Over the last two days I have been taking classes about selling myself. Not on the market but for promotional and interview processes. I have several that I can take but I am afraid to take them. I want to use words like anxiety and nervousness but it boils down to fear and insecurity.
On the second day of the class I spoke with the instructor. I shared with him what I did for the CSM and he found it to be fascinating. It was a big step. I am often brushed aside by people or they look at me as if I am insane. This instructor however is interested in people and I thought he might be interested in it. He was.
When I walked away from Eve after CSMX, it was not because I was angry. I was in a lot of emotional pain. Things had not gone how I wanted them to. I was dealing with my self esteem issues. And, I was near the point of everything turning into hate and anger.
I wanted to write about the CSM, but I did not think that anyone wanted to listen. I also believed that in the spring of 2016, I could write anything objective. I would have written about the bitterness and the hurt. I would have called people out. I would have clawed at what had upset me and in that process I would have also destroyed what I set out to do.
Dirty laundry is addictive. Every day when I skim news articles they make sure to dredge up every terrible thing they can about something. It draws us in. Drama. Gossip. What happens behind closed doors. Oh how we want to know. But, what is the value of it. There is a fine line between truth in what happened and dragging out the dirty laundry. Oh yes, the bad things happened but if they are acknowledged, admitted, and corrected, do I have to document them in minute detail to the detriment of the person?
This is the battle that I faced as I wrote about the CSM. For you see, I wrote about the CSM. I just did not share it with you. When I walked away from Eve and stopped logging on it was to disconnect myself before I dug too deep and greedy. I was so close to setting fire to everything I had done because I needed some release.
I wrote it all. The anger. The hurt. The venom. I wallowed in my loss and in my hate. I couldn't see any positive when I was done. I wrote a document of pure pain. One where I cried as I wrote page after page after page. Even now, often when I write about the CSM or answer people's questions I find tears trickling down my face. There is so much emotion in those two years.
I could have published it then. What I wrote was never about the NDA. It was about the interactions of people. Not all of those interactions were good. Personalities clashed. Mistakes were made. There were struggles. Communication failed. Emotions stepped in and took control. Things tasted of disappointment. And that was all I could focus on in the end.
This was my problem.
While the terrible things make for good dramatic reading, they overshadow everything else. The reason I wanted to write about the CSM was to share what happened. The good and the bad. But, not the drama. I want to be honest about who was active and who just took a trip. I wanted to share the good of CCP and I wanted to share the frustrating. But, in all of that I don't want to harm anyone even if some believe that they should be harmed.
I've spent a year asking myself how do I do that. How do I write and share truth without it becoming about harm? The reason for my writing isn't to hurt people. I could have jabbed daggers in every direction. Some believe that I should have. Anger and frustration became a theme and it is a theme that overshadows the fact that many problems were addressed and acted upon. The unfortunate part is that the harm was so deep that the actions taken, while appropriate, were not enough to drain the abscess of hurt. It makes it hard to understand what is honest and what is malice.
How do I balance these things?
Walking away not only created separation for me from the event, it allowed the past to become the past. Things have grown stale. CSM9 and CSM10 do not matter anymore. The game has changed. Changes have changed since changes were made.
Distance and time have softened the sharp edges that drew blood with each twitch. Further away, I can reflect. I can say that I did what I was supposed to do when I promised to do it. I acted upon things that had to be acted upon. Yet, I still wish the unpleasant things had never happened.
That leads to the last bit. I do not thrive off of conflict. I was always willing to stand my ground and report in truth what people did or did not do. But, I didn't want the conflict and ugliness. Eve was my escape from the world. It was a place where I could try to overcome my personality. If I failed, it was not my job or my marriage. It was a place that it was okay to fail as long as I tried. But I could never become comfortable with conflict.
I care. It may not be fashionable in Eve, but I care. I don't enjoy hurting people. I don't enjoy calling people out. I don't enjoy sharing the ugliness that we may not be able to escape as people. And in my-selfishness, I do not want what I did and what I spent time doing to be used as a weapon on other people. I don't like calling people out in public. It is not how I work and I have to balance that.
Nor do I want people to look at me with distaste. This is the core of my fears in Eve. Eve, a place that I found where I met a community that seemed to accept me. My time on the CSM did change me as a person. I did things to get on the CSM (such as holding meeting sand writing updates) that I had never done before. I wrote to an audience and stood in front of them to be judged. It was hard. It was good for me. But, I'm not tough. I still lower my head when the vicious words and the scathing critiques come in. They hurt me, as they are meant to do. I cannot stop the pain but I will not let it control me. I still struggle not to let it blind me.
