I will go through and read every post of y'all's on the platform and <3 them all, etiquette be damned. I'll be your bluesky grandma, just you wait

11/11 I'm sorry if that's a long winded reply– but no, it's not just you. You are not alone. You have a plurality of things to be proud of and among them at the center, you.

10/11 Maybe one can make pride a substrate to anchor clear emotions onto. Something for chemicals to ferry to the happy place in gray matter. I think our collective reflection helps that, as does the repetition of those words so many are taught not to say, of "I should be proud."

9/11 I struggled years ago in a similar way defining love. I determined that love, to me, is not a feeling but an act which takes many forms & it's hard to clock *yes, this was indeed the place love went- here surely is love, a bare-ass electron in the act of existing.*

8/11 Maybe life clicks into place when pride arrives, driving out the shadow like so many cobwebs, do the dirty dishes(self-report) in the sink & mulch the leaves(also self-report). Or maybe it will just make ignoring them more tolerable.

7/11 Maybe pride doesn't *feel* like anything. Or maybe it feels different to different people. Maybe it will finally "hit" when you land that white whale-- finish that big project. Or maybe if you haven't instilled a response to success or completion, it won't matter how hard you crush it.

6/11 ...the same self-validation sinkhole I try to fill yet never see bottom. *Something* isn't right. I think it's the same thing wrong with a lot of creatives who blame procrastination, scope-creep, skillset. Not just outcome over effort fallacy but missing the message at the end.

5/11 I could blame my work trauma, being a cog in machines that by design give no value to my ideas. Or talk about my dad scolding me about the cleanliness of my first car or the time a girlfriend told me I'd never make enough $ for her- big road signs to…

4/11 I've gone over it in my head a time or two since & still don't have the full picture of the culprit(s) responsible for my lack of exultation. I could talk about my childhood & teenage development, where one forms their success strategies for life.

3/11 It didn't *feel like” what I assumed pride would. I made sacrifices & pushed myself & delivered in service to the project & my teammate. I knew then as always that I have a habit of moving goalposts in creative endeavors & was determined not to do that. It should have clicked... Right?

2/11 My teammate @falinere.com (who crushed it) & I mustered ourselves & put the submission together in maybe1/2 the time other teams had. Setbacks, sure, but suffice to say our entry was a heroic feat. When we submitted my wife asked me if I was proud. I found I couldn't say yes.

I don't mean to sermonize but I want to talk about this because it's something I’m working through. Long thread.
1/11 In Sept. I did my first game jam, doing assets & music. Game jams tend to go for a couple weeks or even just a weekend but my 2man team was hamstrung by additional time constraints.