Overcoming Adversity and Discipline

I. Overcoming Adversity
i. What is adversity?
ii. What attitude should I take towards it?
iii. Surface behavior vs. root cause(s)...
iv. Identifying a Problem
v. Planning a solution
vi. Implementing a solution together
vii. Mediation

II. Discipline
i. Long list of things that you just don't do?
ii. Three Strike process
iii. Punishment and Reinforcement
iv. Identifying and Addressing Negative Behavior
v. Correcting Negative Behavior/Self-changing
vi. Sublimation

I. Overcoming Adversity

Overview: While we come into a new system with our own ideal in mind, more often than not that ideal is not represented in the system or community. In our efforts to pool together a variety of artists around this central theme of "science fiction" - more heavily defined in Axiom's running themes and factions - there's still this unintended crashing of peoples of various backgrounds. Different politics, religion, sexes, upbringings, styles, criticisms, everything, literally everything can be posed against itself. Needless to say, these clashing ideals can sometimes lead to conflict. Rather than purely waiting for a bomb to go off and dealing with the damage then, most of our Policies and Procedures are in place as preventative measures and to explain what is (or is not) acceptable, and how we will deal with those circumstances. This thread in particular will focus on the aspects of conflict between players of all statuses, how "we" - administration - expect "you" - the players - to handle these situations.

Now, don't get me wrong, there is NOT an "Us and Them" mentality, although as a launching site we anticipate that at the start until the community forms. The long term goal is for that "we" to transform from "we the administrators" to "we the community". Ultimately, Axiom's drive is going to be the community, and there is a desire for the players to take hold of their environment - within a set of parameters, of course. P&P are the broadest guide lines I can think of, outlining most of our core beliefs that will be common amongst all the player base without exception, for better or worse I might add. The scope of this section of our P&P ranges from petty name calling to full-out disputes that often end in the dismissal or self-selected removal from a gaming community (the latter of which we're hoping to provide tools for so this can be prevented and all participant parties can retain a meaningful and beneficial experience in-game).

One over arching concept that also should be highlighted is that this is foremost a writing game, a GAME. It's not necessarily hardcore mode, but as with other games you need to realize things will be tough, you might fail, and you can always start over. People come to play the game for a variety of reasons, for the story or for the points. While we can not individually tailor the experience for every player, we're trying to provide for the whole. Really, you'll see this in part of this article as well, don't take things too seriously. To all artists, writers, visual, or otherwise, this site will be a small cut of the millions or billions of people that you can showcase your work to. In the perspective of statistics, that means this site might not be a relevant sample of criticism. Give and take, make an experience worth remembering for the better, and enjoy your time. Here are some tools that will hopefully guide you towards that more fulfilling experience during your stay here in Axiom.

i. What is adversity?

I took a reach to Dictionary.com for a definition and got this:

"
ad·ver·si·ty
[ad-vur-si-tee] Show IPA
noun, plural ad·ver·si·ties for 2.
1.
adverse fortune or fate; a condition marked by misfortune, calamity, or distress: A friend will show his or her true colors in times of adversity.
2.
an adverse or unfortunate event or circumstance: You will meet many adversities in life.
Origin:
1200–50; Middle English adversite  (< Anglo-French ) < Latin adversitās.  See adverse, -ity

Synonyms
1. catastrophe, disaster; trouble, misery. 2. See affliction."

Adversity sounds pretty scary... However, in a F.B.L.A. conference in Hershey, PA during 2011, or so I think it was, I attended a workshop with a Ms. Shel - I believe her name was - who addressed the topic of overcoming adversity in the work place, amongst people, and so forth - more of your every day adversity. I think the very real answer to what kind of adversity you might encounter here, or in life at large, is all kinds! So while this is not a workshop of trained human resources people, we will have some ideas we're putting together to help keep things peachy as possible.

