Its what ya do with what ya got right?

“When you can do more with less- you can do less and get more” – Bashar

I painted that bunny a couple of years ago at a crucial time in my life – I painted it because I wanted to create something positive (to get that positive energy flowing)- and while I had very little to work with – I had enough art supplies to share this little gift.

The universe set up the circumstances so that the tiny bunny went to the right person at the right time and I got to show who I really was inside – by my actions rather than by my words (that ultimately delivered me from a near tragic fate).

I won’t go into the details but I could have physically died it was so serious. Somehow the circumstances righted themselves and I have never been happier – this was a lesson that needed to be taught, a challenge or something karma-esque etc, I don’t know, but I do know I’m much better off in so many ways for having ran that gauntlet.

Perhaps it is why people climb mountains, not to accomplish the goal of planting a flag on the highest peak so much – but to break through that paralyzing point of utter ‘I’m fucked’-ness by simply surviving something that could have killed you without shitting your pants and giving up.

If you can have faith (in something), perhaps do some good for others or at least keep your sense of humor when circumstances force you to your lowest point – then you are doing life right!

Read “Imperial Ham” on Hollye B Green’s blog Words of a Dandelion.

Finding what you are made of and capable of and being the master of emotions that you often don’t have the luxury of indulging in are what make those dire circumstances worthwhile and precious – I would go so far as to say that they are set up – not random chance, not some pointless punishment from a vengeful god but circumstances you bring upon yourself to temper your soul – to make you stronger, to make you appreciate the amazing gift of this human experience – to min/max your character to top the charts and beat that difficult raid boss etc etc.

I also feel that these challenges that force you to look into the abyss will continue to appear until you have done so and survived!

Life isn’t random – life is an adventure!

Rise to the occasion hero!

your friend,
Daz!

The following is related to the theme of this post and important to me but since it is mostly about World of Warcraft you may not get it!

I don’t have a lot of stuff, my abyss lessons (and the general state the economy in 2017 for normal working people) have taken that baggage away but I do have use of my lovely girlfriend Hollye’s elderly PC and while I would love to play retail World of Warcraft again, as I did before on this PC a year or so ago, the new raised system requirements prevent me from doing so – the frame rate is so low I can’t move my characters around, the screen blacks out and freezes due to the graphical demands that this set up cannot handle etc etc – I’m not bitching about it because it’s just a neutral circumstance and I choose to interpret it a positive thing (as Bashar suggested to do) so that I get the effect of a positive outcome (and I have)!

First of all – private servers, the lower system requirements of the older versions of WOW allow someone like me, willing to pay for a 15$ monthly subscription and who even purchased the current expansion but couldn’t play it due to inadequate hardware – still gets to play WOW and even experience fun content that is new to me! (yes, if Classic WOW works on this PC I’d pay for a sub rather than being on a private server for free- I can afford that – just not a gaming PC at this time).

I’m not complaining, just dealing with it and having fun along the way – which is exactly why the following story written by a_hundred_highways is so very sweet to me – quite frankly it is by far the best thing I have ever read on Reddit -ever! The link to the post is here https://www.reddit.com/r/classicwow/comments/7eb1oh/waiting_for_narg_a_tale_of_fargodeep_mine/

I also want to copy it here to keep it safe in my blog for posterity as it is everything that is right with our human experience and well written to boot.

Waiting for Narg: A Tale of Fargodeep Mine

by a_hundred_highways

“When I started playing WoW, I think I was about 9. I came to WoW from runescape.

I played runescape more or less fine on my dad’s 2001ish integrated-graphics toshiba laptop, but WoW was a different story. The game ran as a small, maybe 6 inch by 4 inch box in the center of the screen, with about 3 inches of black on all sides. I didn’t think that was weird at the time, because hey, runescape runs in a little box too.

I had a friend who was alliance, so I rolled a human paladin. Playing was pretty laggy, but not impossible, especially on a paladin because I could just cast heal if I fell below half health and it would cast eventually. I remember seeing some people talking about fps in chat and I asked how I could see mine. It was 1.4. If I was standing still or inside a building, it would go up to 8 or even 10, but if I was outdoors and moving, 1.5 fps was about standard.

I made it to Goldshire eventually, after having the fight of my life with a level 7 wolf I pulled on the road at level 4. I still remember healing myself, getting in a few whacks, and healing again until I ran out of mana. I used my one health potion and finally chipped him down. I picked up mining and blacksmithing in Goldshire because that’s what I mostly did in runescape. I had a quest to explore the Fargodeep Mine, and I wanted to get some ore, so I flipbooked my way down there.

I probably died a couple times to the kobold swarm pulls trying to get inside, but eventually I made it in (or ran in after someone else had cleared a path). Once I got a little ways into the mine, my fps jumped up to 15! And there was so much ore! I mined until my backpack was full, then made my way out and flipbooked back to Goldshire.

I turned in the first “Explore Fargodeep” quest and picked up whatever kill 10 kobold whatevers quest came after it. But before heading back, I forged myself some shiny new copper equipment. I could see that in a couple more blacksmithing levels I’d be able to make a green piece or two, so I was pumped to head back down into the mine.

It was incredible in there… the game was butter smooth. I could heal and buff other players and save them from certain murder by kobold swarm, which I liked doing since I was a paladin, after all. I figured out that I could use my 10 yard range stun to pull one kobold at a time. By level 9 or 10, the kobolds weren’t much of a threat, and I could pull several at a time and whack them all down with my copper mace.

I finished all the mine’s quests, and leveled my mining and smithing as far as I could with copper ore. I had quests to move further into Elwynn forest, but venturing out there was difficult. Making the journey between Fargodeep and Elwynn at 1.5 fps was doable, but it wasn’t pleasant. Trying to do quests in the open world gave me headaches. I could go to my friend’s house and play on his computer once a week, and I lived for that hour or so. I made it to the gnoll camps and killed Hogger easily around level 12 or 13. But then, back at my house, I had make the long slog back to my home in goldshire.

Once, at his house, I logged off in Ironforge. I couldn’t even log back in on my computer – it would just crash every time. I had to call him and tell him my login so he could have my character hearthstone.

I decided that the mines were all I needed. I was still getting experience at level 13 from the level 8 and 9 kobolds, and I was still making plenty of money from vendoring my copper products. I made enough money to buy four bags from the Goldshire vendor so I could stay in the mine longer before going back. At level 14, it got a bit tougher, because I could only get experience from the less common level 9 kobolds. At level 15, I couldn’t get anything from them either.

But I wasn’t done – there was still Narg the Taskmaster. He was a rare spawn in the very back of the mine, and he was level 10. I could still get experience from him. The wiki says his respawn timer was 1-2.5 hours. I only got to play 2 hours at most per day, maybe more on weekends, so I must have killed him at most twice per day, if no one else got to him first. I went from level 15 to level 16 entirely by killing Narg the Taskmaster. It must have taken weeks if not months now that I think about it. I spent the rest of the time helping lower levels with heals, buffs, and free copper gear, killing gray kobolds, and mining more copper.

I must have killed each kobold hundreds if not thousands of times. I wonder if anyone ever leveled multiples alts through there and saw me there, every day, in my blacksmithed copper gear, killing gray kobolds, waiting for Narg.”