Trying to Improve
Showcasing both success and failure
When playing games, we don’t really think about the challenge, effort and skill that went into making it. We don’t really consider the difficulties that the developer undertook to turn their vision into something playable, featureful, and fun. We just play.
The same is true of every discipline. We celebrate an artist putting to canvas scenes we could only dream of. We praise the director for pulling us to the edge of the seat with spectacle. We hold the maestro in high regard for the elegance of the sounds he constructs. We can recognise when a finished labour is something truly remarkable.
In our current age of social media virality, AI and attention economics, we need to be more selective than ever before. We are asked to prove above and beyond that we recognise genuine talent, for fear it will drown in the sea of mediocrity. True genius is like a needle in a haystack - we are sure to never find it.
This is a problem.
When there is no reward or chance
Learning a skill, it is often quoted, takes 10000 (a myriad) hours. It’s an interesting figure, since myriad also means countless. So much dedication, so much hard work, and the mere distance might turn you away before you even set out on your journey. Many give up after the first hour.
Since it takes so much time to become proficient, and failure seems not only tempting, but almost assured, the belief that we could never do it is reinforced. It is a massive undertaking, so why decide to take the path at all?
Again, in the context of the modern world, this question seems to answer itself. Are you actually going to be seen for your effort, unless you are the best of the best? Do people actually care about talent, uniqueness or spectacle, when most of what they see is generative AI, or people cutting soap? If you put in 10000 hours to become particularly great at your chosen skill, are you not then only one of many equally talented or more talented folk, all far more deserving of reward?
And what reward!? Do people with genuine talent gain anything any more - recognition, money, employment? On the contrary, it can seem (as the algorithm controls what we see) that the current stock of wealth and celebrity are chosen precisely for their lack of skill. Maybe then it’s just not worth trying.
What a depressing, demotivating mindset. Is this the world we’re in now?
No… I don’t think so.
First of all, you just have to
If you believe that “going viral” is lame and unrewarding; if you think that celebrity is the reward for the undeserving; if you hate that people are intent on watching garbage instead of searching for quality… then you have to do something about it.
Everybody laments about the state of the modern world, but we forget that it’s a product of our own failings. It’s too easy to say “but how can I compete with AI”, yet not recognise and promote the genuine work of human beings. It’s incredibly simple to whine about the talentless, it’s a lot harder to respect talent when you see it, and harder still to devote your time to emulate the skills and techniques someone respectable shows.
When we look at greatness, it’s easy to point to all the ways in which we are different to another: whatever privileges they had over us, not least if they were born in a different era and not the modern world. It’s a lot harder to recognise that you are both human, and therefore, you are capable of great things too. You could look up to anyone, and look for something you want to learn from - a technique you could echo, a mindset you could adopt, or a path through life.
In doing so, you contribute to the world. You become a pattern for others to follow. You become the diamond in the rough. I believe that aiming higher is an obligation that everyone should shoulder. If you truly hate all of those flaws in the current system, then the only way to improve it is to make yourself better than it.
If you are the best you can be, then think of how capable you would be at helping others and shaping the world.
The complicated world of “best”
One of the biggest reasons people resist pursuing success or setting goals is that they believe those achievements would be unattainable. I think this stems from the issue of comparison. Being number one is always celebrated highly, but often, number two (or anything less) is treated as failure.
Sometimes, due to our own feelings of inferiority, we reject help from people who know more than us. We think it gives us an edge to say we got to the top “off our own back” and figured it out all by ourselves. This idiocy is also what stops us from making progress - wanting to be the only one at the top is a problem only champions need to worry about… get there first.
Obviously, being second place is a clear signal that you have potential, and need that extra something to reach the top. I’m not a big believer in participation trophies, but I do think that we should be comfortable with coming last if it means we go again with the same commitment to trying to place higher. The pursuit is what matters, not the end result. Not trying should be demerited, but showing up and giving it your all should be heralded regardless of result.
I say this because we seem incapable of this middle ground. We either applaud only perfect success, or as discussed earlier, herald even complete and valueless mediocrity as worthy of our attention. Our slavish devotion to the algorithm and our desire for “satisfying” exposes a critical weakness - that we are not satisfied by seeing other people trying. We disregard trying, and hold our reactions and support for when they succeed or fail.
I have heard this notion - don’t bother, because you will only fail. It’s pervasive. It exists everywhere if you listen out for it, even in trustworthy places. Wherever this message was taught is where the devil lives. If you see someone trying, even if you see no chance that they might ever succeed, you should absolutely support them. The mere act of trying to improve is valuable to everyone.