The above information provides us with two big ideas: 1) Adversity comes in all shapes and sizes and 2) Adversity manifests as a physical experience. What is missing, however, and is most vital to our discussion of adversity and how to skip over it like a little stream in the woods is a third point: Emotion is internalized. This is to say that while there is a stimulus that may cause two bodies to feel negative emotion, which then emerges as conflict, the solution does not solely exist in that space between, but has two very unique sources that react poorly when mixed (think of combustion reactions!).

To address the internalization of emotion, i have this nifty quote from Dominatron's Facebook because...well I just found it very to the point.

"Your emotion, your indicator of vibration, is indicating the ratio between your currently focused desire and any other belief or thought that you hold about same. When you feel negative emotion, anger about something, or fear... the name of the emotion does not matter, it always means that there is a desire within you that, in this moment, you are contradicting with some other thought. Your emotions are always about your relationship with your own desire, and nothing else.

- Abraham-Hicks"

In light of the unique perspective and language this quotation takes, I want to say foremost that there are other "translations" of it's meaning. What I want to focus on in this reading is the thought of belief being the beliefs of an individual and the desire being the present thoughts in mind, namely the assumptions our stupid brains make because they think they know it all and fill in pieces. I'd like to set this up as an example.

Take two players, John and Jane, who are engaged in a thread. This thread is based around combat between the characters John and Jane play. John holds in his mind belief A - that his character is the stronger of the two, while Jane holds in her mind belief B - that her character is the quicker of the two. Besides this, assume that each player holds the belief that his or her own character is the central character - which will prove universally true as we'll see later - and that the character are statistically matched/balanced. At some point in this thread, John and Jane come to out-of-character conflict on who's character should win the battle.

Be break it down like this as the two sides of the argument:

John holds belief A
John feels negative emotion over conflict with belief of present
John and Jane are engaged in conflict of belief
Jane feels negative emotion over conflict with belief of present
Jane holds belief B

Because both John and Jane hold normative opinions of how the battle should play out, "My character is stronger and will crush yours" or "Mine is quicker and you cannot land a blow before she destroys your character", and both are statistically equal, there is no proper way to judge who will be victorious. You probably have identified that there are many other factors that come into play as well, environment, equipment, NPCs. Let us refocus on our problem though, the negative emotions that John and Jane are experiencing...

Regarding a character as a protagonist or antagonist, you'll find, will ultimately boil down to perspective. This draws us back to the universal fact that every character is the main character to a given player. You probably don't play a weapons broker to be that supporting character for a five minute purchase from one of the other guys traversing the solar systems getting all the action. Moreover, when do you see a player make a bad guy who is born to lose? As a game, every player rightfully believes he or she is entitled to the full experience of being the "hero" - relative to intentions. When we run into a clash of ideals like this that prevents the fulfillment of that belief, such as the conflict with another belief, we might feel frustration or anger. "That wench is screwing with my creative genius!" Well, buddy, what do you think you're doing to her exactly...? John and Jane need to have their eyes opened.

So we define adversity as these parts: the internal conflicts of individuals, which comes in a variety of forms, and the outward expression of this conflict which creates our external conflict/adversity.

Another point yet that Abraham highlights is that although there may be a conflict of belief and desire to identify, staring at it doesn't make it go away! When confronting adversity, it is best to fill the roles of problem seekers or problem solvers, depending on the stage of adversity (has it been predicted or is it prevalent?). However, for a proper understanding and dissection of the conflict, you need to have a very clear mind. For this reason, I suggest the 24 hours rule!

THE 24 HOURS RULE: In the event of an experience that provokes a negative emotion, DO NOT ACT ON IT. Remove yourself from the situation and wait, at minimum, 24 hours before you think of it next. From there, analyze your experienced emotion academically, what you felt, what caused it, and so on.

It's very important that you just don't wait 24 hours before you start throwing insults back; the idea is to remove yourself from the stimulus so you can come back to it as a lesser bias. Think of the calculating Volcans of the Star Trek universe; there is logic to emotion, though emotion itself is not necessarily logical.

