tim rodgers voice THE BOTTOM LINE:
(Credit victory mission music)
- Admit to yourself what you really want in life!
- Don't look down on your ambitions from your youth!
- Look at the themes of your life, rather than the Pragmatic Realities
- Stop trying to be cynical in your success- find a sustainable process to generate $$$ and then focus on your deepest creative ambitions. You are not your day job
- Day jobs are not mandatory, but they make things easier, they are also often the fruit of pursuing your true self. Any role you hate is a temporary thing! do not trap yourself.
- don't overwork! don't expect others to overwork! working is not a virtue!!!!!!!! it's a means!
when i was a teenager i sent chet faliszek during his time at valve software an email asking for writing advice.
I reached out to a man I'd never met, but played the games of- putting my future dreams in his hands as if he were a wise sage upon a hilltop, not even expecting a reply. many of us have this moment in our fields, our interests- but when you think about it, it's a really unfair thing to do to someone who is entirely not tuned into your reality. All the gratitude, romanticism, and nostalgia in the world that you may be feeling isn't even a blip on their radar, for them it's tuesday and it has every right to be: they're just doing their job. It's one small note in their career.
on one hand, the fact that we can admit to ourselves that a small moment like this can have a massive butterfly impact on young people to help them grow into something powerful and a force for good is kind of nice. on the other hand, it's extremely overwhelming. I have, many times, now been in this scenario from the perspective he may have felt. Soon after sending off the email, he replied to my shock
at the time, I asked him: how do I become a good writer?
for me in this moment, this felt like my raison d'etre-
however, what i didn't admit to myself at the time was that since six years old, I'd wanted to be two things:
(alright now i've got you hooked, rest below the cut)
segue/flashback
my creative ambitions were bubbling up, I was getting tired of living in stasis and my imagination was often the only way towards a much brighter future, but I felt utterly incapable of imagining how that would interface in any way with the real world. For me, the 'real world' was actually a stream of media propaganda- new york city? hollywood? all of that stuff? I may as well have been an immigrant in the eyes of my own culture- I only got the refined product, the high fructose corn syrup version. I had no context or ability to parse it beyond my father's oddball film taste and trivia that went with it amidst mountains of home recorded bootleg VHS tapes.
my motivations were simply, 'escape by the most practical means /within reach/' and the idea of being some kind of scorcese or spielberg type figure felt impossible. which is funny- given spielberg just loved to shoot goofy little films on camera as a youngster not unlike lynch or anno. (love of the medium is key here, folks. more on that later)
so being a director turned into 'being a writer' and becoming a woman turned into 'remain the genderless blob shaped by my parents indifference towards gendered roles that people project onto' (many a fellow kid asking me, at the time, 'are you a boy or a girl??' to which I responded 'I'm me???')
directors felt like magicians, writers felt like scientists trying to send a space probe out. Modest ambitions taking shape via TV episodes and low-budget films; for some reason this felt more achieveable (as if no low budget production has had a director in my childhood psyche.. ha!)
end segue/flashback
Chet, in all his (to my youthful imagination) infinite wisdom answered thusly:
Just write, write every day, just commit. Don't stop writing, if you want to be a writer just write.
It felt so obvious, but so simultaneously harsh to a romantic thinker like me- no! there must be some great secret, some great wisdom??? I must have misinterpreted the signs!
nope. he's 10000% right- and it's that advice I would pursue much later on to become a (allegedly) very good writer (desperately in need of an editor- boy do I have whimsy but I bend the english language into funny looking pretzels)
however, this success as a writer would typecast me to myself in this role. OK- i'm a writer, now I have to make a living, writing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! queue ambitious projects (some successful) and later burnout phase that taught me some harsh lessons about 'powering through it'. (when Overworking brings you even modest success, it feels like your safest bet in the same way foraging in the forest for food always seems like a great way to satiate your hunger when the corner store is right there.)