Improvements on full display
As much as I have berated the online world for skilling-up, I want to give some positive insight on its behalf. As a tool for improvement, the internet and social media can and should be exceptional. I believe that no matter the endeavour, you are best placed by putting your strife on full display.
Put your work out there, even if it’s not good yet; broadcast what you are aiming towards, even if you don’t know how you will ever get there; tell anybody else that you are looking to improve, even if you get no support or praise or help at all.
If you want to learn a skill, there is a lot of value in sharing that with someone else. They could support you. They could offer feedback or assistance. But one big way they help is just by being there.
When I launched Donne Caestrum back in October, I did so purely to make myself follow through with pursuing my goals. If I put my heart and soul into my work, and put my work out there for everyone to see, then I have to keep working to improve because it reflects on me. If I make promises to an audience of subscribers, then I have to fulfill those promises, to not let them down.
As I go, I am constantly setting new goals and subgoals, and dedicating my time to making progress towards those goals - if I didn’t, then I would betray the good will and attention of those who do support me.
Support is useful. The support we receive can help us toward our goals, sure, but it also gives us the reason to strive in the first place.
My own skills as of late
If you’ve been following Donne Caestrum, and my journey in developing a number of game projects, you’ll have seen that I share content based not on perfection, but on improvement.
It is no secret that I am not an amazing artist. I always loved art as a kid, but as the years have gone by, I’ve known there is a lot holding me back - techniques that I don’t know, equipment that I don’t have or know how to use well. I have a very clear image of what I’m good at and what I’m not good at. While I have always focused on game design, art in general has been sidelined.
But game design and art go hand in hand, especially if you want to attract the attention of potential customers. And in a world of viral posts, it became imperative that I start making visually appealing content.
When I started out, there was no art. I have a basic black and white logo (honestly a style I really like and fits the theme of my work well), that is very difficult to work into a TikTok video, for example. The more content I tried to make, the more I realised I had no building blocks to make it out of.
Realms Warriors TCG was a late addition to the project roster, and was only meant to be a very small, very quick-to-design game. I made it sans any art whatsoever, but it immediately felt lacking - if you’re going to collect cards, they ought to have a nice piece of artwork on them. So I started sketching.
A month later, after prioritising my time a little better and completing lots of sketches in bulk, I had all 118 sketches finished. Then came the next step, adding colour, and then the steps after that… tone, texture, details, a style of any kind! I’m not a good artist, the idea daunted and still daunts me, and will continue to be a huge undertaking until it’s done and dusted.
To make matters worse (or so you might think), I shared my work (the sketches, and preliminary colouring) to not a lot of fanfare. The short videos performed better than any I’d done before, though really only because they were visual in nature. I had zero feedback until a lot of time had passed, at which point I learned what I already knew - they were not very good.
The reason I say you might think this is a bad thing, is that actually I don’t. I’ve already told you I don’t value the quality of my artwork that highly. I had to do them anyway, I had to share them anyway, and as I do more I will continue to share them. What matters more is that I approach the task of making that artwork with the full intention and commitment and belief that I will improve.
Eventually, a piece may be finished. That will take layer upon layer of sculpting - of course right now, the piece is unfinished so it doesn’t look good. That will also take hours and hours of practice, not just on the piece itself, but on other works of art, searching for a technique or style that is a significant improvement. And I may end up thinking I dislike where the piece is going, and wanting to scrap it and redo it, maybe even remaking the sketch itself. All of this is okay. All of it is part of the process. All of this is what it takes to improve.
This past month, as part of my Caesariensis “modules” releases, I had to make art for item cards. I took a different approach, spent a significant amount of time figuring out a style, and carefully improved. The art for some of those cards - to my eyes - looks really, really good, and I was genuinely proud of the accomplishment.
How you can support me
I often finish these posts with a call to action, begging for subscribers. I wanted to use this section instead to tell you how you can support me and others in the development of skills in particular - the long process of working towards your goals and becoming the best you can be.
The first thing you can do is just be there. Join the community, leave a reaction, let me know that you are here. You are the reason I strive in the first place.
The second thing is to show your support, even if what you see is not “the best”. As long as you see someone trying - sharing their strengths and weaknesses, successes and failures - then they are worthy of your support. Let them know that they can and should keep going.
Finally, and most importantly, give feedback. If you like something, say. If you don’t like something, politely, say. If you think there is something missing or something that can be improved, say as precisely as you can what you would like to see improved. If you come from a place of genuinely wanting to help, there is no piece of advice that I would ever turn away, and no criticism that I would take too harshly. Feedback is the life-blood of a business like mine.
Without feedback, we all are flying blind.