Hello!

My ancestors baked things! And then eventually I was born in 1983, just in time to witness the rise of the digital age. It was a fascinating time for people of my generation! For me, it was the start of an obvious obsession with video games. Their push and pull were particularly effective in shaping my peculiar path.

It began with Lode Runner and Ballblazer on Atari XE... Then came The Legend of Zelda and Super Mario Bros. on NES... Sega brought Sonic the Hedgehog and NBA Jam! And from there it was onward to the glorious PlayStation and its 3-demensional 32-bits!

Alien Trilogy and Resident Evil and the brilliant Bushido Blade! Just three of the very finest titles by which my mind was made. Oh, no...

Have I begun a rhyme?

One to drive this home to you?

Ah, frack it! Why not?

Twisted Metal and Twisted Metal 2!

More metal twisting, perhaps?

Amid rounds of Need for Speed?

Yes! More twisting of metal!

More metal twisting, indeed!

Twisted Metal III, of course!

And then Twisted Metal 4!

I twisted all the metals!

And then I twisted them some more!

And marked maturity meddled not with my mettle, as my meeting Metal Gear Solid merited me my Medal of Honor! Okay, fine! I'll dial it back down to a more mundane prose...

The simple point is that I obsessed over a lot of video games. But more importantly, these games were honing certain skills, traits, and desires. That said, of all the games I played in those days, the most addictive and the most influential was a trio of epic RPGs...

Final Fantasy VII, VIII, and IX... Oh my!

Because of those particular games, I began drawing maps of worlds of my own creation. And each came with a story, and with magics, heroes, and foes. Those were the teenage years, when a fictionist's future formed. By the end of high school, I had envisioned a career in video game design, a goal which I thought to attain via a B.S. in Computer Science.

However, early in college, a certain Peter Jackson trilogy turned me on to Tolkien's tales, and then over the years, my love for games was supplanted by a love for books. The many works of H.G. Wells ensnared me next, as did The Count of Monte Cristo by Dumas and Don Quixote by Cervantes. And then, of course, there was Rowling's entire Harry Potter series. But still it would be those tales of Arda and of Middle Earth that had rocked my world the most.

In 2008, graduate school saw me seeking a Ph.D. in Psychology, but it also saw me outlining my first science-fantasy series. As I plodded my way toward the doctorate, I took the plunge into Jordan's The Wheel of Time, a masterpiece which led me to Sanderson's Elantris, Warbreaker, and Mistborn, and all the while I was studying those authors' techniques and styles. However, it would be the quirkiness of Richard Adams's Watership Down that became my favored model!

Somehow, I finished grad school in 2019, and not by coincidence, in the process of taking twice as long as intended, I had also developed depression and generalized anxiety disorder. And so rather than forcing myself to bear all the stress and uncertainty of long-term career moves, I took a familiar job in I.T. support there at the same university. My goal was to let myself heal, and to further develop the science-fantasy story that had been incubating in my brain for over a decade.

The plan had been working! But when COVID came and filled the whole world with misery, my mental health was certainly knocked back off balance. Enough was enough! I went to the bookshelves, and I took out my Watership Down, along with all my Tolkien and all my Wells!

During those lonely months of waiting for the storm to pass, I reread all my old favorites to help me hammer out a first draft. Kind words and writing goals kept my fragile mind occupied, and with the help of my mother's proofreading, I had written the rough draft of over one hundred thousand words by mid-winter of 2021. But a year of dismay had taken its toll...

Though I had completed the draft, I had suddenly lost my ability to write. My only desire was to find a way into the arms of my Thilani, the Sri Lankan who had acquired my heart from afar. Several more months passed before the world would allow it, but in early October of that year, we embraced for the very first time!

And so, my mind began to mend a bit. That winter, we each moved away from our homes. Her road led to a teaching position within a severely underfunded secondary school, while my road led to an I.T. job within a prestigious yet severely understaffed law school. 

Within three months, Sri Lanka's tourism-dependent economy began a rapid collapse into sovereign default. And despite all the poor countries still struggling to survive the economic shock of the pandemic, Vladimir Putin, because reasons, decided to invade Ukraine, triggering another economic shock and stoking the flames of global food and inflation crises. Yay!

Sri Lanka lost its ability to import fuel, or anything really. Though we had no issues with our visa petition document mailings months earlier, now even simple letters were being bounced back. If ever you want your mental health kicked while it is still down, then try watching helplessly from abroad, as any number of your loved ones become afflicted by an ever worsening food scarcity with no end in sight. Meanwhile, at your university I.T. support job, enjoy tolerating woe begotten adults, as they quite regularly lose their tempers over fleeting frustrations.

That summer, inflation peaked at near 9% in the U.S., whereas it continued rising to over 60% in Sri Lanka, and though I had the privilege to move myself back home and into another university job, Thilani was trapped on an impoverished island. Over the next few months, I inevitably lost my ability to tolerate the conditions that had become all too common when working I.T. support in higher education settings. Fortunately, I was offered refuge within a public elementary/middle school, where compassionate minds continue to strengthen me in my ongoing battle against turmoil.

If ever you need better control over your mental health, perhaps you need to find a better day-to-day environment, one with appropriate scaffolding in place. Perhaps you too will then resume your long-neglected project, bringing it ever closer to completion. And perhaps you too will provide potential supporters with relevant website links at the end of a brief and annoying autobiography...

Enjoy!

- James D. Baker