Why I Enjoyed My First Con - Part 1
Or: A Self-administered Psychological Analysis of the Actions and Reactions of an Overly Sensitive Creature Attending His First Furry Convention - Part 1

So, Let's start of with one of the biggest. Money. I hate to say it, but we are all products of our environments. As Andrew Ryan said in the original Bioshock trailer "We all make choices, but in the end... our choices make us." The people we meet, the events we encounter, the media we consume, and then thoughts we have, are forever forging us into unique individuals. For most of my life, each of these things have be pointing me toward one common conclusion. The conclusion that the only thing that mattered in life was money. Want friends? Money. Want to get rid of stress? Money. Want to help people? Money. Want to have a nice car? Money. Want to change the world? Money. The list goes on forever. It seemed like no matter what I wanted out of life, money was the answer, and, I regret this next part so much, I actually believed it. You see, I knew in the back of my mind that none of what I just said was true, but knowing something factually and experiencing it for yourself are two very different things. My experience up until this point had shown me that money did, in fact, truly matter. I finally got to experience the true nature of money at FWA. You see, I had spent most of my life earning this fragile paper that everyone loved so much, but when I arrived at the hotel on March 31st, 2016 at 3:20 PM, an amazing thought occurred to me. I'm staying at a nearby hotel, but not at my house. Was it a 1,000 square foot trailer, or a 7,000 square foot mansion? It didn't matter. What car did I drive here? Was it a Dodge Charger, or a Ferrari 458 Spider? That didn't matter either. The car stayed with the valet, and so did the key. Suddenly, everything I had spent my life acquiring was gone. It had all been stripped away. I was standing in a hotel, about to register for a convention that no one I knew could have ever predicted I had been wanting to attend, with none of the things I had been told all my life that I needed, and no expectations. The only indication was the small pony on my shirt which wasn't really indicative of anything. What was I going to do? What would people think? The answer was astonishing. All my life, I had never been in a place where who I was, my personality, my stories, my insight, and my ability to listen, mattered more than what I had. I met many people and made new friends, yet nobody ever asked if I was loaded. No one ever dropped those not-so-subtle hints that I should be shelling out, or that I somehow owe them. Not that I expected anyone at FWA to do these things. Like I said before, I went in with no expectations, but now I see more clearly than ever the true value of money. Make no mistake, I've known money's true worth for quite some time, I was born with nothing so I can appreciate the difference money can make in people's lives, but now I have perspective. I've spent far to long in the shallow end of the population pool, and I fear that it had damaged me significantly, but, thankfully, not beyond repair. Money has it's place in all our lives. We should all be responsible stewards of everything we are given and everything we earn, but we shouldn't believe, even for a moment, that money matters more than people. It is easy to forget that when we are surrounded individuals that value us by how much we can help them. We should accumulate enough for ourselves, not for everyone else. Something that can be left at the door and forgotten, isn't as necessary as we think it is. Incidentally, I decided to leave the car at my hotel, ride the train (cuz trains are fun :P), and walk to the Marriott for the rest of my weekend because of that first day. Thank you, dear reader, for spending your time on something I've created. Feel free to let me know what you think below!

Sincerely,
J