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Going to GenCon (Part 1: Overview and Travel)

I went to GenCon for the first time this year, and it was an absolute blast. It was an amazing three days for me (I wasn’t able to stay for the convention on Sunday for a variety of reasons), and my only regret is that I wasn’t able to stay longer.

For my readers who don’t usually read my gaming content, I’ll start with a brief explanation.

GenCon is a yearly convention specifically targeted at tabletop gaming; it has a strong focus on Dungeons and Dragons and similar games, though pretty much anything that isn’t played on a PC or console (and a handful of things that are) features prominently.

It’s also sort of a general nerd culture convention, owing to the target demographic as much as anything else. People dress up in costumes as their favorite characters, hang out and play games until the wee hours of the morning, and generally get together to commiserate and follow trends.

As a game designer, I was there as an exhibitor for Degenesis, a game with some upcoming products that I’ve worked on. What that meant was that I stood in a booth from 10-6 (with a couple breaks; there were four of us and we only really needed two people), trying to sell games to people.

It was a great experience, barring the fact that I almost lost my voice a couple times. GenCon takes place in Indianapolis, where apparently everything opens late and closes early (including the CVS by the hotel I was staying at), though other than that it was a fantastic place to be.

It’s the first time I’ve gone to a convention as an industry insider, and it was great. I got to meet people (I’ll talk about this more when I get to it), and it went really well. I also got a couple leads on potential work, which will have to wait until I’ve done the work I’m currently working on, but means that going there and hanging out with people will definitely pay off for me in the long run if I can turn the time I spent at GenCon into the connections that mean more work and a higher profile in the future.

It was also my only recent time traveling by airline other than Southwest Airlines. As someone living in the Southwestern United States, I’ve been spoiled by the fact that our local airline has consistently positive experiences in my book, with low fees and painless customer service.

I flew out to Indianapolis on American Airlines. They’d overbooked the flight (fun) but fortunately enough people took vouchers so that I didn’t get bumped off my flight. If there’s one lesson to take from it, my impression is that American Airlines will treat you like a peasant if you don’t give them money, and the upgrades you need to get treated how a paying customer should be treated are not cheap.

I flew back on Delta Airlines. Other than the fact that my flight from Indianapolis to Phoenix had a connection in Detroit, I have no complaints with them. I was on a similarly basic ticket, but they were a lot friendlier and more on the ball. Admittedly, some of this might be the Phoenix ground-crew versus the Indianapolis and Detroit ground-crews; I’ve heard those are actually airport rather than airline employees though I haven’t looked it up to verify it so take that with a grain of salt. In any case, Delta felt more on the ball on both flights (with much friendlier attendants) and the only sign I was traveling super-cheap was how long I waited to board the plane (which I was able to do without incident, since neither leg of the flight was over-booked).

I was staying at a Hilton hotel a couple blocks from the convention center. It was nice. I don’t have a lot of criteria for hotels; it was clean, the room was stocked with towels, prices were exorbitant for almost everything at the hotel (there was actually a pizza room service deal that may have been less than atrocious, though there were definitely better dining options around). It had that peculiar hotel feel of stepping off the elevator and immediately stepping into a labyrinth of beige.

Reflections on Aphorisms #85

Today was kind of a weird day because I got a lot done, but not by my usual metrics.

Tomorrow I really need to get into shape on working on those, because they do tend to reflect how I’m making money currently.

Aphorism 123

We are never so happy or so unhappy as we suppose. (Maxim 49)

François de La Rochefoucauld

Interpretation

There’s a long way down, and there’s a long way up.

I like the notion that there’s a metaphysical heaven and hell that reside below the depths and above the peaks of what the world can hold. Because there is the sacred, we cannot know true hell, and because there is the profane we cannot know true heaven.

The one way to alter this would be if one or the other were to vanish from the world, and neither seems like a likely outcome.

At the same time, we are limited by our history and our context in how we perceive the world around us.

