So I arrived an hour early to work today, because I wasn't sure if the time I had in mind was the time to leave or the time to arrive, an hour's difference. (I leave an hour early, ideally.) As the saying goes, rather an hour early than an hour late, so here I am, writing this up.
Right now, I've got THE tune stuck in my head. No variance, no spice, no murky waters where I can't remember how it goes, THE tune, in its original form, with absolute perfect clarity (and almost perfect timing). I imagined it as being the standard battle music for some video game that I'd design. (Which, I don't know. I have so many. But one of them.)
And that got me thinking about how many different paths I could have taken in my life. I could have been an author, but I was just a kid. I could have been a video game designer, but stopped because I couldn't handle coding. I've been told I'd make a good politician, but that's something that for me goes outside the realms of probability and into the realms of implausibility. I wanted to help others as a counselor, but I lack the needed people skills to universally offer empathy and support. I could've been an author, but was too focused elsewhere. I could have been an artist, but couldn't handle the precision and dedication of professional art.
I could've been a webcomic artist, but only as a hobby. I can be an author, but I keep getting distracted. I could've been a musician like my sisters, but I'm tone-deaf (rather, I can hear I'm off and try to fix it, but never can, only making it worse, increasing my frustration because I'm doing it wrong and know it), gave up playing an instrument out of boredom and frustration, lack the multitasking precision of my preferred instrument anyway, and can't intuitively know what notes I'm hearing. (That is, I'll hear a note, and not know if it's, say, B flat, or F sharp.) To the point where the only musical thing about me is my intuitive sense of rhythm (I just can't synch up with it), ability to pick up subtle nuances of songs (I just can't do anything about those subtle sounds I hear), and ability to write lyrics.
I can be a webcomic artist, this time of a different comic, with an unknown (but presumably mere hobby) future, yet while I'm close, I'm frustratingly inadequate overall. (I'll see if I can work more on the image, though--I'm not getting the critique I was hoping for, so I'll simply have to improvise. I do have a couple of ideas where to maybe look; I got the idea to look at the original pink power ranger--that used a bow--and Kagome, a bow user in a sailor uniform, from a manga even.)
I've had the stupid idea that I could be a musician a lot recently, in spite of focusing on the above. And now I've got the silly idea of going to video games in spite of my many shortcomings there.
Really, the only thing I have any true talent for is in the writing, since in all my projects (all my realistic goals, anyway), save the battle music aspect of video games, it's the story I crave the most. (Yes, even as a musician. ESPECIALLY as a musician, with me as a musician, before each song, giving a little bit of a quip, a narrative, as to why I am playing that song, and/or what it means to me. That's not even going into how in each of my songs, there's a story to be told.)
Yet I can't find myself settling down into that life. If I could, you'd see me blogging about how much progress I've made on stories that I'm supposed to be writing, about how I overcome writers block, and other such hurdles. (Instead, you get lengthy rambles about Red Hood Rider, and posts like this where I just say, essentially, that I don't know what to focus on in life.)
In short, there are so many paths my life could take, that in a way, I feel like I'm cursed: I'll never be happy settling into just one of them...and yet, if I attempt to walk all (or even some) of them, I'll succeed at absolutely none of them. I'll finish nothing. I start dozens upon dozens of things, yet so many of them are left incomplete. It's frustrating to walk the path of no paths, wracked with the indecision of infinite possibilities.
It's something that the only way you can truly know it is if you've experienced it yourself. There are so many things that I want to bring to life. So, so many good, good things. They're things that are great, even groundbreaking. With no arrogance, I say that my mind is a great place. Brilliant things happen in there. I have a good, intuitive, sense of the world, see things differently, am able to form these unusual connections, and from it, build some amazing things.
I can tie the strangest of things together, and make them work wonderfully together. That's why many of my video game ideas are such that I really want to make them. Why I really want to make my webcomics. I have so much to offer the world, great stories to tell, that make you think, that make you have ~feels~ in you, that I want to give them all. The mechanics I have in my are beautiful, for comics, for games, for songs. The interwoven play between everything is so intricately gorgeous.
And yet, I am stuck being unable to express them all. I can't express even most of them. It takes severe, severe effort for me to express so much as ONE of them, yet alone, all of them. My mind doesn't shut up. It doesn't stop producing these things. I've made more in my lifetime than I could ever remember, yet alone, count. So I've been forced to pick and choose from them, what is something that I'll keep to myself as a personal pleasure, and what is something that I think is really important, something the world should truly see.
...Yet even on THAT list? There's too much. The webcomic. My writing. My desire to be a musician. The path of the video game designer. To make one, I seemingly have to sacrifice all the others, and I hate it.
I mean, I love having the freedom of choice. I know some people would kill (perhaps literally) to have the options I do, and overall, I'd say it's more a blessing than a curse, more ups than downs, because I don't have someone else dictating to me, "You do this. Nothing else. No, you can't do that. You're going to do this. Violate this, and you have your life forfeit." or something like that. But I still sometimes hate it all the same.
