Proud

You've caught me during a quick editing break. This latest video's a long one, so I've been on the editing grind day in and day out, it really is refreshing to do this the way I used to, just laying down clip after clip without Adobe slowing me down. Hopefully, this momentum can continue.

While I'm feeling slightly nostalgic, I guess it's only right to talk about earlier times. Mainly, the first video I was ever proud of.

I vividly remembered Warren Spector, Deus Ex's project leader, talking about how he feels like every game he's ever made is a failure. When you've made "The Greatest PC Game of All Time" and it's creator feels like a failure after releasing it, that's telling of how ambitious and harsh to themselves an artist can be.

Personally, even just being a Youtuber with a little bit of success in 2016, I thought I was going to be like Warren, because every video I ever made throughout my life, I hated within a week.

It wasn't a useless emotion, each video was a lesson in what not to do, and gave me immediate goals, things I wanted to improve upon, but it was also depressing. You work and work and work just to make something you hate in less time than it took to make.

But, the only way to avoid that depression is to not make videos at all, and for me, that's not an option, so I endured it, figuring that if I could as long as I had, I could endure it forever, never asking if I had to...

And when I released Mass Effect 2... Years Later, I finally asked, I asked because after that first week went by, I wasn't displeased, I was proud.

Today, I think that video's editing is too rapid and the criticism could be better paced; less nitpicky, but, I'm still pleased with it overall, and Mass Effect 3, even more so. In-fact, while I've made better videos since then, Mass Effect 3 might be the proudest I've ever felt making one, after seeing commenters say it was the video that made them finally let go of their anger towards the game, hearing the developers struggles, and the unfortunate circumstances surrounding the game's release.

Making a video that not only pleased me in its pacing, detail, and writing, but also made people feel better and have a firmer grasp on game development, it makes me smile even to type this sentence.

There's lots of dark motivations that compel people to keep pursuing their work. Fear, outrage, pain, and I can't promise those things will go away completely. Every writer, artist, and worker, is different, but I can personally attest that just because you think you can never be proud of your work, doesn't mean you never will be.