I think that this comes up a lot in modern politics; we see the world around us and think that it’s really awful, but the whole situation is really not all that worse than what people have been used to a long time. In fact, we live in a blessed golden age compared to not just some but probably any of our predecessors.

There are examples I could give here that would be more politically charged than they need to be to make my point, so I’ll focus on the idea of nuclear war bringing an end to humanity.

First, the estimates are apocalyptic in their scope, but overlook the fact that a lot of the dangerous of a nuclear war are centralized in particular zones. We’d possibly see a return to a dark age, but probably not the end of the species.

This is not good, but when you look at it in context it’s immediately obvious that there are far worse things that have happened throughout history. Think of the plagues and wars that spanned continents, famines that took out massive portions of the population.

Humanity has always faced existential threats, and always will. They take on new forms because we’ve been fortunate enough to transcend the old ones, and our means of doing so have been imperfect and driven by base motivations.

We also overestimate our prosperity.

I don’t want to diminish our accomplishments, since they’re almost always a reflection of what happens when virtues are practiced consistently and sacrifices are made to improve our condition over a long period of time, but at the same time it is important to realize that our current state of being is one of a potential multitudes.

If we were serious with ourselves and pursued virtue with the same dogmatic obsession that we tend to pursue the things that we want, we would see outcomes we can only dream of.

Resolution

Never settle.

Don’t obsess over the pain of the day. It is a reminder of imperfection, of virtue unfulfilled. Nothing more.

Don’t presume that there is something fundamentally different between now and the collected past.

Reflections on Aphorisms #84

Getting back from travel really leaves me on something of a back foot.

Of course, I spent like two hours today on a call hammering out some game design stuff, so I suppose that one could say that I really wasn’t unproductive so much as not doing the normal things that I would consider productive. There was some of that too, but not as much as I had been doing.

Aphorism 122

Strength and weakness of mind are mis-named; they are really only the good or happy arrangement of our bodily organs.

François de La Rochefoucauld

Interpretation

Right now I have an appreciation for this statement in ways that I don’t think I would always have. I’ve got a headache and I’m exhausted, and I’m also a tad hungry. It’s amazing how a couple little things have such a big impact on my abilities.

Of course, none of these are novel. I’ve been tired and had headaches before, and I get hungry with regularity. In fact, I’ve experienced this exact combination of detriments over and over again.

But one of the things that I note about this is that I tend to lead myself down very different paths of behavior when I’m in “good” condition than I do when I’m not, despite the fact that my actual abilities are probably not significantly impaired by the way I am right now.

Of course, Rochefoucauld has perceived a reality that definitely justifies the statement he makes. Being tired definitely gets in the way of functioning. Pain and hunger impact mood, but how much they really impact functioning is probably pretty dependent on the individual. I’m afraid to say I’m something of a wimp. I have a very good pain tolerance on the high end of the spectrum–I broke my arm as a youth and was more concerned with getting dinner than any pain that it was causing me even as it gave way under my weight when I attempted to stand–but I also have a tendency to whine and moan. Worse, I enjoy this sort of complaining and I let it lead to a certain self-indulgence in which I am less productive than I really should be.

Of course, this is the antithesis of what I should probably be doing. When you face a trial, you are presented with a unique opportunity to overcome something that poses a challenge to your unique being. This allows you to move along several different paths, most of which can be labeled clearly as heroic or unheroic (and perhaps there is only one heroic path).

Generally I find that I miss these opportunities, and this makes me something like a fair-weather friend to myself. This is not a good place to be, because part of the act of becoming fully human is to figure out a way to take care of oneself.

Fortunately, there’s always going to be room to improve on this. I like to think that I get a little better at dealing with things each time I encounter them. Of course, this probably doesn’t stand up to scrutiny, but I’ve been on such a process of self-improvement that I might actually have a chance to change it now.

