Erin Sullivan, content creator, off to college

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Eli Dagostino

After 18 is an ongoing series about what four graduates from the class of 2013 are doing this year.This week’s dispatch is the fourth from Erin Sullivan, who is working on a video game and contemplating his next move.

The past few weeks have been fairly busy for me, mostly with a mixture of college preparation for next fall and some large changes to Driftwood. This fall I’ll be attending Becker College in Worcester for Game Design, and I’m really excited to get back to school and to start from scratch again, I’m a goal based person, and only having a few potential goals (that are somewhat dependent on other people) here at home have had its toll on my motivation. So, being able to get back to a school setting and challenging myself would be nice.

In terms of Driftwood, we’ve recently switched a few roles around, moving an artist who wasn’t able to keep up with the workload to different duties and hiring a new artist and, a background artist, which will overall make the entirety of the project more professional and polished looking. I’m really happy about everything that’s been happening with the project, and next dispatch I hope to have a lot of pictures to showcase what’s been going on with it all.

But again, I want to thank everyone who’s supported me and my team for the past two years, since this May, on the 16th will be the two-year anniversary of the start of the project. It means the world to me that my friends, family, and random people I don’t even know on the Internet have supported me throughout my journey, especially my parents. Being an artist and a content creator is a major risk in terms of a profession, but I have faith that I’ll be successful and I’ll really be able to leave something behind me that’s memorable.

Being a content creator and an artist is one of the hardest things imaginable, at least in my eyes. The goal of someone who creates is to leave the person experiencing it with a definite memory, something they’ll always remember, even if only vaguely. Memories are the most important aspect to the human mind in the long run and being able to leave an impact on an individual’s memory, let alone their emotions, or their outlook on life is the biggest achievement a creator can obtain.

Human beings are delicate and very complex creatures; clearly showcased with how we separate ourselves from animals, or from the nature around us, when at the end of the day we’re all made out of the same atoms. All of the same elements and compounds in any mammal have ties to our own, yet…something about us is drastically different…

We have a memory, feelings, thoughts and a soul capable of fully expressing itself to others of our species. We can connect with each other, or with stories that we create. We love, cherish, fantasize…we have ambitions and goals, hopes and fears, we appreciate and at times, we obsess over some of the smallest, most meaningless things in the greater scheme of the entire existence of everything…but at the end of the day, the small quirks and aspects of everything we as a human do, is what make us so unique…

Each and every person on the planet is different and no person is the same. To be a successful artist, you have to find that small essence of individualism – you have to find what truly makes you…you.

After you’ve found yourself, you have to open yourself to the world…You must be prepared for negative criticism, ready for people to belittle and misinterpret your attempt at self expression. You’ve got to be ready for disgust, hatred, and ignorance, because all of this ties in along with our uniqueness as human beings. As perfect of creatures as we make ourselves out to be, we seem to try our best to prove the exact opposite with our bigotry and hypocrisy…

That’s why, I as an artist, a content creator, a writer, a producer, a developer, want to change people’s outlooks on life; I want to open their minds with stories that could potentially melt even the coldest of hearts. My dream, my unique lust as a human being is to be able to inspire, and to be remembered by at least one other person as someone who made the world a better place through what I love doing.

And at the end of the day, truly achieving that deep human connection – the only thing that potentially makes us any different than any other animal on the planet is the most difficult. Especially for a living.

Hopefully what I’ve said here has at least made you think a little about your own life, and possibly inspired you to follow your own unique dreams and aspirations.

Because, well, that’s what truly makes you, you.