Watching the Summer Games Done Quick 2019, I experienced garbitheglitcheress, a speedrunner with the following twitter description:
“Valerie | romhacks and other obscure games mainly | 27 | she/her | | #actuallyautistic | | alt: @garbialteress”
Followed by the pinned tweet:
“Hello, I’m GarbitheGlitcheress; I go by garbi, garb, or Valerie mainly. I’m a trans girl who likes speedrunning retro/more obscure games, and romhacks. My stream priority is creating a good and nice community where people feel welcome.”

It got me thinking about how we define and describe ourselves. If confronted, what do we consider to be our identity? And not even that, but our condensed identity; what do we say to make a short, manageable presentation?

garbi has some very defining descriptions in her presentation, and the three words that stand out are speedrunner, trans, and autistic.
I’m not questioning the validity of any of those terms, but why they’re front and center.

Speedrunner would explain that the content of the account will be speedrunning-related material.

The other two, I’m having a hard time understanding, and I do believe that’s the reason is my inexperience with the topics. On the topic of autism, I’ve been professionally declared on the spectrum, so I have some autistic tendencies, but I also believe that the term and declaration is being used over-liberally to just explain that we as humans are developing behaviours and psychologies that just differ so much from what we were doing 100 years ago that it’s a suitable catch-all. So I’m not untouched by the subject, but I still don’t understand it.

I’ve also never experienced bigotry, judgement or any form of negative consequences of my sexual preferences or identity, even though I’m not exactly a straight cis male, so I’m very out of touch with how important such an issue can be for a person. But why would it be a defining feature, unless it’s a situation that involves personal or sexual relationships?
Is that the primary feature of you? Is that what you do, what you enjoy, and what you are as a person? Why would it be so important that it’s necessarily and introductory item?

If I were to condense my introduction, I would pick things that I do and enjoy, not social conformities. I might use words like “martial artist”, “developer”, “gamer”, “photographer”, but I have a hard time seeing myself starting with “mostly straight”.
Unless it’s a dating app.

To me it resonates as a need for non-conformity. Similar to the stereotype-joke that people that do crossfit, or are vegan, can not start a conversation without including that information; that it’s so important to them that you know this part of their life. To me, unless we’re on that particular topic, that’s just a call for attention. If the conversation is about sexuality, recipes, diet, fitness, or anything related to the topic you’re defining yourself with, then fair enough. But otherwise, it just sounds like a scream for attention over the fact that you’re different than the majority of the population.

And not even population, actually, but the culture that you’re living in. Or when was the last time someone made a big deal over ladyboys in Asia being transvestites or transexuals? Whereas in western culture, it’s more uncommon. However, I would suggest not rare or controversial enough to make it a notable issue.

I guess my life has been very privileged, since I can not relate to these topics.
Or I just find them such unimportant parts of a person that I simply can not understand the behaviour anyway.

Offense sells tickets. Defense wins championships.

This is actually how I survive against better grapplers. And how I can train people I’m better than to become better attackers. I mainly focus on defense and that keeps me in the match for longer than going for an attack. I have, by doing this, become harder to submit and I’m comfortable in positions that puts pressure on me, making me stay calm and keep it technical. I see it often, how people panic when they end up in a position that threatens a submission. And while you should get out of there, you’ve got to keep calm to minimize your mistakes. Evaluate (fast) if you even are in danger before you spend all your energy trying to solve the situation.

A great defense will get you pretty far, but most people find it boring to look at. But that might be because they’re looking at the wrong thing. Focus is usually on the attacking side, as they are the ones that have the opportunity to change things on the scoreboard. But what people that don’t actively practice the sport, or are more connected to an aggressive way of playing, do not appreciate is the beauty of having and efficient defense.

I’m going to go back to grappling and fighting sports for this, because that’s what I know. Here we definitely see the same phenomenon, the audience is reacting and cheering an offensive participant without seeing the technical prowess of the defending part. The roar of the crowd is only present when the attack is strong and visual. And we can definitely see that many of the viewers don’t understand what’s really taking place, as they are only vocal when there are big movements. Only when you have an educated audience can you hear the cheers and clapping when a fighter advances position in a an impressive way on the ground by baiting an attack and taking advantage of the response to increase his or hers advantage in a manner that only someone that is active withing grappling can understand.

To better illustrate the point we can take a look at Anderson Silva, as he managed to make defense entertaining. While he might have gathered some controversy over how he fought some fights purely on counter-striking, and not going on the offense, he did stay a champion for a long time against many different opponents. But what we’re seeing with all that ducking, bobbing, and weaving is a magical defense that was, for quite a while, considered unbreakable. And people will cheer for it, because it’s very visual and easy to follow. Griffin is swinging and Silva is avoiding in a very large and easy-to-understand manner.