I guess the lesson to take away from this is pretty simple: You are a creature of circumstance, but you don’t have to be defined that way.

Resolution

Don’t let circumstance overcome potential.

Be willing to sacrifice the moment for the future.

Remember that you are a being of flesh and blood.

Reflections on Aphorisms #83

Travel is brutal and I don’t like it. I’ve had something like five hours of sleep in the past 24 hours, and that’s being optimistic about the amount of time I actually spent sleeping on the plane, so if this is more rambling and incoherent than my average work I apologize in advance.

Sometimes being tired leads to free association, though. Even though this isn’t always desirable, it can lead to points of interest. Speaking of which:

Aphorism 121

Interest blinds some and makes some see. (Maxim 40)

François de La Rochefoucauld

Interpretation

I’ve written about the distinction between the known and the unknown before, especially as it pertains to heuristics (basically, they’re fast hacks to understand the world better than our brains could otherwise do), so I’m going to take a different approach today.

Having an interest in things leads to an opportunity cost of all other things in which one could be interested. My experiences recently with dipping my toes into the game industry have pushed me to realize this: I’m not sure that I want to make games as the be-all end-all of my life, but there are people who have totally committed themselves to that to the exclusion of all else.

And that’s not necessarily bad, but it means that they’re not even considering applying some of their talents elsewhere. This is not, of course, a universal rule; some people have fully assessed their life and still choose to be monolithic in their pursuits, sometimes in error and sometimes in pursuit of exceptionalism.

The dangerous thing is when people haven’t assessed their life. I remember an instance when I was in college where it looked like everything was going to go off the rails. I was in a teaching program and hadn’t yet gotten any classroom experience and was letting the angst of uncertainty build up. My father was between jobs after the company he had been working for canceled his project, my friends had all gone away for the summer, and I generally just felt like I was adrift and life was down to the lowest point it ever had been.

Because I was living with the conviction that I was going to be a teacher (one I still hold) but I had not considered my options, this became something of a crisis. In reality, had I been willing to see it, I would have realized that I had talents and skills that would help me reach my goal, downplay my fears with the reminder that other people go through the same things without issue, and work toward a goal.

Instead, my interest in the path I thought I was on, the life I thought had been granted to me, blinded me to the fact that it was really a path that I could choose to walk and take proactive steps toward.

You can’t do much without a purpose, and interest can be a pathway that leads in that direction. However, if all you have is one consuming passion, it can vanish or be thwarted and put you in a state of disorder.

Resolution

Be open to opportunity.

Reflect on goals.

Find the pathway that leads to the stars.

Reflections on Aphorisms #82

This was originally supposed to go up on August 3rd, but I was traveling and forgot to upload this to the blog when I wrote it, so it’s going up on August 4th.

I’ve never really read much of Hobbes. In fact, I’ve probably read more Calvin and Hobbes than Hobbes. This is not a great comparison, since I believe I’ve read, the entire corpus of Calvin and Hobbes at least twice, with individual comics and collections occasionally receiving more repeat attention, but the fact remains that I know Hobbes more from how people have talked about him than what he said.

When I first wrote this, I think I missed an important point that runs contrary to my main argument but reflects another way of interpreting the aphorism out of context: when you try to imitate something it is often possible to unintentionally cheapen it, to miss the essence in pursuit of the image. Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but it is still mere flattery.

Aphorism 120

To imitate one’s enemy is to dishonor.

Hobbes

Interpretation

One important part of life is to establish guiding principles. They serve as a shelter against oneself. The reason for this is that we aren’t perfect, and in moments of weakness or uncertainty we make bad decisions.

The modern era is full of examples of people who attempt to find a moral equivalence with others. Modern morality seems to be about being better, or at least equal, but not about being good.

There are a few problems with this, the most obvious of which is that there’s a strong temptation to fall in line with patterns of behavior that we would find objectionable in ourselves, but which we justify because it is at least as good as what other people do.

