By Windwanderer Aura Bigstep, 167 AR
It is natural, in the course of a life of adventure, to fail. To see others fail. To have your hopes smashed to bits or betrayed. To begin to assume the worst of others, of the world, and of yourself.
These bitter expectations are known as Cynicism. They are a mental defense mechanism, developed to harden a mind against the horrors that those who face the most dire threats must endure. The sting of being let down, of stumbling, or of giving some a chance that you should not have is one that never goes away. It can only be dampened by such negative expectations, so that the failure becomes confirmation of your suspicion instead of a surprising catastrophe made of your best intentions.
Though this outlook is painted in such a light, it cannot be said to not have a place. These feelings are necessary for getting through the day when the stakes are high and your emotional effort is perilously drained from a constant stream of disasters that you must respond to. They are the armor against the slings and arrows of fate.
They also offer a useful predictive perspective. Being able to guess what might go wrong helps you prepare for things going wrong, to protect yourself and whatever else you can. Not preparing for the worst makes the worst even worse.
However, these feelings in excess tend to make one utterly useless at actually accomplishing anything. When you assume every action will fail, you may pass up opportunities that will succeed. You may not lend your aid when it is needed to be the deciding factor between a victory you would appreciate and a nightmare you must douse. It also seeps into your ability to enjoy life, sapping the pleasure from everything around you and forming invisible walls between you and others.
There is another mental skill one develops over the course of a career adventuring, and few appreciate it nearly enough: Imagination. It is also called ingenuity, inventiveness, critical thinking, lateral thinking, pattern recognition, and sometimes genius.
Imagination is your ability to envision not the many perilous paths to failure, but unseen routes to success. To become the first to do something, to try something that those going through the predictable motions wouldn't think of.
Masters of imagination invent magic rituals whole-cloth, discover new secrets or techniques of the world, and can cause great changes in people with a few conversations. It is the art of taking the long way.
The way to utilize it is circuitous- instead of attacking a problem directly, learn about the world the problem exists in. Learn what caused it, what the second and third degree effects of it are, how it operates. Treat it like a machine and examine how all the parts fit together, and then use whatever knowledge you have or can get your hands on to create an indirect solution.
Usually, these solutions will be more potent and take less effort than actually confronting it head-on, and are more likely to succeed if head-on solutions have already been shown to fail (such as slaying an evil-doer who is repeatedly sent back to plague the land by their god.)
The true value of an extremely seasoned adventurer can be quantified simply; how much does their imagination exceed their cynicism? If there is a deficit, they are like to engage in self-destructive or purpose-undermining behaviors out of feral fear of what may happen if they do not retreat to old forms (such as the classic "stab it every time it appears and hope it goes away").
If you feel this deficit yourself, I recommend you attempt to engage the next problem you encounter in conversation- or bring in others to discuss non-standard solutions- and train yourself to come up with inventive means of dealing with it.
It is only through this that the world can be truly improved; the murderous warring against evil produces very little results and costs too many lives to not recognize the failures of the means. It IS possible for the means to not justify the ends, when the well-being of another is at stake, and failing to recognize this invites disaster for us all.