And people  won’t appreciated it unless it’s displayed in this fashion, because they can not see it. In MMA they only see that the attacker is not able to get a submission, or not connecting with a strike, and in Super Bowl L they saw the attacking team fail in their attempts to light up the scoreboard. And while someone that understands what’s going on and can appreciate what is taking place, and marvel at the execution of the defending party, that is basically not good television.

Now what?
You did it, that means it can be done, so what’s the challenge?

This is my unfortunate mindset about almost everything. I remember getting into a big argument because I wasn’t impressed by a friend when he was excited about being able to read music. I failed to see the impressive part, I could read music, it was something we all learned the basics of in school somewhere.But most important, it was something I could do, so how impressed should I be?

A 10.000 volt obstacle in an OCR

In more recent years I completed an obstacle course race and a half-marathon. People insisted that I feel proud and my wife forced me to hang the medals on the wall for display.
But once again, I had done it, so what was so special about it.

During some soul searching I learned that the reason I don’t feel pride the way people tell me to is because I’m afraid I’ll expect accolades if I do. Which is justified, one can’t expect accolades just because one has completed a challenge. But that means we come around to why we should feel pride in something we’ve done, since it gives us nothing. Yes, we’ve done it, but what does it give us? If one finds happiness in doing something just for the sake of doing it, then I guess it’s fine. I, on the other hand, am very production-driven, meaning that something has to come out of it in the end. And a participation/completion-trophy is destroying the competitive spirit that evolves our mind to do the next thing, so it’s worth nothing to me. If you’re not the best then you’re just a part of the rest.

There are more like these, but I believe you get the point. My point is that it doesn’t work like that. Turning your hobby, something you love doing, into a craft; a job; an occupation, isn’t the best idea for everyone. It can destroy that hobby for you, even in ways you didn’t imagine. I’ve experienced this on multiple occasions. Maybe it’s just me.

I started out as a graphical designer. I would spend most my time just trying out concepts and techniques, designing websites, graphical profiles, logos, and just art in general. Then I became the go-to guy for such things. People wanted me to do their art-stuff, sometimes with compensation, sometimes without. It stopped being something I did because I liked doing it and it turned into a chore, and so I lost interest. I actually tried applying for jobs, but I wasn’t specialized enough to get a job based on my portfolio, and I had no formal education.

I later became interested in photography and started shooting pictures in night clubs and similar gigs. As the DSLR cameras started embracing video functionality I got into producing video reports and what’s called “aftermovie”. This too grew and I was asked from many sides if I could make a video for an event or something similar. It got to the point that I created a company and tried to offer it as a service. That’s also when the requests stopped. Funny how people shy away from asking for something if they know it costs money. I never tried to rely on that endeavour as a main source of income, so it didn’t affect me much. But my passion had yet again become a chore and I no longer found any joy in it anymore.

Young grappler pulling an armbar on his opponent during a competition.

In my final example I’m going to show that money doesn’t have to be a factor, just that you move something you enjoy for fun into a more serious sphere. I’ve been doing grappling, submission wrestling, for a few years and I always said that I didn’t want to compete. Whenever I was asked I just replied that I didn’t want to, because that would change it to a serious activity instead of just something I enjoyed doing just because I enjoyed it. I was perfectly happy just practicing and attending sparring camps, where nothing was on the line and there was no competition, just friendly sparring. Which in grappling is great in the manner that you can spar at full capacity, you don’t have to hold back so as not to hurt your opponent. Yes, when you get a choke or armbar and stuff like that you stop yourself from pulling the technique fully, as to not injure someone, but the wrestling aspect of it you can go all out on. But eventually I was talked into competing. Suddenly I was not practicing for my own enjoyment, I was practicing to perform at a tournament. I had to make weight and up how serious I thought about practice.
About a year later I stopped practicing due to my schedule not working out. But when that sorted itself out and I went back to practice I didn’t stick with it. I didn’t want to compete again, and if I was doing it without a goal the whole thing seemed pointless. The joy I once had felt by just doing the activity had disappeared.

But I’m also going to give you and example that’s not so horrible. Along with my experimenting with webdesign I also got into webdevelopment; coding, databases, servers and all that junk. That is something I managed to turn into a profession that I’m very happy with, What has happened is that I stopped doing it in my spare time and my inspiration for experimentation is satiated during working hours.

Then again, this site came to be, and it required some free hours to put together, so maybe not all is lost.