Posted by: Kalax Dominus Gladiorum
Date: 26th/08/2004

My “trip” this year was not a vacation. It wasn’t a relaxation on a warm, sunny beach, even if that’s what some of you may think of as a dream getaway. No, in fact, I was at a special program, deep in isolation in the rainforests of southern British Columbia. The program focused on leadership in the field of social and ecological justice, with a strong emphasis on personal growth as a social leader and as a human being.

Sometimes in our lives, we forget that we are just human beings; that our breaths do not run infinitely, that sometimes we do need to sleep, and that taking on the entire world is a foolish task. Sometimes, we lose track of which path we are following, of which ship we wish to sail into the horizon.

During the past month, I’ve been thinking a great deal about my life and my goals, about what I’ve done over the past year. I made a promise to myself while I was away. A promise I made from the very depths of my soul (such a depth that it is hard to understand how I even arrived there). I promised that I would not hold myself to the levels of a superhero. I am not Superman, I am not a superhero, nor am I superhuman.

I have tried to accomplish such monstrous tasks in such a short amount of time that I completely burnt myself out, and threw myself reeling from the path I wanted to be on. Too many monstrous tasks at once are impossible to complete; and to complete them properly… well that is simply unthinkable.

One of the thing most frustrating to me was how much time and energy the “RP World” used from my life. I care very deeply about the Universe, and about Remembrance, and yet, the said amount of my life it consumes is extraordinary. I’ve been starting to wonder: for what?

I am approaching my fifth year since I joined the RP world. I began, as most do, as a terribly annoying, untalented “newbie.” I joined the ancient guild known as Saiya-jin Domain, and was introduced to basic-level role-play by the leaders, known as Jalinnet, Lesleta, and Rei. From that point (to make a VERY LONG story short), I moved on to help another leader, Michelle Itami, found and run her own guild, called the Royal Saiya-jin Force. (sounds similar, to the RSE, don’t it)

After a long time, the RSF did not fare as well as I’d hoped, and I had several major doubts about its operation. I decided I could no longer help the guild, so I began to found my own. I called it the Universe, because I didn’t want it to be a fraction of what all these separated guilds could be. I wanted to bring them together to create an amazing text-based RPG experience that none of us had ever experienced before.

That was almost three years ago, now. My goals and ideas about the Universe have changed drastically over that time, but the past year has been about one thing. I’ve been focusing on building a community that will last after my departure from here. For the longest time, I’ve wanted to take the Universe out of my hands and put it into someone that I trusted absolutely to continue the legacy.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t find anyone who was interested in taking the position. Not only that, it was difficult even to find people who were interested in the history of the Universe, in what it meant to be part of the Universe, or in what it meant to carry on the legacy. I was so saddened as I watched history being forgotten. When this happens, societies collapse into dark ages, just like the Universe has on several occasions.

I wanted the future to understand the past, to see what had come before. So I began to write Remembrance. Initially, I wanted to involve many people in the writing, so that the story would be as unbiased as possible. I wanted everyone to be as enthusiastic as I was about the history of the Universe, about RSE, SD, RSF, TNR, LSE, and the history of all the other guilds. But I was too naïve for that; I was virtually abandoned by the people I asked to help write, all except one person. I felt abandoned by the people who asked me to help run the Universe.

Last summer, I went away to this same program as a participant, and I left the Universe in charge of the Consules, members elected by other members to run the Universe while I was away. I used this time as a test to see whether or not the Universe could survive without me, whether or not it could survive under different leadership. The results of the test were complete failure. As many know, the Universe went COMPLETELY inactive by the time I returned, and that was only ONE MONTH. It took so much work to try and rebuild the activity, that I paused the Universe for almost half a year. Finally, pushed by several members to restart it, I decided to put in the tremendous amount of work that it took to rebuild the Universe. And rebuild it I did, by changing the website, the rules, and the system. From that point on, the Universe was much more than it had ever been before, and it seemed like a new golden age. It also lasted for a long time, and I tried to change one variable this time. I never stopped working on it, no matter how busy my OTHER life became. I dedicated myself to keeping the Universe alive so that it could flourish, and for a long time, it did. But even though I kept pouring my energy into it, interest seemed to fade.

