Years ago some very nice members setup this blog for me to reach out to the team from time to time and share some insights or lore or history etc. It's been a while since I posted here and I wondered if I hadn't had the keys taken away! Well, here's the article, so read it while it lasts... I am forever a rebel at heart, and imagine some of the things below may be construed as incendiary and taken out of context. But, i sense a dramatic change in our society and gaming experience as a whole and wonder where TAW is headed? A recent request has made me ponder these bigger cultural and societal settings with respect to our little community.
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Recently, a member contacted me looking for the venerable list of "maxims" that I and some others generated years ago. I only know a very small fraction of you these days. So, many don't know me personally or my line of work. I work as a systems engineer at a major OEM and a part time university instructor, and now know with hindsight that these items are not "Maxims" but are in fact Heuristics. i.e. "Rules of thumb" They are behavioral instructions predicated on some unwanted situation... like unruly or disruptive members. Back then i didn't know what to call them and thought Maxim sounded cool and fit the description.
This raggedy-old-list had entered the TAW lexicon years ago through the training program instituted shortly after I left my time as the Commander-in-Chief. The list was my attempt to succinctly and concisely capture many lessons about the ugliness of people and their desire to take out life's inequalities on those of us trying to build something lasting, positive, and beautiful. I'm being intentionally melodramatic to illustrate the real elan or esprit we felt back then.
As an organization, and one of the largest of its kind, we were constantly under attack from many directions and on many fronts... or so it seemed. After looking these over I really chuckle with the wisdom and hindsight of the victor, and marvel at the real PTSD that those of us who were trying to husband this community into a more healthy and practical life-cycling state all viscerally felt then. I find it very intriguing how this list has survived and been used as a touchstone throughout the years. For the episodes of organizational violence, rebellion, and even the infrastructure-needs are either gone or radically different now than they were back then.
This list was compiled over about a two year period after we had survived some of our most tumultuous struggles. This was around 2007-2008. It was the time when Omega and I had realized that in order for TAW to survive as an idea and as a real entity that lasted beyond the interest of her progenitors, beyond the seemingly inexhaustible ability of people to expend energy destroying something creative and positive, we had to get a system in place that both destroyed and renewed us as a community in a controlled and understood way. This "struggle" was the idea of "closing" a division. This was a radical concept that seemed counter-intuitive, yet was as revolutionary as TAW's original concept of expansion into multi-games. The first division we closed was the original Delta Force division. For without the ability to "burn-down" the stagnating parts of ourselves, we would forever carry that weight and it seemed we would be dragged down by the negative forces that natural "stagnation" brings with it. This was an interesting multi-year debate and prototyping period for Omega and I.
I look at this list and wonder what today's young minds think of it and also if it has any value still? The fact that it is being requested tells me there must be some nuggets of truth buried in its syntax still. Yet, I know that the techno-societal landscape is completely different today then it was just 5 years ago. To think that members of TAW are around today that were not born when I joined in 2003 (no i was not an original founder but joined shortly after we expanded out of our original game) really blows my mind. For this was the vision we cast... to manifest a real brotherhood that had a set of values that the organization tries to uphold is lofty ...and was unattainable for most all communities. The graveyard of fallen clans and communities is a testament to veracity of this vision. Many of these systems we developed are probably obsolete and may even be dragging us down now? Or, maybe not. But I know that the infrastructure problems that generated maxim 1 no longer exist and are not even questioned now... So what about the rest?
Enjoy this ancient (in internet years) document and fire away!
Link to a copy of the original Fox's Maxims