I suffer from the greatest fear that ever beset mankind. It isn’t arachnophobia (fear of spiders) nor agoraphobia (fear of crowds)… it isn’t even triskaidekaphobia (fear of the number 13). I fear success.
Oh, I have had my share of positive, lucky, optimal situations so that most would consider me a “success”.
I didn’t succumb to drugs and alcohol. I did well enough in school to make my folks proud. I had children, and my son has himself become a sterling example of a US Marine. I have never been bankrupt, I have never been in jail. And I own a house and a car. Ba da bing, ba da boom, I am a success, right?
Hardly. My coworkers are aloof, my employer occasionally annoyed, and my clients are not always satisfied with my work. I have been in and out of relationships, lost a wife to her lover (long story) and am for the most part about halfway up the economic strata… stranded at a point, as my father would say, where I am ‘broke at a higher level’.
I want to be a game publisher, a game designer, a writer, and a resource for all the game industry.
I even want, if you can believe this, to be able to record a daily blog here.
In all I want to do, and to be, I fail. Life comes along and demands so much that I do what everyone else does, and just get by on what I can do, not what I should be doing. And why? Because success is a terrifying possibility.
If I complete any of my designs, I have to get them in front of publishers. If I published my own games, I might have to fight for the rights to any of them (conflict of interest???) If I took up professional writing, and was deemed good enough, I would have a whole new array of worries, issues, challenges, and so on. And if I really, really wanted to be a resource to the whole game industry, I might actually have to tell people what I think… and they might actually listen.
So, I huddle amid my trophies of mediocrity. I fiddle with game design elements. I dabble in publication of products without proper credit, to avoid the pratfalls. I write for a blog intermittently, when they really would prefer consistency. (that way, I can limp along feeling like I am doing both… writing and blogging).
Well, now that I am putting it out there… my fear is somewhat dampened. By admitting it, I get a handle on it. Now, just to do what needs to be done. More design. More writing. More publication. More Success.
Either that, or I fall back to what I am REALLY good at.
More procrastination.