I worked out the woman thing a long time ago, but it's taken me far longer to admit myself that I am, in fact, equipped with the desires & instincts of a director. It's not a die cast from birth, it makes total sense for a future-film nerd nurtured by her father on a collection of eclectic nightmarish slow classic films by a man whose appetite for cinema bordered on 'psychological horror ok, gore not ok! action ok! deep philosophical things ok!' not realizing that this would, in fact, leave deeper wounds than if I'd simply been shown or allowed to watch Chucky or The Thing. (i've now had enough depressing war films to last a lifetime and some of the most traumatizing psychadellic sci fi ever to grace british-then-american televisions. If I had a word to describe him, he was a proto-otaku of the 'make tank minifigs and statues' variety)
what im realizing now, much later on- watching Chet's tiktok videos where he once again imparts me with powerful wisdom in a mundane way:
you can be truly, super successful in the eyes of society and ultimately still wind up on a tough and difficult path. Chet was, from my younger POV- top of the world after Portal 1 & 2, Left 4 Dead 1 & 2. How could he not just be the perpetual legend who moves on into the grey mists of fortune & notoriety? Life doesn't work that way. Chet's not a billionaire, he had a few fun creative hits built together with a whole ass team of incredible folks. He has gone on to make "The Anacrusis" (https://store.steampowered.com/app/1120480/The_Anacrusis/) while also being very, very transparent about the realities of running Stray Bombay on tiktok.
It's not that I knew any different- I've spent the past decade learning that the very hard way, ontop of watching the results of Doublefine, Supergiant, and Giant Bomb's respective journeys from the hilltops of recognition to the deep lows of being at risk of failing or getting sold off.
What Chet showed me, at this age, is it's not just me- it's not just the folks at Doublefine or anywhere else; it's entirely possible to be successful and still find yourself OVERWORKING AT AN UNSUSTAINABLE PACE. For Chet, that was a choice to put his team & people first, it sounds like he's put his values where his mouth is and worked himself so hard to make sure his folks have the ability to put food on the table. I don't work for him- I can't know this for sure, but he is absolutely a stubbornly sincere fellow from my experiences meeting him and watching his works over the years.
(if you're reading this Chet, one, thank you, two: it's very strange that I keep finding myself inspired by your journey- it's not on purpose, I swear! I just keep bumping into your writings & thoughts at the right time unintentionally, so I appreciate you being out here with me in the cosmic winds. grateful for all the times we've crossed paths, even if you don't remember them! haha how embarassing)
The lesson I try to impart onto the bright eyes looking in my direction for inspiration is thus:
stop working so hard. Having a good work ethic is important- knowing when to apply it is better, there are some days you should push through but they become rarer and rarer throughout your life. If you find yourself at the crossroads of overworking to meet a goal, you have to ask yourself what you're shedding years or quality of life in service of- are you saving lives? are you shaping yourself towards a more sustainable future? or are you simply throwing good effort after bad?
My transition was easy, a no brainer: I choose happiness, otherwise I live a walking, waking death.
now, I have to realize my other ambitions: I choose happiness, again- to return to my imagination, to dissuade myself of the notion that it was the destination, not the journey that matters.
I want to be a designer, I want to be both a game director (of the taro/järvi/kojima/suda/geoofrobots/babs & yuri/the romeros) variety. And in time, I want to be a film director too- although my goal is really only to be like Benson/Moorhead, Raimi or Del Toro. These aren't name drops as a matter of "i'm going to be like the greats!" but rather folks I think have interesting attitudes towards their mediums! these are people that, as far as I can see from where I am- find JOY in their ambition, their work.
so.. stop writing- stop doing whatever it is you think you HAVE to do even if that is a slow rolling stop, and recognize that it's merely a part of who you are. I am glad I am a writer, I am glad I know how to do it well and do it sloppy & heartfelt (like this piece) but more importantly I am glad how it will contribute to my above desires.
give yourself permission to be a whole ass person, and don't let that energy go wasted on someone else's ideas of who you should be, or phantoms you dreamed up in the corridor.
One last piece of advice: if you don't get off the path of overworking yourself for some romantic ambition you do not understand, you will either quickly find yourself a hungry ghost or worse yet, a monster. The cruelest people to walk this earth have done so for 'good causes' or 'best intentions' or pursuing a dream at the cost of their humanity. If the joy of living won't motivate you to take care of yourself & be in touch with yourself, I hope this will deter you from the path of romanticized self-destruction.
Get out there and make cool shit!!!!! remember- businesses cases are just a tool, art does not need to justify itself to capital, money and resources are just a tool to realize artistic ambition. if you want to make impossible things, find a way to do it sustainably! don't ever surrender your vision!!!!!!!! be stubborn in your pursuit of joy, not to enduring what you think you SHOULD be doing ;)
