#PastebinMonday 01/30/2023 Fear of Becoming an Impostor Edition

'Sup, doods!

I have a very irrational fear that I am only now realizing is driving more of my personal life than I once believed. The thing I want least of all in life is to become stupid. If I become stupid, I have nothing to live for. I see what the Internet does on a daily basis because that's the space I inhabit. I see what Republicans do on a daily basis because I live in a state that votes primarily Republican. I put my head in my hands often from all of the stupid things I see people do. The moment I become like them is the moment I lose faith in what makes me who I am. I do NOT want to live like that.

This is not impostor syndrome. An “impostor” does not believe that they are as smart as they currently are. I don't have to believe whether or not I am smart because I've done enough things in my life to show me that I am smart. I AM SMART, DAMMIT! This is a fear of becoming an impostor, a fear of eventually feeling stupid.

This has led to a very unhealthy assumption that everyone else around me is too stupid to associate with until proven otherwise. I fear that if I hang out with most people long enough, I will become stupid like them.

What's not helping as I am currently writing this is that I am sitting here watching six v-tubers play Texas Hold 'Em poker. I am watching a v-tuber host that is dealing all of the cards and handling the chips. No one knows how to manage the game. Is it hilarious? Absolutely. Do I find it hilarious because it is mind numbingly stupid? Absolutely. Does it mean that I would want to hang out with them with the fun they are having? Absolutely not. I feel like I would be spending half of the time laughing and the other half of the time facepalming so hard that my face would get even redder than it already is.

This is a hella toxic mindset. I need to open up and entrust people with more things. I am looking at the backend things that I am trying to set up for the upcoming Tetris Attack tournament and I THINK I should have enough time to finalize everything, but I don't know if I will have the focus. I could have used a more collaborative effort to build the broadcast layout in the first place so I don't feel compelled to make all the changes myself. I haven't put too much on my plate YET, but the cracks in the armor are starting to show. Maybe they're actually cracks in the ice?

Oh yeah, there is a Tetris Attack tournament coming up, isn't there? I did just reveal the format and all of the changes I've made to it to make it easier to manage for players and staff alike. No more pools. Those were fun, but they're getting too big for the turnout. No more double elimination brackets. Those were also fun, but they dragged on too long. Burnout has been a persistent number one complaint for a long time. I definitely saw apathy at the end of the tournaments as they wound down. I also saw prize amounts get turned down and rolled forward to this tournament in the top 8 spots, thus I am only paying out top 4 until the money becomes worth it. I really put a lot of thought into not only making things easier, but also making things less predictable. You can't keep doing the same things and expect things to change. You have to move on from what doesn't work. I'm hoping to take that lesson to heart more often this year.

Today's (permanent) extra streaming goals:

Goal #1A: finalize broadcast layouts for the upcoming Tetris Attack tournament. I tend to get distracted and procrastinate. I just need to have this done. I probably won't be able to practice until I get this done.
Goal #5: script and record footage for my Puzzle League tutorial series. I have some scripts to touch up before feeling comfortable with moving on to recording gameplay. Maybe I do that part on stream? I still have not ruled that out. Then I will need to record my talking points and edit it all together. I definitely will NOT be able to do that on stream. I don't know if I can work on any of this during the tournament.
Goal #6: clean up my own stream layout. I am brainstorming how I want the final theming to be. I probably want to give people multiple options, maybe allow spending bits to change the look. I don't have anything written down yet. I don't expect to get to this anytime soon.


Straight Tetris Attack practice on Friday. BALL code was fun to revisit for a day, but I would be mostly alone in grinding it out.

That’s my life story for the week. Later, doods!

--Cards