Milage may vary...

Catching Up...

Well, it's been a little while since I've put anything to paper, or in this case electrons. I've been pretty busy as of late with work, family, and well, life in general.

The move back to Blackhand is done. It was probably one of the hardest decisions I've had to make in quite awhile. I loved playing with the Pod People, and I miss them a great deal. However, this was something I had to do. Through it all, my local friends have been there for me and I was really lacking their presence in my life outside the game. The thing that makes WoW so great is the close relationships that can form between people moving a bunch of 1s and 0s around. However, as great as the virtual world is, the real world is by far better.

So, Sabrae of Whisperwind is now Dysharra of Blackhand. Things are leveling out some and I hope that once I get a little more familiar with the goings and comings, I can split some time back on Whisperwind with my priest. Hopefully, the next few weeks will give me more time because I miss everyone over there a great deal.

What else...

Something I haven't really talked about much in the past has been my involvement with the SCA. For those who don't know what that is, the SCA is a medieval re-creationist group that focuses on the period of 600-1600. They have weekend events, tournaments, and other assorted things going on pretty much all the time. I became involved back in high school and was fairly heavily involved up until early last year.

However, things have changed...

My last great thing I did in the Society was act as the publisher of the two state region ("kingdom") newsletter. I can remember how happy I was at the time to get the position, but now I know that's two years of my life I'll never get back. Before I really go into some of the reasons behind that statement, let me fill you in on a little back story.

When I first joined the Society, and for many years after, I was in love with the organization. I loved the research, the pageantry, the friendship, and just the feeling of family that seemed to permeate everything within. It became my main hobby and I put a lot into it. However, and there are times I wonder if it was always there or my awareness of it was slow in coming, things began to change. I began to notice that people were becoming less interested in the fundamental core of what the Society was, and more interested in their own personal position. The thing about the society was that people could become those things most could only read about. A plumber in real life could become a knight. A talented seamstress could become a Master of their craft and be recognized as a peer. A local group could install a couple as their local rulers and make them Barons and Baronesses. There were awards for just about everything from service to the group, to skill on the field, to mastery of a certain craft, to just about anything you could imagine. Hell, if you were a skilled enough fighter, and defeated a number of other foes in a tournament, you could become King!

And maybe, that's where it all goes wrong...

The problem becomes this; in any group of people, there are those who are leaders, and those who envy the leaders. You add that upon what little makes up some of these peoples lives outside the Society and it becomes a dangerous mix. The desire for prestige and power, even imaginary ones, overrides the decency of some people. What disturbs me the most about it is the lengths some will go to achieve their goals. I've seem friends slandered in almost criminal ways, threatened with physical violence, attempts to effect their employment, and a number of almost unthinkable acts. All of this for a piece of paper, title, and a medallion or some-such that and a $1.90 will get you a cup of coffee at Starbucks.

I never really thought about it in a personal way until several years ago when it finally became my turn. I had always tried to do what I could to help my friends, and make things better. It wasn't until it became my turn in the "spotlight" that I truly saw clearly. I was accused of stealing an artist's work and using the position I held for person political aims. This was a complete slap in the face due to how much of a regard I hold copyright and what I do for a living. In the end, it was all pushed aside and fixed, and I thought life would get back on track. It wasn't until a couple of months later that I was informed that the person who accused me of stealing her artwork had threatened to sue the Society if I wasn't punished. I was given a choice, either step down, or be removed. It crushed me in a number of ways because of all the effort I had put in, the years of service, only to have the Society shy away from defending me against something my accusers couldn't have a chance in hell to win. I chose to step down and really didn't play for a couple of years. It stuns me, and I've seen it happen since, that the Society has this fear of punishing some of it's members who have achieved a high rank in the Society. There's an almost unspoken rule that these peers are of a virtue that rules out some of the behavior their accused of. Add to that the fear of being sued, and you get a justice system which in some cases takes no action, but goes completely insane in others. It simply emboldens those who transgress while reaffirming to others that play by the rules there's no justice.

Now flash back to three years ago. I had started coming back on the fringe to play. Not much, just a little. Then, it was announced that the kingdom need a new publisher and I leaped at the chance. This was a position that I had really wanted to try because it represented the (in MMO terms) the "end-game" effort I wanted to culminate my work into. I was chosen for the job and the day I took over I think was the beginning of the end for me in the Society. When you look from the outside, the higher management looks easy. However, once inside, you truly see the amount of work it takes. I think the thing that stunned me the most, and to this day I'm still not quite sure why, is just how much was done by so few. Many people within the management of the Society are there for the title alone, and not to contribute to effort as a whole. I was amazed by just how hard it was to get people to do a simple report, or in my case, my local people to do their own newsletter. There were exceptions of course, people who fought and struggled and worked despite the roadblocks they faced. More and more I began to see just how little some of the people who wanted to be "in charge" did and what lengths they would go to to get their way. I would go to events and see a frantic group of people struggle to keep things together while the majority of people were either drunk, or sitting around doing nothing. I would also attend events that would be steeped in rich tradition begin to lose attendance because they didn't have this meeting or that, or didn't include the activity of favor in that season. The more I saw at the kingdom level, the more I saw at the local level, only I saw it was much worse. At the end of the day, I was so disillusioned with the whole thing, I had to walk away. My plan at the time was to take a break, reevaluate, and then see where everything stood. However, fate delivered the ultimate killing blow in the complete backstab I received not 1 month after handing the job off to, at the time, my best friend. It was at that point that I really decided that my time in the Society was over. If someone could do what he did to me after everything and the time we had known each other for no other reason than to elevate his image over mine, I wanted nothing more to do with it.

Now, why you ask, am I rambling on about this now after so long? Well, it so happens that the two local groups I was involved in for so long are picking new leaders. I really didn't care much about the subject until I looked into what was really going on with the "process". In any new candidate selection process, you have the usual rumor mill, political maneuvering, betrayal, and all of the other "fun" things that come with this. Now, it seems that this time around the real decay has finally showed. Whenever the people of these groups get around to voting on the candidates, they will never know the final tally. The ballets will be counted and sent to the king and queen and they will make their decision. It's always been that the crown makes the final selection, however this time around it seems much more secretive that any other time. With all of that going on, and looking at some of the other things happening here and there, I think my persona has finally died. It's an interesting feeling of that transition between one life and the next. Ultimately though, I think this has been coming for some time.

So where do I go from here? This really isn't much of a change in and of itself, but more of a point of closure. I can really move forward from here with my life and on to new and better things. I'm more confident now of who my friends really are and can endeavor to spend more time with them. It also helps to free up all that time so now I can join them in more fun pursuits such as killing dragons and creatures made of lava.

posted by Dave @ 6:50 AM