Existential Crisis: VOLVMEN SECVNDVM
Ahh so here I be. Yes I'm still alive for those wondering, no I haven't kept up with my New Years Resolution, and I still am at stage one. The reasoning behind all this is simple. in regards to the first issue, I am in good health and haven't done anything tremendously stupid enough to get myself killed yet; as to the second, my anxiety and poor work habits, although my job's schedule and social life wouldn't have permitted it in full anyway. And the third, well I thought I was straightening that out, but I was dead wrong, so now I set off to try something entirely new for me, doing what I want.
To those of you who know me well this sounds silly, I don't seem like I am living a lie. It is however, to my realization that I am. No, not the sort of cruel and sinister lie we see in the news media an cinema, nor would you likely read about it in a cheap paperback. I have not been keeping my second family in Cuba a secret to you all, I do not work for the Chinese government, the CIA, nor MI6, and I most certainly don't go to 'bath houses' to consort with homosexual men (although I know you guys, and am sure you wouldn't hold the last one against me.) It comes to a simple question, which each and every one of us has asked and been asked at sometime or another. We start by asking it to starry eyed children, and then as we progress through grade school, and always almost when we graduate high school or college. I even know some adults with careers in swing who ask it to one another. The form of the question may change but I present it as is: "What do you want to be when you grow up?"
I have had myself convinced, over and over again in the past that I knew what I would do, I had my life planned out for myself. Every plan torn down, each path dried out and without passion, again and again one replaced by the next one in logical succession. Pilot, engineer, psychologist, historian, and most lately teacher. Now don't get me wrong if circumstances were different my feelings on wanting to become a teacher, likely would be as well. I have been considering this option since I left Grad-school, but frankly the demand for social studies teachers isn't there right now, and probably won't be for a while. I do believe it is a profession I would enjoy, and possible even excel at, but the odds are against me, and the truth of it is this: even teaching isn't my real passion. Now refrain from lambasting me over my writing about true passion, I'm no better then the rest of you lot, and although reluctantly I would work at a blue collar job, a desk job, or what have you for the rest of my days. But the major difference is that I haven't even tried to do what I really want to do for a living, and it's been in front of me through my whole life.
I have been afraid, crushed by fear and anxiety over what may be real viable concerns, but I may now begin to spurn them. Where will I be in ten years, if I pursue this career or that, is it economically viable, will I fail, or become a laughing stock, will I succeed but just squeak by. All, real concerns, and all have led me to ignore my only natural impulse about what I have wanted to do my whole life. Create. I often doodle and scetch, make quick comics, thrown away, I have built a library of potential charectors in my head, potential story lines, and new worlds. Yes I draw, no I don't think I've written what could even pass for a short story in my life, no I have no education in either of these fields, but I can teach myself, and I can give it my all. What else do I have to loose?
Last night, I asked myself, "What would Theodore Roosevelt do?" and I was reminded of a quote.
Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure... than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.
Then I realized if he wanted to be an artist of illustrator the first things TR would do is go out and find artists, and watch them at work, he would read every book on the subject he could, next he would draw, and he would draw untilll his damned hands bled, and then he would climb mountains to draw new things. He would draw the god damned hell out of everything! Shoot 20 bears just to draw them too, and then some elephants. And when he finished that, he would keep practicing it. He might even try to volunteer during the Great War just to draw the front. Some time or another newspaper reporters would have found him suspended over the peconic by a charcoal pencil, and when asked about it he would tell them that in order to draw well he needed to strengthen his wrists. That's what TR would do, and that's what I will do. Not plan to do, not maybe one day do. No, I'm gonna draw like it's my God-damned job, because maybe it will be. All because I won't go down saying "I never even tried."
To those of you who know me well this sounds silly, I don't seem like I am living a lie. It is however, to my realization that I am. No, not the sort of cruel and sinister lie we see in the news media an cinema, nor would you likely read about it in a cheap paperback. I have not been keeping my second family in Cuba a secret to you all, I do not work for the Chinese government, the CIA, nor MI6, and I most certainly don't go to 'bath houses' to consort with homosexual men (although I know you guys, and am sure you wouldn't hold the last one against me.) It comes to a simple question, which each and every one of us has asked and been asked at sometime or another. We start by asking it to starry eyed children, and then as we progress through grade school, and always almost when we graduate high school or college. I even know some adults with careers in swing who ask it to one another. The form of the question may change but I present it as is: "What do you want to be when you grow up?"
I have had myself convinced, over and over again in the past that I knew what I would do, I had my life planned out for myself. Every plan torn down, each path dried out and without passion, again and again one replaced by the next one in logical succession. Pilot, engineer, psychologist, historian, and most lately teacher. Now don't get me wrong if circumstances were different my feelings on wanting to become a teacher, likely would be as well. I have been considering this option since I left Grad-school, but frankly the demand for social studies teachers isn't there right now, and probably won't be for a while. I do believe it is a profession I would enjoy, and possible even excel at, but the odds are against me, and the truth of it is this: even teaching isn't my real passion. Now refrain from lambasting me over my writing about true passion, I'm no better then the rest of you lot, and although reluctantly I would work at a blue collar job, a desk job, or what have you for the rest of my days. But the major difference is that I haven't even tried to do what I really want to do for a living, and it's been in front of me through my whole life.
I have been afraid, crushed by fear and anxiety over what may be real viable concerns, but I may now begin to spurn them. Where will I be in ten years, if I pursue this career or that, is it economically viable, will I fail, or become a laughing stock, will I succeed but just squeak by. All, real concerns, and all have led me to ignore my only natural impulse about what I have wanted to do my whole life. Create. I often doodle and scetch, make quick comics, thrown away, I have built a library of potential charectors in my head, potential story lines, and new worlds. Yes I draw, no I don't think I've written what could even pass for a short story in my life, no I have no education in either of these fields, but I can teach myself, and I can give it my all. What else do I have to loose?
Last night, I asked myself, "What would Theodore Roosevelt do?" and I was reminded of a quote.
Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure... than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.
Then I realized if he wanted to be an artist of illustrator the first things TR would do is go out and find artists, and watch them at work, he would read every book on the subject he could, next he would draw, and he would draw untilll his damned hands bled, and then he would climb mountains to draw new things. He would draw the god damned hell out of everything! Shoot 20 bears just to draw them too, and then some elephants. And when he finished that, he would keep practicing it. He might even try to volunteer during the Great War just to draw the front. Some time or another newspaper reporters would have found him suspended over the peconic by a charcoal pencil, and when asked about it he would tell them that in order to draw well he needed to strengthen his wrists. That's what TR would do, and that's what I will do. Not plan to do, not maybe one day do. No, I'm gonna draw like it's my God-damned job, because maybe it will be. All because I won't go down saying "I never even tried."