You're Not Your Crap

My life hasn't been characterized by failure, but boy is it easy for me to go there.

When your base assumption of Who You Are is like mine, very simple aspects of life become incredibly difficult.  For example, my tendency was to assume I was a generally crappy person--so as mentioned in previous entries, any success feels like a fluke and any failure seems like it's perfectly in keeping with my character.  This mode of thinking forced me to work really hard in order to maintain a sense of treading water.  If I did well in school, relationships, etc...it was only a smokescreen to hide my true nature.  That was the thought, at least.

But seriously?  Seriously?  That form of fear-based living has done NOTHING to truly serve me.  If anything, it gave me a strong sense of forboding.  It made me feel like a spy that managed to sneak into a high-society party.  My personality felt like a front to hide the fact that I'm actually here to do ill.  I could navigate social circles, sure, but my true intention was to collect intel and quietly poison the guest of honor.  'Cuz that's what I do.  I eff stuff up.  I felt like a disaster waiting to happen.  Sure I wore a tailored suit and spoke in suave circles, but my real comfort lay in confusion and negativity.

When I say 'comfort' I don't necessarily mean the crappy times have been great, but I know how to act during crappy times.  Crappy times are awesome!  You get to complain to people about how awful and difficult your life is!  Nobody respects a pity party, but you'll definitely get an attendance.  On top of that, people are proud of you when you get through it, and you get the ego victory of having overcome circumstances that were completely against you.

This was a pattern of mine.  A pattern I didn't realize existed because I took it to be the reality.  Of course I suck!  Look at my high school grades!  Look at my failed relationships!  Look at how flaky I am!  That's got to mean something!

However, we aren't our crap.  We aren't our failures.  Characterizing ourselves by what we haven't done only leads us to do even less.  Doing that is switching the difficulty to easy mode and ducking out of life.  When it comes down to it, our lives are infinitely more complex and objective than that.  On top of this, we're all allowed to internalize our successes and be happy about them.  This is NEW to me.  For serious.

Failures are a necessary step toward success, so why shackle yourself with your near-victories?  Who looks at a bowl of batter and laments the fact that it isn't a cake?  Not anyone I'd like to hang out with, that's for certain.

And now, to conclude--

BULLET POINTS!!

•  Started rehearsals for Romeo and Juliet.  Thus far, I take a serious beat-down, drunkenly check out HOT CAPULET CHICKZZ at the ball, and laugh insanely at Mercutio's antics (the actor playing him, by the way, is AMAZING.)
• The Earthbound post got a bigger response than I expected!  Awesome!  I'd like to do some more in-depth analyses of games.  Would you be down with that?  Currently topics on the docket: Where Final Fantasy went wrong and what Squeenix can do to save the series, Wild Arms 2's awful translation and how it crippled the narrative--coupled with how a solid localization can make a good game a GREAT game, the Meta-teachings of games (i.e. finding exploits, grinding in RPGs, 'breaking' games, and how the games themselves encourage us to do this), What theater has taught me about creating a good character and how games can take some lessons from one of the oldest artforms in history.
• The Extra Special Lady Friend and I are doing fabulous.  I spend most of my time with her wondering if someone this awesome actually exists, or if she's just a mental construct I've created.  The former is nicer, but the latter makes a better M Night Shyamalan movie.
• ZOMG I need to take more pictures.  This post feels lacking.

That'll do it for now, folks!  You're all awesome!  Live happy, and I'll do the same!

Love love love,
Dak