NEARly at the Starting Line
Never backward, always forward. Always.. - Luke Cage
Ever heard the term “one step forward, two steps back”? Yeah, me too… all too often.
At first, it would be an utterance by frustrated characters in popular entertainment. Later on it became things I witnessed in others during their adult lives, before I myself was fully independent. These days, still barely on my own in any real way i can proudly attest, I hear it directed at myself… sometimes coming from myself. It's been a long road up to the summit(which I'm still climbing), ok? At first I thought colloquialism was a phrase that gets outgrown, like people who use "nuke-ular" or "irregardless" instead of the right word. Yes, you are wrong and you truly should use the appropriate vocabulary.
I myself have bounced backward so many times I might as well be a racquetball, complete with the whiplash to prove it. It tends to be NEARly predictable, within less than a fortnight of a great success portents the advent of a slip. I call it "not sticking the dismount": the act of crushing a task, only to faceplant in the next moment where I have to rise to an occasion. You've seen it before, it's the basis for most sitcom tropes that involve the clever or overachievers. It tends to be hilarious to watch, but utterly frustrating to live through earning a victory only to find your face full of cake coupled with a mouthful of crow. After enough tries, the idea is to curb the margin of error until one inevitably ceases to fail. Or so I was led to believe, by myself more than anyone else.
At the Green, following the wrap of our gathering at Denver, I found myself at another Sunday with a coming reset. What's that? It's what I call the process by which I catalog and report the social media and community updates from my end of the world. I would collect various forms of data from a score of sources and compile it together for easier viewing, performing this on a weekly basis. That's just the start; at the very least that forms the skeletal structure of my work there. Reporting back while keeping track of every meeting and group within the main chats can be tricky, accompanying the newer tasks I have taken on makes this a bit of a juggling act. I hate dropping plates, which means I try to keep it together at all times; I don't always succeed. If I'm lucky no one notices the crash and I tend to keep performing unscathed. The conference has spawned more contacts for me to interact with, bring it on. ReFi needs camaraderie.
NxP has been producing art in other forms of medium. One of my contacts has been making old school stickers with graphics from his alpha years in the Cryptombs, which is like a throwback to classic NES games I would watch my older cousins grind all day. I actually don't know much about what's up in the southern and north fronts of the Publishing crew. I suppose I should take the time to correct that by asking for an update using some kind of indirect means. I just got an update that the print shop just whipped up some alien art, very X-Files… you should give it a look! There's just something nostalgic about that eerie neon green glow they use that gets to me in the soul.
It can be argued that all things require a certain amount of retreat or rewind to advance. I myself am sick of regrouping and recouping for what it's worth, which I imagine is very little in the grand scheme. All that really means is if I want more than what I've been getting I have to offer more in exchange than what I've been normally giving. Under traditional circumstances this is that part of the process where I weigh the cost- benefit of it all and judge it not worth the price of admission. I'm not certain why I'm not opting out by now, but I think it has something to do with being over being mediocre. Or I'm hungry for more, literally, and don't want to be more famished. Time will tell better than my predictions will about it…
See you 'round when what occurs.
Signed,
Woodward Forest-Lich
