Letter to Prospective Goldriders

I always tell people the same thing: do what you love. If you do what you love, at the very least you'll be enjoying yourself whether there's a gold in your future or not. If the things that you love are the sorts of things a search committee needs in a goldrider, they'll notice. If your passions lie elsewhere, you will never be happy as a goldrider. The position is what it is.

What this comes down to is that you are either the sort of person who loves doing the work of a weyrwoman or you aren't. If you aren't, it will always be a job. If you are, it will be a responsibility that you are passionate about fulfilling. If you're looking for a gold for the RP opportunities (of which there are very, very few), or validation (which is fleeting and countered by plenty of moments of the complete opposite sensation), you'll be pretty sorely disappointed.

There's no special formula for impressing gold and even if there was, it wouldn't help anyone in the long run. The qualities of a goldrider have to be sustainable; they can't be changes that you make to your style of playing for the duration of candidacy and with the fervent hope that you'll be able to pull it off for the rest of your career as a weyrwoman.

So what are those qualities? In short, a goldrider needs to be reliable and aware. You can't be a weyrwoman if you aren't around, so while there is no magic number of hours that satisfies the requirement of time, reliable, dedicated activity is an obvious must. Awareness is more nebulous; it's the ability to pick up subtle cues and behave accordingly. It involves treating people fairly and courteously, knowing when to step up and when to step back, when to bend and when to be firm, watching and gauging reactions and learning from experiences to improve for the future. Unfortunately, this sort of awareness isn't something that can be taught.

Griere - Ista Weyr, PernMUSH
2008