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Rolken:
Did you miss me? :) I'm here takin over ur front page news cause I see a bunch of handwringing about dying, glory days, etc., and I've got a unique vantage point on that.

I founded TSC on the excitement of bringing people together to accomplish new and interesting things. TSC itself has no intrinsic value and never did. It's always been about people and what you accomplish.

In that spirit, I think it's good and right for people to move through cycles, even the community itself. There are wonderful things to learn and experience through a format like TSC, and there comes a time when you've experienced so many of them that it's more interesting to look outward to the next thing.

I don't visit here much anymore. I've been doing a lot of other things. Right now, I help people learn to make software, and more deeply, I help people learn what it means to think about their careers and their lives in a way that leads them to success.

So while I'm not here much anymore, perhaps you can see that I'm still acting in the same spirit that helped create TSC in the first place. This was my first shot at putting those principles into practice - community building, a crucible for achievement, fairness in competition, literal coding - and now I still spend most of my time thinking about those same things. I'm way better at them now. For me it's still glory days, perhaps more than ever.

Some unsolicited advice: go through the process of exploring and discovering what form of improving the world is deeply meaningful to you. This is hard work so don't underestimate it. If you find that what you really deeply want is for this whole sonic speedrunning thing to succeed, ask yourself and others how you can help make that happen. (As you can see, I chose that for awhile.) If you've got other ambitions, spend some time thinking about what those look like and how to pursue them.

And accept change. If you try to reject it, you'll only see the change that inevitably thrusts itself upon you, and that's usually not a nice kind. If you accept it, wonderful things can spring from it.

Do all this stuff, and you can make the glory days wherever you are.

- 2c from the critter formerly known as Rolken

Spinballwizard:
Ohai Rolk. :o

Deep words.

Ah, the glory days. I think Bruce Springsteen wrote a song about them once. But those days were pretty fun. I was tearing up Adva2, trying my best at a few others... for a while I was pretty good. But after a few years it started getting stressful, and then life happened.

I started grad school. I picked up other hobbies. I found new [offline] friends. I got a job. I got a real job. Between that and people finding more ways to break the games (through glitches, etc.) I once had fun competing in, I wasn't having as fun competing as I originally had and I didn't have as much time to commit. So I backed off. Took a break. After all, if it's not fun, why bother? I went into a new cycle.

So far it seems to be going pretty well though. I finished that master's degree last week. I hit my one-year anniversary at my now-full-time job a couple months ago. I moved out (finally). Turns out I'm also a decent Warmachine player and an ok Magic player. To say I'm disappointed with where things are right now would be a pretty big lie.

I guess what I'm saying is change can be good.

I still dust off my Sonic games every once in a while. Heck, I'm competitive in nature so my speedrunning mind still takes hold every once in a while. (I'm also very rusty it turns out. And I still haven't technically finished Lost World 3DS...) Heck, I still poke around TSC every once in a while to see what's up. (How the hell am I still top 10 in Adva2!?)

Do I miss the old days? Sure. I miss BSing with Mike and RPG at odd hours of [my] night. I miss going back and forth with douglas on Adva2. (That got intense for a while. If you don't believe me, check out some of our many stat comments.) I remember the few records I had. The rom hack/DIY craze. Even a certain phase where myself, RPG, and Quartz (among others) all became basic bird Pokemon (Spearow, Starly, and Taillow) before SkyLghts brought an end to it. Heck, I even enjoyed the TSC Michigan meetup (and meetup redux when Mike was around). But I can't stand around reminiscing. People change. They grow. They move on.

I haven't submitted a stat in 3 1/2 years. I'm not disappointed... I just had a shift in priorities. Most people do. You can always look back. (I do. I remember when the chat topic in Wikkity was actually funny.) But you have to look forward too. Find your passion. Follow it. Let it change you. After all, when things get stagnant, that's when walls tend to be hit.

FocusSight64:
Rolken, this was beautifully stated. I agree with every word stated. Without a doubt.

Starlight_Glimmer:
AWW YAH! *chants* ROLKEN! ROLKEN! ROLKEN! queue epic music




It's your boy S&A here, I pester you from time to time to come back to TSC off site (not sure if you know that's actually me irl ^^)

why not in your free time drop in and help lead tsc back to success? I'm not saying you have to come everyday (maybe once a week?), and at least drop in and say hi. Your presence in tsc is powerful (and you probably just scared the shit out of srl... let alone SCD already knows we're awesome because of you, just saying ^^). I personally felt an old school gitty chill up my spine when I saw "topic creator rolken"

You have to remember a lot of members here didn't just grow up with sonic, we also grew up with rolken.

Best regards,
S&A

Cybrax:
haha <3 you, I haven't checked this site in years, but I am watching a twitch stream with over 1700 viewers at 4a.m. and decided to check back in and was surprised you see you posting.

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