The Marble Maze Analogy

SO. My new favorite analogy!

The Marble Maze. 

Here we are defining a Peerage is a marble that pops out of a chute in an opaque wall. For Pelicans, MoD's, and Knights, that wall is opaque for ME. I can sometimes hear a ball rolling around back there, but I have NO idea what kind of apparatus that ball is rolling THROUGH, or when it will appear. I can sometimes hypothesize the identity of some of the marbles closest to the exit, but I have NO idea what is between them and when I get to see that Peerage happen.

For Laurels, I get to SEE the process. It's COMPLICATED.

WHY does it need to be complicated?

Shouldn't we be able to just look at cool stuff and just drop that marble directly out into the world?

wellllll......It turns out that if you mess this up, people get HURT. Even timing can be enough for someone to drop out of the SCA.

And we want to make the VERY.BEST.PEERS that we possibly can, so over decades and decades, we've constructed a system to try to maximize awesomness. We want the BEST Peer (who won't hurt other people, who will stay around a long time, who finds joy in what they do) and we want that Peer to have the very BEST experience when we make them.

So, over decades, we've slowly built up systems that seem to work for achieving those two goals. In An Tir, there are multiple levels of these, that feed into one another. There are levels within levels. There are holding areas where some someday Peers need to hang out and mature. There are loops where someone needs to figure things out for themselves. There are loops where people stay while the rest of the council figures out how to make the experience of being made a Peer a good one.

Also, there are a LOT OF PEOPLE in An Tir! Sometimes one marble is so far along, another one has to wait until there is time to present them! Sometimes we get a log jam of candidates because we just can't process them all at once, and some are going to have to wait while we make the others. That wait can be months to even a year or more, as our meetings aren't that frequent.

Now, I am HAPPY to describe the marble-maze to anyone who asks, but what I am NOT allowed to talk about are individuals/marbles. I can't tell you why so-and-so is in a holding loop, or if they are in one, or what will cause them to be out of it. We don't pause people for funsies, it's for a GOOD REASON, and one we can't share. I can't tell you where in the maze they ARE. Some are much further along than you think, some are much further back.

Remember, if I tell TRM that THIS marble is ready, I am saying that EVERY SINGLE ACTION that person takes from now until, as they say, the world end or death take me...every action must be one that I am willing to be ascribed TO ME. All Laurels are grouped, so if someone does something hurtful, the populace will assume that's "a thing Laurels do". That's a BIG trust, and I want to know a LOT about those marbles before I send them down the chute and out into the public eye.

So, yeah, sometimes our ramps are at a flatter angle than a lot of people prefer...it goes SLOW sometimes. That marble can rattle around back there for a WHILE, and I understand that people watching get real frustrated about this. I do too!

The social contract of trust is one both sides definitely need to work on.

The people not of that Peerage have to be willing to not assign bad intentions, to trust that those Peers have their best interest in mind, and that the appropriate actions are being taken. That can be a really hard thing when it matters so much to us (please see Gersvinda's philosophy on maturing past envy in the Peerage process).

This IS frustrating, for, everyone! I want the candidates to mature faster and get their awesome projects done so we can make them RIGHT NOW! I get annoyed with other regions seeming recalcitrance on candidates I support, and I have NO idea what the other three Peerages are doing, but I do occasionally want to shake their tower and see if the person I care about's marble will fall out!

But that's not how it works, so I also get to be patient (it's a virtue!) and wait for my friends' elevation.

Now, for a related topic...('cause the angst doesn't always END with elevation, hah!)

WHEN someone has made it through the regional marble maze, they get a formal presentation or dossier made about them (IN LAUREL COUNCIL, who knows what the others are doing). That is then presented at Kingdom (a whole new marble maze!). There has been a trend of newly made Laurels being given their presentation, so they can see WHY and HOW they were made.

FOR ME.

I dislike this, and don't do it.

BUT WHY? Wasn't I JUST advocating for more transparency? Wasn't I JUST ranting about how it sucks to not know what the maze looks like?

Two reasons. Seeing your OWN work is unlikely to assuage imposter syndrome. You are still the human you were, and a list of the papers YOU WROTE isn't going to change your own self image (see the line in the ceremonial "as you most surely have until now"). If you still need external validation that your work is Laurel level...we need to talk about bigger things than the appearance of your dossier.

SECOND, and this is the much more important one in my mind.

In An Tir, you are just made A.LAUREL.

You are not made an illumination Laurel, or a weaving Laurel, or a left-handed-can-opener Laurel. A.LAUREL.

Full stop.

What Laurel you ARE, as you mature into this role, is up to YOU. I learned this from Laurels who talked very frankly about how what they were made for no longer reflects good Laurel-practice, how their interests and focus has shifted over time, and how they have many things that they do, some they are stronger in, others they are weaker in, but those are all their skills, AS A LAUREL.

I am a Laurel who weaves.

I am a Laurel who dances.

I am a Laurel who, in the past, made a LOT of ceramics.

I am a Laurel who does woodwork VERY badly but with GREAT joy.

I am a Laurel who  experiments.

I am a Laurel who does a lot of Viking Age things.

I am a Laurel who does a lot of diverse fiber arts.

I don't know what my presentation contained. Were all those things included? Doesn't matter to me. I know that I got the freedom to define myself as I evolved and became the Laurel I am now. I like Duchess Dagmaer's phrasing about majors and minors, so when asked what kind of Laurel I am, my quick answer is that my major is in Viking Age Scandinavian everyday life, but I have a lot of minors.

I cannot tell you exactly what I got a Laurel FOR, and I don't particularly care, at this point. Because I was made a Laurel, and went forward from that point, to become who I am now.

I'm not that Laurel anymore, I'm THIS Laurel. Sharing dossiers doesn't help the person who was made, in my opinion.

Sharing it publicly is also very thorny, because presentations are wildly individual, and do not reflect the complexity of the marble-maze. FOR ME, seeing other people's presentations is a way to set up a lot of people to be hurt by spurious comparisons that were not the intention of the authors. Those documents are INTERNAL for a reason. I would be happy to share a template for a presentation, but it's...ummm...a list of works? We want you to do something that has research attached to it. Show us that you know WHY you made the decisions you made, and compare YOUR decisions to those of people before 1700. Show us you are ready, and trustworthy, and that I can point a newcomer to YOU to learn a thing.

Laurels are VERY unsubtle. We want citations, we'll pounce anything vaguely interesting, and we love stuff like experiments and historical context. When you have that, we drop your marble in...and start trying to figure out how to make this awesome for YOU.