Because we justify things in relation to others, we have the ability to overlook the faults our choices and decisions reveal in ourselves.

The failure of others becomes the failure within ourselves, but we do not comprehend it.

Another problem is that not only do we justify our flaws, but we work against our own purpose. It is not the case that everyone is designed to have the same role in the universe. There may be one higher goal, but the method of achieving it needs to follow the individual’s capabilities and tendencies.

Living one’s life using primarily one’s own weakness is the same as failing to do one’s best in their areas of strength.

To contribute all an individual can, they must find out what makes them special and different.

Looking at another person and choosing their path is only going to minimize their potential to bring their own gifts to the world (even if both people manage somehow to work for the good).

However, one can also see a parodic imitation of sorts play out. It’s the Israelites forging the golden calf in the desert: the desire to be like one’s enemy and beat them at their own game is blind to the fact that the game of the enemy may be self-destructive.

What makes the enemy an enemy?

It is the fact that they are working against all that the individual needs to have.

To fight fire with fire is to burn the world down.

Resolution

Don’t imitate others just because they seem to be successful.

In everything seek the right path, do not assume it is obvious.

Remember that it is possible to be a monster without being conscious of it.

Reflections on Aphorisms #81

An interesting thing that I’ve found as I work through the aphorisms is that there are ones that I don’t feel like I can talk about when I first examine them, and then later return to them and feel comfortable expounding on them.

I’m not sure to what degree this reflects growth and to which degree it reflects the various mindsets required to engage with a text, but I find it interesting.

Sometimes it’s the case that a point that I’ll come to while discussing one aphorism will reflect itself in another aphorism, which isn’t surprising when one focuses primarily on maxims by a single person.

This one from Rochefoucauld is another example: a few days ago I skipped over this aphorism in favor of another one (you can see it here), in part because I didn’t have anything to say about it. Now I do.

Aphorism 119

What we term virtue is often but a mass of various actions and divers interests, which fortune, or our own industry, manage to arrange; and it is not always from valour or from chastity that men are brave, and women chaste. (Maxim 1)

François de La Rochefoucauld

Interpretation

Humans are and are not moral creatures, depending on how you define them. The problem is that as with most matters which defy simple classification neither really satisfies the truth.

People can be moral creatures, and that sets us apart from everything else we’ve found in the universe. We’re capable of making decisions based on guiding principles, not just the experiences and stimuli around us.

However, that doesn’t mean that we always are. Consciousness is expensive, and we budget our attention toward the things that we view as important in the moment.

What that means practically is that more of our actions and reactions are reflex, or subconscious, than we would like. This is pretty logical, really; we don’t know exactly how much unconscious stuff we do because it’s precisely unconscious. If it’s happening and it works, then we don’t think about it.

One of the biological functions of guilt is to discourage patterns of behavior that are known to bear consequences. If I spend more money than I’ve made in a week and then notice that I’m headed in the wrong direction financially, I feel a little guilt about it. It’s a manifestation of the worries I have about my future state, even if I can’t explicitly communicate that to myself.

When we do things with unknown consequences or we actually manage to avoid everything that we associate with guilt through supreme effort, we assume automatically that it is a form of virtue.

The problem is that virtue isn’t just avoiding the things that earn us guilt.

Virtue is strength. It’s a moral sort of strength, one which does not grant mastery of others, but it’s strength nonetheless.

One of the problems with strength is that it’s relative. I can go about my daily life without doing anything that I would consider at the outer edge of my physical capacities, but that doesn’t mean that I would be considered strong. I might be “strong enough” but even that is a relative description.

Virtue is the same way. You might look at honesty and say “Well, I don’t lie on my taxes.”

That’s very good!

It’s also pretty much nothing. There’s a giant penalty for lying on your taxes. You’re forced to be honest, or at least lie well enough to get away with it, and most of us are bad liars and know that on at least an unconscious level. If you aren’t, you’re gonna get a whole lotta pain, and that could be what’s driving the honesty.