It was almost as if the Universe, and the RP world in general, was seen as a yearly pastime that some would play when they got bored of school. They would sign on for two or three months, and then abandon the community once again.

This year, I also had to leave for a month during the summer. By this point, the system had completely changed around (from Consules to Moderator, from Warriors, to Warriora AND Magi, etc etc). I had much more faith in the success of all of you this year. But again, the test of Universal self-autonomy completely failed. The Universe has once again gone inactive, as I feared it might. My faith in the power of this community has, unfortunately, been shattered.

This all leads me into the growth I have done over the past month and into the decisions I have reached.

There are times in a man’s life when he comes to truly understand certain truths about the world, even ones that he wished could be different. There are three things in particular I feel I have learned over the summer. The first is that I am not superhuman. I cannot do everything that I have set myself to do.

One of the hardest things for me to come to realize is that it is unrealistic and nearly impossible for me to write Remembrance, the story of our community. This story is near to 100 chapters AT LEAST, and would take me incredibly hard work over the year to write. I had always planned to stick it through to the end, seeing as it is quite possibly the most important short-term goal in my life. I WANT TO FINISH REMEMBRANCE.

But I’ve been thinking. Twice now, I’ve tested and proved myself right. The Universe, without me, is dead. I don’t say this in an egotistical way at all; in fact, I’ve been trying to seek alternatives to my leadership for a year. In fact, I really hate to admit that the Universe will most definitely cease to exist upon my exit. It saddens me to know that it can’t continue for others once I’m gone. It saddens me to know that there will be no one to read Remembrance if and when I finish it, because there will be no for community. Without the community, there is absolutely no context for the story, no reason for its existence. Just in the same way IRL: without the community we all live in together, both in the RP world, and in the real world, our lives would have absolutely no meaning.

This leads me to my second lesson: all things are temporary. We are born young; we may die young, we may die old, but one thing is certain. We die. Our lives are temporary. Our planet’s life is temporary. The life of everything we know is temporary, whether it’s a living being, like a tree or a dog, or an religious idea. Our society no longer recalls what religion the Neandertals worshiped, what sort of people they were.

In ten years, the Universe will not even be a memory, except perhaps in the hearts of a few. Whether or not we continue, I know that for sure. If not ten years, then in twenty years. EVERYTHING is temporary. And another thing that was difficult for me to come to grips with: writing Remembrance is simply a denial of that fundamental truth. Writing Remembrance is my attempt to carry on the past into the future. It is an oral past, one that does not want to be passed unto future generations.

Even though I care so much for this community, I have to understand that I have to let go of it at some point. There have been many people here who do not care for it as much as I do. Perhaps that is the problem. I have put so much energy into a community where no one has reciprocated it. Nevetherless, the third realization is not so much a lesson, but a question I ask to all of you.

Is the Universe a community that teaches us how to live rightly? Morally? Ethically? Justly? Or does it teach us paranoia, anger, mistrust, and dishonesty? What is so amazing about this RP community that makes me, or you, or any of us stay? Or want to stay? Why do we stay? Aren’t there more friendly, more beautiful places to spend our lives? More real places?

Now I give you my third realization: I love you all, but I cannot show love or appreciation through a computer. It simply isn’t possible to be a close to any of you that I want. ESPECIALLY when my life is so busy, I simply don’t have the energy to get to know people whose eyes I can’t see, whose hands I can’t high five, whose voice I can’t hear. It’s an enigma.

I’m within days of making my final choice. Do I continue along this path of self-torture so that I can finish Remembrance, a story that will have no meaning once I leave, because I believe everyone will choose to forget anyway? Or do I take the path I feel myself heading towards, away from the Universe and the RP world, away from the community where I grew up?

It’s a tough choice, but I’m almost there. If you want to say anything to me about the Universe while I’m still considering this, do so quickly. Use the message board, please.

Perhaps it’s time to listen to Tyler Durden: “let go.”