Since late June, when Emergent decided not to renew or convert my employment contract to a full-time salary, I've encountered several other incidents which have made me more introspective about my way of being lately. I've looked for new work, traveled to visit family and attend conferences and competitions, and kinda got worse in some ways before getting a couple serious reality checks.
So now it has become clear to me that my abrasive ways brought me to the brink of isolation and estrangement from my family. I have had an awesome opportunity to work on my dream video-game project with a great friend over at Backbone... but my old recalcitrant ways from back when I worked there years ago compelled a manager to intervene to veto my participation at the eleventh hour (after enlisting the additional support of some other objectors who seem to have desired anonymity). Reasons that were able to find their way back to me through my friend were the apparently disturbingly offensive texts that have been publicly accessible from my website here prior to today and also that the perceived risk I would pose is unbearably great.
This turn of events has horribly disappointed and disheartened me. I was so enthusiastic about pouring my heart into the quality of the game, in whatever capacity I could, but to be prevented just at the moment I was slated to begin has been difficult and dismaying to accept.
I am different today than I used to be. I've distanced myself from my volatile ex-girlfriend with more permanence and clarity than I could have done before. I've moved myself down to the Los Angeles area to be closer to family and friends, to maintain happier and healthier relationships, to grow roots in the neighborhood I've most wanted to live in throughout my life, and to establish a platform for more stable success in all areas of my life, including my career. I have been softening. Hearing that this site had become a justification for why I should not be allowed to contribute to the final stages of this short project I so passionately wish to work on with one of my closest friends, this caused me to reassess the whole site critically and to chop it down to this sliver of what it was. That old stuff no longer represents how I feel now.
I want to work as hard as I can on that project, as a cooperative part of the whole team, so I'm hopeful that there must be some possible way for my denial to be retracted. I don't yet know what it will take, if anything, but I'm meditating on what it could be that would precipitate my acceptance as a collaborator. I'd rather help this STHD project to achieve a phenomenal and thorough conclusion more than anything else I could possibly do for the next several weeks.
I may have exhibited consistent behavior over the past year that was perceived of as being so risky to Emergent that they felt they had to retract an offer they had already extended me. Maybe my immediate family recently almost got so fed up with my bitter non-conformist attitude that they prepared to dissociate from me. Those recent events have already been profound motivators for me to reflect on my goals and progress towards them and then to choose to go about most of my activities since with less arrogance and more humility. I'm heartbroken that while I'm trying to realize such productive changes in myself and how respectful of, and collaborative with, others I can be, I may still have to suffer one of my most magnificent, thrilling, and challenging game-development opportunities being snatched from me right as it was about to be entrusted. I so long for a chance to change their mind or to prove that I will devote myself to their highest priorities in a way that is very valuable and nowhere near the risk factor they have become concerned with, because I care so much about this particular project and its immaculate completion.
There was another insinuation that part of the risk I could pose would be a lack of trustworthiness when dealing with the valuable historical software required by the project. While it's true that I love Free Software and open-source, I am no proponent or practicer of espionage. While I may believe that the current copyright system is severely broken, I don't use that as justification to infringe anyone else's copyrights. I'm not into pirating media with torrents or other file-sharing systems. I am principled and honorable. Even though I'd consider such language to be a prevalent semantic error, I doubt anyone credible could be found to accuse me of ever having "stolen" any valuable software. I don't know what I can say or do to be re-accepted to work on this game of my dreams but, if it exists, I sure hope I can figure it out soon. There's no other opportunity I'm more eager to pursue.
