, 
enjoy!')

	G.
-- 
--Geoffrey C. Grabowski|[g c gst 1] at [pitt.edu]|Undergrad, U.Pittsburgh|Swing Heil! 
--[O]            "Specialization is for insects" - Heinlein
--[O]        "b) Four words: pez, whips, Uma Thurman" - Nameless
--[O]   "It don't mean a thing if you ain't got that swing" - Swing Kids