A
ll I can think about is Blackletter, which is the potential name of the miniature game I'm designing. I have something of an obsessive personality, and a very actively-churning mind, and it has officially been engaged by something extremely pleasing. I'm extremely happy with how the game is progressing -- it's accomplishing virtually all the goals that I set out for it at the outset, and those targets that remain feel within reach. I keep running over the results of the matches I've played, keep calculating the statistics of various numbers I could set, keep imagining ways to stylize the pdf, or improve the flow. Even just re-thinking thoughts that I have already thought is downright enjoyable.
Being a pretty interally-oriented person, this kind of enjoyment comes around every so often, where all I want to do is think about the Thing, whatever that thing is. And it leads me to wonder -- what is it that I'm enjoying? Why do I get such a kick over particular kinds of thoughts? I admit, that at times it even feels a little perverse; not in the sense that what I'm thinking about is by any means bad, but that I shouldn't be getting so much pleasure out of such vain things. We all have the things that we want, and then we have the things that we want to want. The same goes for my mental habits.
I have a suspicion that many of the great saints have had a similar internal disposition, but that their enjoyment is turned toward the God of all creation, the God of mercy. I suspect that they just want to be thinking about the Lord -- they want to be talking about Him, advancing their understanding of Him, in the same way that I want to be thinking vainly about games. Generally, masters of any art are probably infused with this attitude, of the inner life caught almost in a whirl of desire for contemplation. And I wonder -- what would it take to undergo a great re-orientation? What would I have to do to desire the spiritual life in the same way that I meditate on my personal fetishes? This, I think, is food for thought, and for prayer.