If you could make a universal statement (“I don’t lie.”) that would be a virtue. Of course, virtue being a relative strength it may be impossible to really have perfect virtue. But if every time you were to tell a lie you instead chose honesty you’d be making a lot of progress. There are further forms of dishonesty, of course: omission, over-statement, miscellaneous deception, and “white lies”” all degrade the virtues of honesty and integrity.

However, the struggle is what forms virtue. It’s not an inherent thing that some people have and others don’t, which is part of the reason why the virtuous don’t have any claim to superiority. Virtue is an interaction between the individual and the universe (to put it in hippy language; I’d argue that it’s an interaction between the individual and God), and it has to be found outside the individual’s disconnected being.

Choosing virtue may be laudable, but virtue itself is revealed. Nobody can claim to be closer to it than anyone else, because the problem with a choice is that it overlooks two key points.

First, for every virtue one chooses, there are likely virtues they have not developed.

Second, a choice is not permanent. It can be reversed. The virtuous person is not in a fixed state of virtue, and can throw away everything in a moment of moral compromise.

Resolution

Don’t enter into moral compromise.

Look for opportunities to develop virtue.

Remember that all morality is shaped by our relation to the universe.

Reflections on Aphorisms #80

One of the best things in life is to sit still and enjoy it. There are always worries, and always problems, but a single good thing is worth living for even if all else falls away.

It’s not a matter of hedonism, it’s a matter of potential. If there’s something good in the universe, it stands to reason that there can be more good things in the universe.

Aphorism 118

Passions often produce their contraries: avarice sometimes leads to prodigality, and prodigality to avarice; we are often obstinate through weakness and daring though timidity. (Maxim 11)

François de La Rochefoucauld

Interpretation

I think a lot about passionate emotion. In the past I’ve expressed terror of it, but I don’t think that’s the best way to describe it.

My relationship with emotion is something akin to respect, sort of like how people translated the biblical injunction to be faithful to God as a command to “fear the Lord” though I don’t take it to the same extent.

One of the things that comes up with passions is that you act in ways that go against your set goals.

Just this morning I recall getting really upset about an injustice, and it got to a point where I was almost yelling while in a one-sided conversation with my mother (despite the fact that she had nothing to do with it and was actually in agreement with me about it).

Now, I don’t think this really did any harm to me, and I actually value my ability to feel for those who suffer at the hands of oppressors, but I also felt a twinge of bitterness and vitriol.

It occurred to me that in that moment I was walking down a path that would enable me to justify an unacceptable action against those who I was ranting against, that I would let myself oppress them if given the chance. My desire turned away from the protection of the innocent and toward the punishment of the guilty.

That’s not to say that there isn’t some merit in punishment; it plays a key role in keeping the world spinning, but it’s also not a goal unto itself. That’s just revenge, and righteous indignation is great for turning people into bloodthirsty mobs.

My passion for protecting the weak quickly transformed into a passion for vengeance.

I’m not sure that I want to attribute this to some inherent law; there are certainly passions that don’t have an opposite and no law that says that one passion transmutes into another one, but there is definitely something to be said for passion evoking a state that leads us to further passion.

I think that this can also be said of consuming goals. Often what we desire to bring us the good life gets in the way of living (e.g. being passionate about a project), and it’s possible to abandon what is really good for the sake of something that promises to improve what will be long gone by the time it is complete.

Resolution

Don’t let passion drive the show without slowing down to check what I’m doing.

Control the emotions which lead to passion.

Operate on principle, not reaction.

Reflections on Aphorisms #79

Taking a quick break because of course I would. Shaw is one of the great aphorists, along with Wilde, who is always able to provoke a response from me, even though I see some major issues with a lot of his philosophy of life.

He’s thought-provoking, if nothing else.

