I think that's the essence of what I've been trying to do lately. Ever since I read the post at Aught Empire about revisionist personal history, I've been actively toying with the different ways I conceptualize my own life.

In this case I'm not talking about "role-playing games" in the phony sense or the dirty sense, but rather as a novel, incredibly geeky framing device for everyday living.

My friend Manney once suggested that what this world needs is more quests, but that's really down to the all-knowing, all-seeing Gamemaster in the Sky. As a second-best option, I've attempted to change my perspective: let's pretend that I'm not just living life, I'm controlling an unusually handsome and witty avatar. As always, we'll call him Our Bold Hero.

When playing this life in addition to living it, my goals are typical of any RPG-er: have fun, work on your character sheet, and seek out interesting encounters and events instead of merely walking from town to town.

So I'll be watching some rerun and think, "wait, this isn't fun; I wouldn't spend my time playing a game like this."

So while longstanding initiatives like Operation Northwoods Skillz fit nicely within this framework, I've also been reading up on topics of interest to me in order to get some much-needed XP.

So I've been collecting some useful inventory items, most often at the farmer's market.

So while I'll always be an introvert, the very best sort of vert there is to be, I recognize that a night out with the party is probably more memorable and interesting than many of the alternatives.

And so forth. This perspective is fun in-and-of itself, and since (like the revisionist personal history) I can abandon it whenever and for however long I want to, I don't see any problems not related to the system's inescapable geekiness.