While travelling I tend to have time to think. One of the things I got thinking about is what it must feel like to be one of the left behind. I found myself pondering the question from a number of vectors but primarily for one reason.
I’ve never felt left behind, at least not permanently.
What does it mean?
What does it mean to be left behind? For the sake of this post, it means when an individual in some ways becomes disconnected from the wider movement pertaining to something essential to their well-being or, in its lesser form, important to their identity or things they enjoy.
When you take this wider definition it’s obvious to see we have people being left behind all the time due to economic shifts and generational demographics. Some people get very angry about it.
Economically left behind
We hear a lot about the economically left behind and for a good long while I had to admit to myself these were people I didn’t know. I just heard about them apocryphally via news outlets often written by middle-class media sorts or, via a much better work, the book Chavs.
I highly recommend Chavs and its explanation of where the working class have actually gone or changed.
Then Brexit hit and we got to see how these economically left behind decided the state of a nation, again, according to middle-class media sorts (it’s proven to be a more complicated as time has allowed us to reflect).
Now we are in the cost of living crisis and we have more middle-class sorts but now they are giving cost-saving advice to people who, even before the crises, didn’t have any room to move around their finances.
The truth is a generation of my family was left behind.
Despite all this, I don’t feel left behind, as this experience was largely at a time in my life when it didn’t seem to matter to me as I wasn’t economically independent. It was my parents who got hit it hard, my father going from a good earning position to a terrible one. I was one of the generation whose ability to outearn their parents was relatively simple to do as I was part of the opening up of University education.
I did have my moment post-2008 where I struggled for a couple of years where I did feel like I was rapidly being left behind and I found it incredibly hard to deal with. Possibly there is a multiverse version of me who didn’t take the opportunities presented out of school or didn’t recover from the financial crises and that version is living in a more challenging economic environment.
Fandom media left behind
People think the existence of the fandom left behind is a new thing. It’s not. It’s just the internet and social media make the megaphone louder. Way back when TNG was released there was the left behind. When DS9 was released there were those fearful they were being left behind by its new tone and whatever else.
The sad thing about the fandom left behind is it’s driven by a sense of grief and loss, it’s just unfortunate some have gone on to monetise that initial grief and loss engineering it into a megaphone of hate.
Oddly, this is the one I can appreciate. I feel there are certain choices Star Trek is making that are starting to leave me behind a bit (it started with Picard S2 and Discovery S4) the difference is I shrug my shoulders about it. It’s not like we don’t live in a high target alternative media environment!
It’s also important to recognise once we move beyond the economically left behind these are decidedly odd things to make your life full of anger about. If you’ve tied your life, identity, community and how you spend considerable time into something that drifts away from you it’s understandable, but not really justifiable.
Tabletop role-playing left behind
There are many things driving division in the tabletop role-playing space but leaving out racism and opportunity to earn a living (just because that’s a whole other topic) they can be boiled down to two things:-
- Arguing things as implicit truths that are really just about aligning playstyle, system and stake setting OR
- Whether you found the games you like as the hobby developed or found it a while back and the hobby moved away making you one of the left behind
That’s pretty much what every debate in the tabletop role-playing space comes down to that pertains to actually playing and which games people prefer.
I was never left behind by the role-playing hobby as despite starting in 1982 I didn’t actually find the games that fit me perfectly until Spirit of the Century was released in 2006 and the whole concept of fiction first took hold as a design principle (for me, it may have its origin earlier than that). I moved forward with how games changed, searching for the right thing as games got closer to something I was searching for.
But imagine if the games and style of play they advocated (allegedly, there is some dispute) were some of the very early games and then the whole hobby pretty much moved on? Not only did all the new games approach it differently the very games you liked went on to approach it differently as new editions were released which is an even greater sense of betrayal.
At that point, you do become one of the left behind. At least you do until those games and style of play come around again when it’s realised there is a market for it as is the case with the whole OSR movement.
Why I’ve not been left behind
I’ve often wonder why I don’t see myself as being left behind. There are a number of reasons.
Timing and luck. When it comes to not being economically left behind there is some timing and luck. I became economically independent in 1992 just as the longest period of economic growth began right through to 2008. I’ve also been able to get jobs via connections, though as some people have pointed out that is not luck but about what you leave behind with people.
Change is exciting. I find change exciting, even if it doesn’t go the way I’d want it. This tends to make me more ambivalent about change actually happening. Yeah, Star Trek: Discovery during seasons 3-4 started changing in ways I’m decidedly less interested in but the show’s journey itself has been fascinating even if the end result is something I’d watch with less zeal. It’s similar to changes in society, some of it may be less my thing but we are a complex species and we have a range of complex views. It has to be pretty extreme for me to get seriously irritated about anything.
A holistic identity. I’ve been scrambling for a way to describe this as it’s a bit nebulous, but I think it comes down to how I view my identity. My identity isn’t invested in one singular thing. It’s a bit like a holistic brand. Like Apple. Apple the brand is more than the iPhone or the iPod. Products may vanish or go but Apple likes to think the holistic brand will survive. I’m a bit like that. I’ve not linked my identity to any one thing so as things change I don’t fall into an existential crisis.
I’m selfish. Well, not in a nasty way. I help people. I’m fascinated with people. It’s more I am selfish in the sense I do what I want to do when I want to do it and as long as I’m not causing anyone any harm everyone else can happily get on with whatever shit they are doing and I don’t overly care. This means I don’t get into unhealthy spirals over feeling the need to be kind about everything. Selfish is maybe the wrong word. Possibly it’s more a healthy acceptance of what I can and cannot control. You get the idea.
High locus of control. I believe I can alter my circumstances. I exist in a permanent state this is true whether it’s a delusion or not. I’m not someone who believes their every choice and potential is decided by others or things outside their control (obviously it is to some extent, but I’m not a leaf in the wind). Life can be difficult. Life can be hard. I do believe I can change it. In fact, when that belief is put under extreme stress is when I have problems in life. Since I believe I can change things I worry less about things changing.
I’m no fool. I exist in a permanent belief that at some point I will be left behind and how I deal with it will be a pivotal moment in my life. If we put aside any serious illness, I suspect this will be when I retire or if I suffer some job insecurity close to retirement but not close enough.
And, Finally…
If I have any final advice from these thoughts? You really need to make yourself more resilient to being left behind. How to do that financially is way out of scope for this website but it’s quite easy for the low hanging fruit like your hobbies and interests.
Things change. They don’t always go the way you’d like. It’s not wise to invest so much of your identity and community purpose into something that you become an embittered soul when it goes away whether it’s a hobby or your career.
You need to exist above it.
If you’re grinding out a living through hate? Well, that’s being a bad sport and you’re beyond redemption.