[size0]The following is entirely the opinion of the author, and is not necessarily representative of the opinions of the staff of the ENN[/size]
To shamelessly steal the words Thomas Hobbes, the life of a Europeian President is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” Going back as far as Anumia, so over a year, we can see a rather consistent pattern of Presidents being in control, being mobbed by the public, and finding it difficult to continue at the end of their terms.
Anumia held a single term, and while the term wasn’t, perhaps fantastic, he was vilified by the media, and is remembered as the President whose pride brought him low. After Anumia we had Common-Sense Politics, who finished his term quite well, but when asked to return the following term as Minister of Foreign Affairs, found himself unable to continue. After that was me, and to anybody who knew me at the time, my mantra towards the end of my term was “Never again,” as in, “never again am I sitting in that damned chair.”
After me was Earth, who is notable in that she’s the only President in the last year to serve consecutive terms. She gives so much, so very much even when she has very little to give, but for some reason she is not remembered as the hardest working President we’ve seen in a good long while, and one of the most damn successful ones too. After Earth came Skizzy for a short term, who has also retired from NS public life, though I think not burnt out in the same way as the rest of us (but perhaps he could let me know if I’m wrong). Then came Rachel, whose term I was not here for, but many people felt was an abject failure, and a vote of Non-Confidence ended it early. After Rachel came Sopo, who is being hailed as a rather massive failure as well, but I can’t quite figure out why.
It seems to me that if you want somebody out of public life in Europeia, the best way to get them to lose their interest and fall back is to elect them President. For me, the question now becomes whether we’ve simply elected a year’s worth of Presidents who couldn’t cope, or have we created a culture where the demands on the President are so high that nobody could cope for more than a term, or a term and a half?
In a way, I think we’ve confused happiness with contentment. We have this belief that the population should be steadily growing all the time, and things should be perfect all the time, and being in Europeia should feel like playing with a puppy (or a kitten, if you like) all the time. That’s happiness.
The thing is, that the human condition is not one of constant happiness. Our brains actually attempt to prevent us from feeling like that all the time, because if we felt like that all the time, we’d have no drive to improve ourselves. We’d just lie around feeling like we were playing with a puppy all the time and have no reason to do anything. The default human condition isn’t “excellent,” but it is instead “not bad.” We’ve confused things being “not excellent” with things being “horrible,” and they’re not really. Was this term an incredible brilliant success? Even Sopo would tell you its not. But is it really horrible? No. It’s just kind of meh. It’s not bad. This is going to be what most terms feel like. If we chew up and spit out every President who doesn’t make us feel like we’re playing with a puppy all the time, sooner or later nobody’s going to want to do the job.
This isn’t a crisis of criticism. Criticism is important, and keeping people accountable for their actions in a government simulation is important. This is a crisis of expectations, and I think we need to lower ours, just a little bit. I’ve been there, though, I’ve sat in that chair, and it was hard, and it was exhausting, and I didn’t even get to feel like I was playing with a puppy once. Maybe some other past Presidents can speak about their experiences, because there’s really nothing like it, and if you haven’t done the job, it’s hard to know how it feels.
To shamelessly steal the words Thomas Hobbes, the life of a Europeian President is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” Going back as far as Anumia, so over a year, we can see a rather consistent pattern of Presidents being in control, being mobbed by the public, and finding it difficult to continue at the end of their terms.
Anumia held a single term, and while the term wasn’t, perhaps fantastic, he was vilified by the media, and is remembered as the President whose pride brought him low. After Anumia we had Common-Sense Politics, who finished his term quite well, but when asked to return the following term as Minister of Foreign Affairs, found himself unable to continue. After that was me, and to anybody who knew me at the time, my mantra towards the end of my term was “Never again,” as in, “never again am I sitting in that damned chair.”
After me was Earth, who is notable in that she’s the only President in the last year to serve consecutive terms. She gives so much, so very much even when she has very little to give, but for some reason she is not remembered as the hardest working President we’ve seen in a good long while, and one of the most damn successful ones too. After Earth came Skizzy for a short term, who has also retired from NS public life, though I think not burnt out in the same way as the rest of us (but perhaps he could let me know if I’m wrong). Then came Rachel, whose term I was not here for, but many people felt was an abject failure, and a vote of Non-Confidence ended it early. After Rachel came Sopo, who is being hailed as a rather massive failure as well, but I can’t quite figure out why.
It seems to me that if you want somebody out of public life in Europeia, the best way to get them to lose their interest and fall back is to elect them President. For me, the question now becomes whether we’ve simply elected a year’s worth of Presidents who couldn’t cope, or have we created a culture where the demands on the President are so high that nobody could cope for more than a term, or a term and a half?
In a way, I think we’ve confused happiness with contentment. We have this belief that the population should be steadily growing all the time, and things should be perfect all the time, and being in Europeia should feel like playing with a puppy (or a kitten, if you like) all the time. That’s happiness.
The thing is, that the human condition is not one of constant happiness. Our brains actually attempt to prevent us from feeling like that all the time, because if we felt like that all the time, we’d have no drive to improve ourselves. We’d just lie around feeling like we were playing with a puppy all the time and have no reason to do anything. The default human condition isn’t “excellent,” but it is instead “not bad.” We’ve confused things being “not excellent” with things being “horrible,” and they’re not really. Was this term an incredible brilliant success? Even Sopo would tell you its not. But is it really horrible? No. It’s just kind of meh. It’s not bad. This is going to be what most terms feel like. If we chew up and spit out every President who doesn’t make us feel like we’re playing with a puppy all the time, sooner or later nobody’s going to want to do the job.
This isn’t a crisis of criticism. Criticism is important, and keeping people accountable for their actions in a government simulation is important. This is a crisis of expectations, and I think we need to lower ours, just a little bit. I’ve been there, though, I’ve sat in that chair, and it was hard, and it was exhausting, and I didn’t even get to feel like I was playing with a puppy once. Maybe some other past Presidents can speak about their experiences, because there’s really nothing like it, and if you haven’t done the job, it’s hard to know how it feels.
