Mason,
If you are reading this, then you don't remember who I am. And if I told you, you likely wouldn't believe me. So, at least, know this:
I am a friend, and you are in danger.
The Self is chimaeric. It's ever-changing, adapting to the environment, the interpersonal presuppositions, the needs of the current moment. It is imperative that you know this, in order to understand the danger that you unwittingly find yourself in.
You can change— you can grow; you can also stagnate, or even regress.
In games, you typically gain character ability— levels, attribute points, etc.— as you gain experience. This is a linear progression (well, linear temporally; but typically it requires increased XP to gain higher levels— and is thus exponential). You grow as you progress in the game, and nothing you do can reverse that progress. You don't lose character levels, attribute points, etc., if you stay away from the game for months.
This is intrinsically a perversion of immersion. Because if you stay away from a game for months, your player skill will degrade, even if your character skill does not. The medium diverges from the content.
All this I have said for one simple reason:
You are not a game character.
If you stray from the path for months, you will change— and likely not for the better. At best, you will stagnate— and increased rate of growth is as vital as growth itself.
Who are you?
Who is Mason?
Simple, a linguist by training, a roleplayer in heart, a game designer en futur¹. You graduated from UC Davis with a BA in Linguistics, and got into the #7 MFA program in the world for Game Design. You joke that this is surprising, because your portfolio was purely a document of D&D 5e homebrew content, and your primary letter of recommendation was a coalition of support from your D&D players.
So remember this— for there will be days when you forget.
Remember that you must immerse yourself in growth. Flow state requires skill, but also a modicum of inexperience. That is, to say, that you can never enter flow while approaching a project that you are presently fully-capable of completing. And you need flow. You more than anyone. You are a creative. If you are not creating— if you are not growing— you are dying. And we have so much work to do.
We are just getting started.
Amicalement²,
Inspector V
Ettingrad Dept. of Mysteries
¹ “In the future” (français)
² “Friendly-ly” (français)