One of the fascinating parts of the process was learning that people didn't want to know things. I view the world through my own eyes. I want to know what is behind things, the why of a decision, the path that lead to a thought, the person that makes a decision, I want to know all of that. Not everyone does and I've struggled with that. I will continue to do so.
The reason that I write is to share. Over the next few months I will share the story of my time on the CSM. In it, I will share some of my story as a player. That story is in depth in the early days of the blog and I want to write a reflection on that time.
I've not written them because I worried about being obsessed with the CSM and boring people. I tried very hard not to let the CSM become the reason for this blog. I didn't think anyone wanted to hear about how it consumed me. But a comment made a few weeks ago told me that I might be drowning in my own confidence issues yet again. Maybe my time as a player holds an interest.
If you don't want to read it, don't read it. It is going to be am unashamedly capacious volume of words. They will be clearly labeled so that if you don't care, you can skip it. I'm going to continue swishing my feet on the edge of Eve's pool. I hope that I can dive in again and at least splash around in the shallow end.
To use a song: My Little Pony's 'The Magic Inside of You': It is a rather beautiful song sung by Lena Hall.
On the second day of the class I spoke with the instructor. I shared with him what I did for the CSM and he found it to be fascinating. It was a big step. I am often brushed aside by people or they look at me as if I am insane. This instructor however is interested in people and I thought he might be interested in it. He was.
When I walked away from Eve after CSMX, it was not because I was angry. I was in a lot of emotional pain. Things had not gone how I wanted them to. I was dealing with my self esteem issues. And, I was near the point of everything turning into hate and anger.
I wanted to write about the CSM, but I did not think that anyone wanted to listen. I also believed that in the spring of 2016, I could write anything objective. I would have written about the bitterness and the hurt. I would have called people out. I would have clawed at what had upset me and in that process I would have also destroyed what I set out to do.
Dirty laundry is addictive. Every day when I skim news articles they make sure to dredge up every terrible thing they can about something. It draws us in. Drama. Gossip. What happens behind closed doors. Oh how we want to know. But, what is the value of it. There is a fine line between truth in what happened and dragging out the dirty laundry. Oh yes, the bad things happened but if they are acknowledged, admitted, and corrected, do I have to document them in minute detail to the detriment of the person?
This is the battle that I faced as I wrote about the CSM. For you see, I wrote about the CSM. I just did not share it with you. When I walked away from Eve and stopped logging on it was to disconnect myself before I dug too deep and greedy. I was so close to setting fire to everything I had done because I needed some release.
I wrote it all. The anger. The hurt. The venom. I wallowed in my loss and in my hate. I couldn't see any positive when I was done. I wrote a document of pure pain. One where I cried as I wrote page after page after page. Even now, often when I write about the CSM or answer people's questions I find tears trickling down my face. There is so much emotion in those two years.
I could have published it then. What I wrote was never about the NDA. It was about the interactions of people. Not all of those interactions were good. Personalities clashed. Mistakes were made. There were struggles. Communication failed. Emotions stepped in and took control. Things tasted of disappointment. And that was all I could focus on in the end.
This was my problem.
While the terrible things make for good dramatic reading, they overshadow everything else. The reason I wanted to write about the CSM was to share what happened. The good and the bad. But, not the drama. I want to be honest about who was active and who just took a trip. I wanted to share the good of CCP and I wanted to share the frustrating. But, in all of that I don't want to harm anyone even if some believe that they should be harmed.
I've spent a year asking myself how do I do that. How do I write and share truth without it becoming about harm? The reason for my writing isn't to hurt people. I could have jabbed daggers in every direction. Some believe that I should have. Anger and frustration became a theme and it is a theme that overshadows the fact that many problems were addressed and acted upon. The unfortunate part is that the harm was so deep that the actions taken, while appropriate, were not enough to drain the abscess of hurt. It makes it hard to understand what is honest and what is malice.
How do I balance these things?
Walking away not only created separation for me from the event, it allowed the past to become the past. Things have grown stale. CSM9 and CSM10 do not matter anymore. The game has changed. Changes have changed since changes were made.