Aphorism 117

Youth, which is forgiven everything, forgives itself nothing: age, which forgives itself everything, is forgiven nothing.

Shaw

Interpretation

I hate to agree with Shaw (disclaimer: I don’t actually hate to agree with Shaw, but that’s a dramatic way to start a sentence and I’m weak enough of character to start with it instead of a better opener), but there is something to be said for the truthfulness of this statement.

One of the trends that I’ve tracked in my own life is that I was consumed with burning passion in my youth, and mellowed out as I got older. I’m not that old, but people used to call me an “old soul”, which is a tremendously horrible praise to burden someone with.

I just like big words. I may have had an interest in philosophy and religion. It wasn’t really that noble.

With that said, I definitely had more of a streak of self-condemnation. Some of that is because I was dreadfully sheltered, and my own mistakes stood out to me because I didn’t see other peoples’. That’s not to say that nobody messed up, but I think there’s a hidden part of that where you also don’t judge motives well when you’re sheltered.

Basically, everything I did out of base motives, I recognized as a fault in myself, but I always looked at others as having merely accidentally sinned.

I consider this one of the most praiseworthy elements of myself, because it wasn’t until I was in my 20’s that I began to consider that others around me were capable of evil, despite holding the bitter philosophical and religious concept of total depravity of humanity as a guiding principle in my own life.

While that’s foolish, and really shows that I was a late bloomer (so much for the “old soul” appellation), it also meant that I had the most perfect view of other people. I could count on one hand the number of people I had disliked in a serious by the time I turned 20, and I’ve only begun to start needing a second hand.

That’s a great spot to be in, because it shows that you’re not bitter.

Of course, a lot of my distress was internal. I blamed myself for pretty much everything. This included, in a particularly shortsighted moment, being practically catatonic for a semester of college because I was worried about being a burden on my family. The irony of shutting down because one is worried about being undeserving escaped me, though it’s also a very common course of action in the grand scheme of psychological phenomena.

Fast forward five years from then, and I would be successfully independent inasmuch as it is possible for an individual to be independent. No man is an island, after all.

Now, obviously it’s easier to be merciful on yourself when you feel like you’re earning your keep. No Jude the Obscure ending for me.

Quick side-note: Jude the Obscure is a seriously dark book. Like, of all the angsty and broody stories I’ve had to read over the year, I find it odd that it would be a part of my high school English classes that stands out. I’m not trying to deny its literary merits, and I certainly remember it better than most of the books I read in high school (I’ve returned to the other ones I remember, so I can’t tell if a single impression of them served me better).

One of the things that happens when you get older is that you realize that a lot of what you do is more common than you had feared.

Of course, there’s a balancing act here. You don’t want to let yourself sink into mediocrity (or maybe you do on a certain level, but there’s such a danger in it that you also have a part of yourself that revolts against it), but you also feel the intolerable weight of moral standards when you have to be the person making decisions and sacrifices.

The resolution of that is that you start compromising parts your morals, or else you engage in a truly heroic struggle to keep them.

Resolution

Forgiveness comes at a cost to the victim.

Remember the source of all value.

Don’t sacrifice morals for expedience.

Reflections on Aphorisms #78

Been getting a lot done recently. If I had been worried whether or not I was on the right track, I could at least claim to be more certain now.

Of course, what can any of us truly know?

At the very least, I can hope to be on the right track, and devote myself to noble pursuits.

Aphorism 116

Neither the sun nor death can be looked at without winking.

François de La Rochefoucauld

Interpretation

The sublime Empyrean resides above us, the depths of Hell below.

We have the potential to work toward either, but both are metaphysical. They cannot be expressed or contemplated strictly within our mortal framework.

What Rouchefoucauld gets at here is the notion that there are things that we cannot bear directly, both in terms of our comprehension and our psychological ability to handle things.

The sun–metaphorically understood as God–and death–the negative counterpart of life–are both things that we cannot directly confront, but so is the axiomatic and ultimate nature of good and evil itself.

