Oh, How Far You've Come

Okayokayokay, think of a skill you've been building for a long time, perhaps across years or decades, a skill that you've taken for granted because learning it came easily or because you started with a natural talent that you've continued to develop, whatever the case may be.

No, really. Play along with me for a moment before you read ahead! What's a skill you're genuinely proud of or have enjoyed practicing or have worked hard to better?

Now, go back and find the earliest possible examples of you practicing that skill: early drawings, code snippets, design layouts, pieces of writing, clarinet scores from junior high school, etc.

I imagine that the, "Ew, what, no," flinch was pretty visceral for many of you. Either that, or I'm the only one in existence who experiences that flinch (though I doubt it). It's like telling an aspiring singer or voice actor or public speaker that the best way for them to improve is to listen to recordings of their own voice. Yeugh. Shudder.

That internal tension is so fascinating though, isn't it? Regardless of whether or not you actually played along, the mere suggestion probably elicited some sort of reaction, likely something unpleasant, probably embarrassment. We could get into the why's and how's of that, but that's not the focus of today's post.

Now imagine stumbling onto those early works while cleaning out your closet or computer files instead of making the conscious decision to go back and revisit them. What's the feeling that stirs there, nostalgia, tenderness, embarrassment still, or a mix thereof?

You see, I broach this subject because recently I've been working on a massive backlog (surprise, surprise) of transcribing peripheral scenes from Cael's session 0, scenarios my partner and I explored after completing the main arc leading to their inciting incident for the main campaign. I've left them on the back burner for years because they weren't as pressing as the main session 0 content or the actual campaign.

Now that I'm finally within reach of being able to fill in all my notes, however, I decided...

Boi howdy was I in for a surprise when I started listening to those old recordings.

The scenes were lighter, more slice-of-life in scope, but even so I could feel years later how I back then was scrambling for ways of having actual conversation. There are so many, "How are you?"s that I might as well have been asking about the weather. Surface-level pleasantries dominate, and the stiffness between even Cael's and Valen's interactions makes one wonder, "Wow, was I really that bad a conversationalist?"

It hardly makes for inspiring reading or listening material.

Yet there's an endearing quality about revisiting those early moments. The unintended consequence of returning to those session 0 scenes this late in the game is that I get a direct comparison between then and now. I've had the opportunity to revisit a skill I didn't even know was lacking and think, 'Wow, that's terrible, and I've come a long way.'

Plus, my own relationship to the material has evolved over time. What hit Cael hard back then and caused knots to cinch in my chest no longer affects me in the same way. Valen working late day after day, the slow burn of tension between him and Cael...time had a way of softening those moments.

However, what struck fresh was the flinch I felt from Cael whenever Valen asked them to stay away from the people who had contracted the illness spreading through town because of how poor Cael's immune response was at the time and their near-death experience with illness shortly after they first arrived on the Material Plane.

All those years ago, the chest clench was caused by them saying to themselves, "Don't be selfish." Revisiting those scenes for the sake of finally transcribing them, the primary thought was, "Don't be a burden."

So, not only has my impromptu role-playing matured, but so has my relationship with the material.

In what ways has your own relationship to your earliest creations changed?

Summary of Notable Accomplishments:

• Changed up some of my exercises for Built With Science:

  • Took out Quad-Focused Bulgarian Split Squats and replaced it with Single-Leg Romanian Deadlifts. Ow. I was only using 5 lb (~2.3 kg) weights in each hand, but the burn was real. And the lack of balance.

  • I added Skull Crushers to my Upper Body 2 days to help develop my triceps; I have yet to try them out; that'll be Friday.

  • I replaced Single-Leg Hip Thrust with Dumbbell Glute Bridges, for which I am thankful because isolation exercises take so much time and make me dread the workouts for lower body day even more. I'm much, much more comfortable with Bridges from my time doing Pop Pilates.

• While I was editing my blog post for last week on Thursday, I received an oddly fortuitous e-mail from Mark Manson's newsletter revolving around the same topic, so I worked up the gumption to e-mail him, since he always encourages people to share their breakthroughs and whatnot. I haven't heard any word back, but that's fine. Overcoming the nervousness to send the e-mail in the first place was the point.

• Did more Vault work in Obsidian, working through a backlog of checklist items, smoothing out some wrinkles in templates and files, getting the Reputation (Claude's knowledge graph) trimmed and archived and rebuilt.

• Transcribed Session 127: 4 parts, ~4 hours.

• Transcribed 2 out of 8 parts for the Session 0 scene I'm working on

  • 7 hours total; I've transcribed 2

• Read my friend's poems that he submitted to a contest

  • I need to reply with comments....

• Read some more "Ultralearning"

  • And "The Subtle Knife"

• Listened to a State of the Arc podcast episode: Do JRPG's Do Faith Better Than Church? —recommended by my partner.

• Listened/watched some Adventure Archives, since my eldest sister mentioned they compose their own music and it's heavily influenced by video game music.

• Wrote and sent some advice for a friend of the family about courteous behavior to follow while they're in Japan next year.

• Been consistently waking up at 5 AM on workdays, minus Friday.

This Week's Obligatory Cat Pic: Qiri