Distance and time have softened the sharp edges that drew blood with each twitch. Further away, I can reflect. I can say that I did what I was supposed to do when I promised to do it. I acted upon things that had to be acted upon. Yet, I still wish the unpleasant things had never happened.
That leads to the last bit. I do not thrive off of conflict. I was always willing to stand my ground and report in truth what people did or did not do. But, I didn't want the conflict and ugliness. Eve was my escape from the world. It was a place where I could try to overcome my personality. If I failed, it was not my job or my marriage. It was a place that it was okay to fail as long as I tried. But I could never become comfortable with conflict.
I care. It may not be fashionable in Eve, but I care. I don't enjoy hurting people. I don't enjoy calling people out. I don't enjoy sharing the ugliness that we may not be able to escape as people. And in my-selfishness, I do not want what I did and what I spent time doing to be used as a weapon on other people. I don't like calling people out in public. It is not how I work and I have to balance that.
Nor do I want people to look at me with distaste. This is the core of my fears in Eve. Eve, a place that I found where I met a community that seemed to accept me. My time on the CSM did change me as a person. I did things to get on the CSM (such as holding meeting sand writing updates) that I had never done before. I wrote to an audience and stood in front of them to be judged. It was hard. It was good for me. But, I'm not tough. I still lower my head when the vicious words and the scathing critiques come in. They hurt me, as they are meant to do. I cannot stop the pain but I will not let it control me. I still struggle not to let it blind me.
One of the fascinating parts of the process was learning that people didn't want to know things. I view the world through my own eyes. I want to know what is behind things, the why of a decision, the path that lead to a thought, the person that makes a decision, I want to know all of that. Not everyone does and I've struggled with that. I will continue to do so.
The reason that I write is to share. Over the next few months I will share the story of my time on the CSM. In it, I will share some of my story as a player. That story is in depth in the early days of the blog and I want to write a reflection on that time.
I've not written them because I worried about being obsessed with the CSM and boring people. I tried very hard not to let the CSM become the reason for this blog. I didn't think anyone wanted to hear about how it consumed me. But a comment made a few weeks ago told me that I might be drowning in my own confidence issues yet again. Maybe my time as a player holds an interest.
If you don't want to read it, don't read it. It is going to be am unashamedly capacious volume of words. They will be clearly labeled so that if you don't care, you can skip it. I'm going to continue swishing my feet on the edge of Eve's pool. I hope that I can dive in again and at least splash around in the shallow end.
To use a song: My Little Pony's 'The Magic Inside of You': It is a rather beautiful song sung by Lena Hall.
I'm here to show you who I am
Throw off the veil, it's finally time
There's more to me than glitz and glam, oh-whoa
And now I feel my stars align
For I had believed what I was sold
I did all the things that I was told
But all that has changed, and now I'm bold
'Cause I know
That I am just a pony
I make mistakes from time to time
But now I know the real me
And put my heart out on the line
And let the magic in my heart stay true
Whoa-whoa-whoa-whoa
And let the magic in my heart stay true
Whoa-whoa-whoa-whoa
Just like the magic inside of you
And now I see those colors
Right before my eyes
I hear my voice so clearly
And I know that it is right
They thought I was weak, but I am strong
They sold me the world, but they were wrong
And now that I'm back, I still belong
'Cause I know
That I am just a pony
I make mistakes from time to time
But now I know the real me
And put my heart out on the line
And let the magic in my heart stay true
Whoa-whoa-whoa-whoa
And let the magic in my heart stay true
Whoa-whoa-whoa-whoa
Just like the magic inside of you...
Haven't played for many months myself, but still have you in my news feed. Always wanted to hear about your time on CSM. Looking forward to it. Hope you're doing well.
ReplyDeleteYou're a hoot Sugar. You sent me to a My Little Pony video which I not only watched, but watched with a giggle.
ReplyDeleteHey Sugar,
ReplyDeleteI played Eve years ago, but left for reasons. Close to the end I stumbled upon your Blog and following it ever since, allthough as a lurker, I never commented before.
I like your blog, because you had and have a way with words, that is awesome and because your writings about Eve were never one-dimensional, as so many others. As Rhavas above, I'd be very much interested about your experiences, in part because I have an idea what happened, especially to you.
Keep up the blog, I'm very happy and exited whenever my feedreader signals me, that there is a new post.
Kind Regards
Sebastian
I want to read your thoughts and feelings.
ReplyDeleteGood to see that you are writing again. Missed your posts.
ReplyDelete