doesn't it feel just like yesterday when we were very young children playing out in the lawn as the adults prepared a delicious meal. dusk would settle in as the fireflies came out to hover omenously, child hands sluggishly chasing them just a bit too high for their reach...
and as supper would continue with the familial din humming at its usual pace, the crowd would jovially prod the younger set on what they wanted to be when they grew up.
"i want to be a fireman" or "i want to be a ballerina." maybe the slightly older boy could even throw in a paleontologist just for shits and giggles. It all made sense. the formula was easily solved, the overarching pattern seemed worthy and correct.
but oh how that naivete breaks, and the heavy burden of cynisim weighs on us all sooner or later. for me, the meandering riverroad that is my life has been heavily demarked. options came and went here and there, but mostly i just rode the wave.
my brain could handle a broad array of skills. indeed, sometimes it felt like anything could be grasped and mastered if only i cared enough to put in the time. so i dabbled. i tasted this and dipped in that. i had momentary obsessions that could consume me only to fade as fast as they were once strong. i skied through life, a blur of dissatisfaction and boredom mixed with intense moments of utter joy or paralyzing depression (or is it desperation?).
i always felt like a writer, but my output streaked out, short spurts, very few golden nuggets between vast deserts of procrastination or fear of the debilitating blank page. It started in high school, really. while voraciously consuming trashy novels, moments of Athenian inspiration would burst out of my head, getting me amped and jittery, unable to go to sleep, drunk with the possibilites. but high school ended with very few true moments of musal rape, and the track was layed out before me, to college.
amidst a cloud of smoke, i notched a nice array of scalps: some acting, a story in a publication (ultimately censored for slander), all star captaining of soccer, the next plateau of guitar skills, foosball guru diploma, loosing that darned v card... but my motivation was mediocre at best, i still just did enough to just get by. my profound laziness riding on brains that knew exactly how little to do to still be okay.
and deep down i knew what so many of us, the progeny of the american upper middle class knows, cultivating their connections and "skills" in the small liberal arts campuses of the east, that we'd rather not slog away at soul sucking nine to fives, that we would gladly whore ourselves out to the sacrosanct iron fist of creativity.
and how the pretention can run amok, making fools of us all. who is to say that the bricklayer does not have more fun than the screenwriter, that the court stenographer actually lives a happier life than choreographer? no one, but it was too late, i was bit too young. upon graduation, my aimlessness only pointed in the vague direction of "something slightly creative."
and once again the path found me, and in post-productin i found a home. almost four years later, a skillset to boot. a part of society, actually contributing. and yet also floundering, unsure where my river would lead next, and whether or not it was time to finally grab hold of the wheel
well, it took about two years of therapy, 25 years of distracted floating, and one small idea to get it out of me...but i am finally in a place at my life where i want to grab my own rudder, and start working towards something i want, not the next thing that falls in my lap. and just last night, the epiphany hit, like the classic lightningbolt, like the Goddess of War herself, shooting right out of zeus' head... i want to be a director. i verbalized it, and it rang very true. i couldn't belive something could fully grab me enough to actually exert all my effort into trying to make it happen. but this sure felt right. i couldn't sleep at night, ideas swirling through my enlightened dome.
and now, a day later, the fear of failure has started to creep in, the mountanous journey daunting me with the classic perils and difficulties. which is why i had to write it down, to remember the strength and conviction it first brought out of me, the hot pulsing raw energy pumping through my veins, the sheer night-before-xmass excitment about starting a new leg a of my life, for once, with direction. with the ecstasy of self-wrought purpose.
remember.
and as supper would continue with the familial din humming at its usual pace, the crowd would jovially prod the younger set on what they wanted to be when they grew up.
"i want to be a fireman" or "i want to be a ballerina." maybe the slightly older boy could even throw in a paleontologist just for shits and giggles. It all made sense. the formula was easily solved, the overarching pattern seemed worthy and correct.
but oh how that naivete breaks, and the heavy burden of cynisim weighs on us all sooner or later. for me, the meandering riverroad that is my life has been heavily demarked. options came and went here and there, but mostly i just rode the wave.
my brain could handle a broad array of skills. indeed, sometimes it felt like anything could be grasped and mastered if only i cared enough to put in the time. so i dabbled. i tasted this and dipped in that. i had momentary obsessions that could consume me only to fade as fast as they were once strong. i skied through life, a blur of dissatisfaction and boredom mixed with intense moments of utter joy or paralyzing depression (or is it desperation?).
i always felt like a writer, but my output streaked out, short spurts, very few golden nuggets between vast deserts of procrastination or fear of the debilitating blank page. It started in high school, really. while voraciously consuming trashy novels, moments of Athenian inspiration would burst out of my head, getting me amped and jittery, unable to go to sleep, drunk with the possibilites. but high school ended with very few true moments of musal rape, and the track was layed out before me, to college.
amidst a cloud of smoke, i notched a nice array of scalps: some acting, a story in a publication (ultimately censored for slander), all star captaining of soccer, the next plateau of guitar skills, foosball guru diploma, loosing that darned v card... but my motivation was mediocre at best, i still just did enough to just get by. my profound laziness riding on brains that knew exactly how little to do to still be okay.
and deep down i knew what so many of us, the progeny of the american upper middle class knows, cultivating their connections and "skills" in the small liberal arts campuses of the east, that we'd rather not slog away at soul sucking nine to fives, that we would gladly whore ourselves out to the sacrosanct iron fist of creativity.
and how the pretention can run amok, making fools of us all. who is to say that the bricklayer does not have more fun than the screenwriter, that the court stenographer actually lives a happier life than choreographer? no one, but it was too late, i was bit too young. upon graduation, my aimlessness only pointed in the vague direction of "something slightly creative."
and once again the path found me, and in post-productin i found a home. almost four years later, a skillset to boot. a part of society, actually contributing. and yet also floundering, unsure where my river would lead next, and whether or not it was time to finally grab hold of the wheel
well, it took about two years of therapy, 25 years of distracted floating, and one small idea to get it out of me...but i am finally in a place at my life where i want to grab my own rudder, and start working towards something i want, not the next thing that falls in my lap. and just last night, the epiphany hit, like the classic lightningbolt, like the Goddess of War herself, shooting right out of zeus' head... i want to be a director. i verbalized it, and it rang very true. i couldn't belive something could fully grab me enough to actually exert all my effort into trying to make it happen. but this sure felt right. i couldn't sleep at night, ideas swirling through my enlightened dome.
and now, a day later, the fear of failure has started to creep in, the mountanous journey daunting me with the classic perils and difficulties. which is why i had to write it down, to remember the strength and conviction it first brought out of me, the hot pulsing raw energy pumping through my veins, the sheer night-before-xmass excitment about starting a new leg a of my life, for once, with direction. with the ecstasy of self-wrought purpose.
remember.
posted by El Follador at 9:58 PM
1 Comments:
did i write this post on your blog? how else to explain this feeling?...
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