Just as my own anecdote of this rule's success for myself, I once engaged in a conversation with a moderator from another site with the intention of joining the staff. A discussion of basic themes of a region int he game that I would oversee, basic things like what resources are in the environment, blew up. Short of calling someone nasty names, I just let things settle over the weekend and then came back to the situation. In response to this even, I wrote an apology letter with my application explaining my perception of the region and how it conflicted with the region in fact, my intentions to learn and develop as a writer, along with my previous experience and contributions. That moderator is now one of my go-to buddies for just about any problem I might have, a friend, and confidant.

This 24 hours rule, in my experience, really gives you time to think of how you can transform weaknesses into strengths, or make an opportunity from a threat. That's what adversity is stemming from, after all, the perception that your belief is being challenged. How often is that the case? Rarely, I imagine.

The take away here is that adversity is a two pronged issue. Yes, there is someone else to "deal with", but like you, this individual is experiencing an internal conflict of belief and happening. For a significantly greater result of resolution, take some time out to settle your internal conflict before you come back to that manifestation of negative emotion. It might turn out to have been nothing at all.

Very basic outlooks on behavior provide us with a model we've all learned from elementary with cause-effect; the environment provides a stimulus to which you the individual react to. While there are stimuli as simple as hot stove, reflex to take your hand off, we are more capable of higher end cognition that isn't so cut and dry. The seemingly negative act of one individual on another may be motivated be a stimulus from the initial's environment, and there's this trade off in miscommunication. That is to say, people are reasonable, though their methods of reasoning may be different. People are still following a path of logic, and more likely than not have good intentions in mind - though they may not be good for you specifically.

One thing I think will be common or at least probable to arise in our community is criticism, which itself becomes a very sensitive subject. Reflecting on my own education, I can say while I was tough to think and communicate analytically on an objective subject, I've never had the opportunity to learn how to communicate that into ordinary, empathetic speech as I have in more recent years. So, I hope to pass on what little knowledge I have to you; it's not rocket science, but these are things we make take for granted.

The primary issue I want to address here is criticism, which I think will ultimately lead to any conflict between individuals. When criticizing someone, get need to remember that you're addressing a vulnerability, and people will react to defend themselves if you do it poorly. You may have the best of intentions in sharing an idea, but the behavior comes across as rude, and the defensive response seeming as stubborn is actually motivated by internal pain.

The take away here is that people don't always act how they feel. The responsibility to yourself and to others is to state your intentions clearly, for example, "John, I want to say something back to you, but that's not how I truly feel. You've hurt my feelings by suggesting criticism X about my work. I'd like we take some time away from this so I can think about it, and then I might like to hear more about what you have to say." You're approaching a subjective matter objectively. It's tricky, and you'll want to fall back into emotion ridden writing. Just be sure you're addressing what's going on in depth, and not just a matter of surface miscommunication.

What mostly needs to be said on the act of identifying a problem is that the problem may not truly exist. Conflict, more often than not I assume, on our civil level is an effect of miscommunication of ideas. In such a case, it's vital that individuals come together to address these miscommunications to clarify their messages.

If there is in fact no miscommunication, the next area of address is the ideas of subjective and objective problems. Think back to John and Jane going at one another, John thinking Jane's stupid, and Jane thinking John's rude, each for his or her own presentation and communication - the messages being quite clear. The problem therein is not that John and Jane are ignorant individuals, but they are both seeking outcomes that cannot coexist.

Going back to their characters' conflict, there are probably more layers. For example, Jane's character may be an infiltrator while John's is a guard. Rather than demanding the death of one character for the story to progress, there are other outcomes that ought be pursued. Jane can make a strategic fall back and let John's character defending his position and pass before resuming her mission; they will probably both run into more conflict along the way, but this at least overcomes the stalemate problem that was causing so much friction between two individuals.

When identifying a problem, think of mutuality, not just what you want.