The greatest things in life are blessings that we cannot hope to comprehend. This is true across time and cultures. A faithful child, a loyal spouse, and a noble leader all embody the closest thing one can have to a movement toward the divine in worldly affairs.

The worst things in life are are set in direct opposition to the good: the faithless, the disloyal, the corrupt.

But, of course, in reality there is always nuance. There is none who can claim to be purely good, none who can be condemned as wholly evil.

Even the worst butcher is driven by something extrinsic, while even the saints are held down by the intrinsic flaws of their nature.

This conflict between the external and the internal is why we fear both good and evil, and why we cannot come to a balance between both. It is not that one or the other is purely good or evil, but the balance between all things is constantly in flux.

The only permanence is the divine, and to our perceptions even that seems inconstant. Of course, this is due to our inability to develop a perfectly accurate picture of reality (which is not a good reason not to try) and appreciate the full consequences and merits of our actions.

So we blink, voluntarily closing our eyes to the things around us before they transfigure us. The words of Nietzsche ring true. One who gazes too long into the abyss is met with a return.

Resolution

Do not expect perfection.

Contemplate the good constantly.

Accept the being of evil, then work against it.

Reflections on Aphorisms #77

Taking a brief break from La Rochefoucauld today for a little variation in perspective. Don’t worry, I’ll go back to his Maximes. I just like to keep a fresh perspective on things instead of getting too heavily focused on a single writer’s work.

Aphorism #115

To ask for advice is in nine cases out of ten to tout for flattery.

John Churton Collins

Interpretation

I have a really hard time with this. Because of past traumatic experiences as well as my own tendency to want to be successful, I crave validation for everything I do.

It’s a problem in many cases because not only do I wind up becoming reliant on this validation I also find it a little distasteful. First, one should always be honest in their dealings with others, and fishing for praise is possible in a tasteful way. It’s not hard to just ask what people think, and they’ll give you an honest answer. To ask for help when you don’t desire any is just a waste of everyone’s time.

We’re social creatures, and it makes sense that we want to look good. There’s an added element of flattery in asking someone for advice. It shows that there is enough respect in the relationship that the opinion of the advisor is valued above the asker’s.

However, when this falls flat the opposite effect is had: the person who has been asked for advice instead realizes that they are being used for emotional gain. Even if there weren’t a slightly scummy immorality to the process, it would still be a practice that risks consequences for the flatterer.

One good antidote to this is to surround yourself with people you respect and humble yourself to the point that you are willing to do whatever they suggest. I try to do this; if I am taken by a momentary desire to flaunt stuff for appearance’s sake, at least I can redeem it by actually using the feedback I get. I also try not to judge other people when I look at their work unless they have asked me to do so.

I feel that I should take a moment out of this to quickly praise my brother, who has faithfully helped me edit some work and whose feedback I highly value, even though there were a few times when I was definitely just trying to show off writer chops.

Of course, there’s an extra element of risk here for those who work in the creative fields. I’m sure there are accountants who like to get approval for their wonderful spreadsheets (disclosure: I’m not actually sure what accountants do, though I appreciate their work), but those of us who are in the business of creating things wind up at even greater risk of wanting to preen and show off.

For most of us, people like me who freelance, it’s a matter of survival. If people don’t like my work I don’t keep working and my creative endeavors are over. I plan on returning to teaching, but I would like to do so after I get an advanced degree, not because the money ran out.

If someone is truly successful, though, there’s also a cocky attitude that can come up. There’s a thrill in knowing that you’re good at something; I’m a good writer, for instance, in the sense that I do it comfortably and almost professionally.  There’s an even greater thrill in knowing that you excel at something. If you are recognized as one of the best, the temptation to shed humility grows even more insidious.

Resolution

Remember you are mortal.

Don’t lie: if I want praise, show off openly.

Take the advice of others.