I wouldn't give it up. (Because if anyone tells me, "You do this. Nothing else. No, you can't do that. Do this." It has to be. Has to be. Me. It means nothing from someone else to dictate my life. It means everything to me.) I want to do all the things, not have my rights to most of them taken away. Yet it is a mixed blessing, because while it's all nice and good to get what little praise I do, I'm burdened with my own self-loathing (no, just because it comes from me and I know of it doesn't mean I can get rid of it), telling me...
I can be so much more. This wouldn't hurt if it wasn't true. When my inner critic tells me this, it's not a pipe dream. It's not me being unrealistic. It's not me dealing with theoretical, "what if?" scenarios. (That'd more be the politician-like dream: just a dream I occasionally have, nothing that would ever actually become reality. That'd also be the vision of me as a professional artist--something I stopped having when I gave up on the life of one. It's also that of a grand Final Fantasy styled video game designer, since the most I see myself ever doing is a flash game.)
In practice, truly, 100%, I could be better. At all the things that matter. Not by just a little bit. By a lot. Because I let things slip. I let them not be as they should be. Humans aren't perfect. We're our own worst critics and in our minds, there's always someone better. But for me, this is far, far more tangible, because there's always someone that displays things that I know I should be able to do, but can't, effectively telling me, there's always someone who shows why I COULD be better but am not.
I'm sub-par, even for an imperfect human. And THAT, I hate. I'm too weak to get myself where I need to be.
And the sad truth is, like 99% of the 7 billion humans we have on this planet, regardless of whether it happened two years, yen years, or a hundred years from now, I will very likely never make the difference I wanted to...in part because of this. I'll be a failure who has nothing to be remembered by. All my works, all the unsung tales, will disappear.
Smart people who see this make a routine to FIGHT it, and succeed, winning, getting what they want more often than not.
As many times established, I'm an idiot. Neurologically, fundamentally, being realistic, I don't. This could be a self-fulfilling prophecy to some limited extent, but I have my entire life's history telling me that far, far, FAR more often than not, I'm simply not able to get that dedication going. I'll say I do. I'll keep at it for a while. I'll have my doubts, but push them away. Then the doubts grow. And my motivation fades. And the desire to work on something else grows. And when that trifecta continues to build, fatigue alone, my tiredness, will drive me into abandoning it in favor of my new whim.
If there's a miracle way to fight that, I've yet to discover it. Spent my whole life trying, so far without success. And believe me, there have been times when I have legitimately thought I could do it. Never has worked. Doesn't mean it never could, just means that the me I am right now can't do it, and...I'm not sure how I could become the me who can.
All I've got is my best guess, which is how I continue going on in life.
Right now, I've got THE tune stuck in my head. No variance, no spice, no murky waters where I can't remember how it goes, THE tune, in its original form, with absolute perfect clarity (and almost perfect timing). I imagined it as being the standard battle music for some video game that I'd design. (Which, I don't know. I have so many. But one of them.)
And that got me thinking about how many different paths I could have taken in my life. I could have been an author, but I was just a kid. I could have been a video game designer, but stopped because I couldn't handle coding. I've been told I'd make a good politician, but that's something that for me goes outside the realms of probability and into the realms of implausibility. I wanted to help others as a counselor, but I lack the needed people skills to universally offer empathy and support. I could've been an author, but was too focused elsewhere. I could have been an artist, but couldn't handle the precision and dedication of professional art.
I could've been a webcomic artist, but only as a hobby. I can be an author, but I keep getting distracted. I could've been a musician like my sisters, but I'm tone-deaf (rather, I can hear I'm off and try to fix it, but never can, only making it worse, increasing my frustration because I'm doing it wrong and know it), gave up playing an instrument out of boredom and frustration, lack the multitasking precision of my preferred instrument anyway, and can't intuitively know what notes I'm hearing. (That is, I'll hear a note, and not know if it's, say, B flat, or F sharp.) To the point where the only musical thing about me is my intuitive sense of rhythm (I just can't synch up with it), ability to pick up subtle nuances of songs (I just can't do anything about those subtle sounds I hear), and ability to write lyrics.
I can be a webcomic artist, this time of a different comic, with an unknown (but presumably mere hobby) future, yet while I'm close, I'm frustratingly inadequate overall. (I'll see if I can work more on the image, though--I'm not getting the critique I was hoping for, so I'll simply have to improvise. I do have a couple of ideas where to maybe look; I got the idea to look at the original pink power ranger--that used a bow--and Kagome, a bow user in a sailor uniform, from a manga even.)
I've had the stupid idea that I could be a musician a lot recently, in spite of focusing on the above. And now I've got the silly idea of going to video games in spite of my many shortcomings there.
Really, the only thing I have any true talent for is in the writing, since in all my projects (all my realistic goals, anyway), save the battle music aspect of video games, it's the story I crave the most. (Yes, even as a musician. ESPECIALLY as a musician, with me as a musician, before each song, giving a little bit of a quip, a narrative, as to why I am playing that song, and/or what it means to me. That's not even going into how in each of my songs, there's a story to be told.)
Yet I can't find myself settling down into that life. If I could, you'd see me blogging about how much progress I've made on stories that I'm supposed to be writing, about how I overcome writers block, and other such hurdles. (Instead, you get lengthy rambles about Red Hood Rider, and posts like this where I just say, essentially, that I don't know what to focus on in life.)
In short, there are so many paths my life could take, that in a way, I feel like I'm cursed: I'll never be happy settling into just one of them...and yet, if I attempt to walk all (or even some) of them, I'll succeed at absolutely none of them. I'll finish nothing. I start dozens upon dozens of things, yet so many of them are left incomplete. It's frustrating to walk the path of no paths, wracked with the indecision of infinite possibilities.
It's something that the only way you can truly know it is if you've experienced it yourself. There are so many things that I want to bring to life. So, so many good, good things. They're things that are great, even groundbreaking. With no arrogance, I say that my mind is a great place. Brilliant things happen in there. I have a good, intuitive, sense of the world, see things differently, am able to form these unusual connections, and from it, build some amazing things.
I can tie the strangest of things together, and make them work wonderfully together. That's why many of my video game ideas are such that I really want to make them. Why I really want to make my webcomics. I have so much to offer the world, great stories to tell, that make you think, that make you have ~feels~ in you, that I want to give them all. The mechanics I have in my are beautiful, for comics, for games, for songs. The interwoven play between everything is so intricately gorgeous.
And yet, I am stuck being unable to express them all. I can't express even most of them. It takes severe, severe effort for me to express so much as ONE of them, yet alone, all of them. My mind doesn't shut up. It doesn't stop producing these things. I've made more in my lifetime than I could ever remember, yet alone, count. So I've been forced to pick and choose from them, what is something that I'll keep to myself as a personal pleasure, and what is something that I think is really important, something the world should truly see.
...Yet even on THAT list? There's too much. The webcomic. My writing. My desire to be a musician. The path of the video game designer. To make one, I seemingly have to sacrifice all the others, and I hate it.
I mean, I love having the freedom of choice. I know some people would kill (perhaps literally) to have the options I do, and overall, I'd say it's more a blessing than a curse, more ups than downs, because I don't have someone else dictating to me, "You do this. Nothing else. No, you can't do that. You're going to do this. Violate this, and you have your life forfeit." or something like that. But I still sometimes hate it all the same.
I wouldn't give it up. (Because if anyone tells me, "You do this. Nothing else. No, you can't do that. Do this." It has to be. Has to be. Me. It means nothing from someone else to dictate my life. It means everything to me.) I want to do all the things, not have my rights to most of them taken away. Yet it is a mixed blessing, because while it's all nice and good to get what little praise I do, I'm burdened with my own self-loathing (no, just because it comes from me and I know of it doesn't mean I can get rid of it), telling me...
I can be so much more. This wouldn't hurt if it wasn't true. When my inner critic tells me this, it's not a pipe dream. It's not me being unrealistic. It's not me dealing with theoretical, "what if?" scenarios. (That'd more be the politician-like dream: just a dream I occasionally have, nothing that would ever actually become reality. That'd also be the vision of me as a professional artist--something I stopped having when I gave up on the life of one. It's also that of a grand Final Fantasy styled video game designer, since the most I see myself ever doing is a flash game.)
In practice, truly, 100%, I could be better. At all the things that matter. Not by just a little bit. By a lot. Because I let things slip. I let them not be as they should be. Humans aren't perfect. We're our own worst critics and in our minds, there's always someone better. But for me, this is far, far more tangible, because there's always someone that displays things that I know I should be able to do, but can't, effectively telling me, there's always someone who shows why I COULD be better but am not.
I'm sub-par, even for an imperfect human. And THAT, I hate. I'm too weak to get myself where I need to be.
And the sad truth is, like 99% of the 7 billion humans we have on this planet, regardless of whether it happened two years, yen years, or a hundred years from now, I will very likely never make the difference I wanted to...in part because of this. I'll be a failure who has nothing to be remembered by. All my works, all the unsung tales, will disappear.
Smart people who see this make a routine to FIGHT it, and succeed, winning, getting what they want more often than not.
As many times established, I'm an idiot. Neurologically, fundamentally, being realistic, I don't. This could be a self-fulfilling prophecy to some limited extent, but I have my entire life's history telling me that far, far, FAR more often than not, I'm simply not able to get that dedication going. I'll say I do. I'll keep at it for a while. I'll have my doubts, but push them away. Then the doubts grow. And my motivation fades. And the desire to work on something else grows. And when that trifecta continues to build, fatigue alone, my tiredness, will drive me into abandoning it in favor of my new whim.
If there's a miracle way to fight that, I've yet to discover it. Spent my whole life trying, so far without success. And believe me, there have been times when I have legitimately thought I could do it. Never has worked. Doesn't mean it never could, just means that the me I am right now can't do it, and...I'm not sure how I could become the me who can.
All I've got is my best guess, which is how I continue going on in life.
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