7:00 p.m.
December 27, 2005
Though I'm usually a fairly concise writer, this entry is long. Though it may be less so because I've already written it, and closed the fucking tab. Why, oh why, won't pmdump work for this goddamned thing. Pardon the emptied tone.
So, as it is, or rather, as it was.
I've had three media for as long as I can remember and I switch between the three of them. In grade school it was writing within the fairly loose bounds I was provided and abusing that to its fullest. Drawing and failing to imitate the style my decidedly not-white friends pulled off. Or, for a while, playing Piano, because Billy Joel was awesome. High school was an evolution of form - guitar, songwriting, applied media, and some computer art. No focus - each had my attention for a considerable amount of time. For a brief time, I even fancied myself a filmmaker. College seems to promise further refinement, through at least my venue for writing freely and creatively without bounds, the opinion section in the paper.
I attributed it to creational ADD for a while, but at this point realize that a fair amount of creators don't confine their energy to one venue. Jeph Jacques is an excellent example - moreover, he's a prime example that despite having several areas of focus, one can, with persistence, improve substantially. I read early stories of PvP - Kurtz wanted to quit after a month or so and his wife pushed him to continue, and lo and behold, we have the closest thing to a newspaper-syndicated comic strip on the internet, by far among the biggest success stories.
I am, first and foremost, a creator and an entertainer. Learning the mathematics of programming is a tool as an artist's palette, not a path to a career in IT. I'm not in it for the pursuit of fat cash, I'm in it to enrich the lives of as many others as possible. I'm not talking about being a Mr. Holland in any respect, I'm talking about art to create and enjoy.
Problem is, I don't stay committed to any one venue. If anything, a success story like Jeph Jacques only discards my excuse. I figure that in order to really make development, I need motive. I've found myself to be an impressively weak self-starter when it comes to managing things myself - I can't stick to anything.
For example, I've been playing guitar for over three years now. For the last third of a decade, I've made talk about playing it in an organized setting - something regular and creative and collaborative. And yet, for the last three years, ntohing has come out of it. I feel my development is stunted because of that. Mostly, it's only the vehicle for fantasy - lots of cover songs, admittedly - and it'd likely be healtheir to shut down said fantasy. Making music is something that is, by most accounts, not happening in my future, near or far.
My art is largely uninspiring - I call my sporadic comic strip "derivative," which is sort of metacommentary on how desperate I am to avoid anything that seems borrowed or in the style of. In many cases, this equals bad. Especially because I'm a self-starter in that arena, I'm also a self-finisher. I rarely get anywhere of worth - as an entertainer, the effort has yet to be worth the reward.
My writing is in an unrestricted, unedited and unmoderated venue. I write about whatever I want in whatever fashion I want, but that's not improving anything. I don't expect that to go anywhere at all. That's my venue for the time being - I dropped into it by fluke and don't expect anything more.
If you traveled about the internet you could find a wealth of sites I've shat upon - lyrics, parody, applied media, art, structured writing. I'm all over the place, I think, because I really can't focus on more than one area at once. I get bored easily, and that's my downfall - never mind that I don't have any inspiring people to share creation with, no creative foils. I don't hang around that sort, anyhow. I don't hang around a sort, but that's an introspection for a whole other day.
There's the question of my major of choice - Computer Science. I see it as a palette with which I can create the ultimate form of art. (To: Ebert. Fuck you. From: Me.) Problem is, computer gaming is the most competitive industry - and I'm not competitive. I'd rather be recognized for my talents alone and my creative ambition. Perhaps the industry will be over its shitstorm in five years, but I doubt it. Chances are, I'll end up working at AE for a significant amount of time. Don't get me wrong, I like it, and it's stimulating, but only at a basic level and not one I aspire to. Chances are, if I were to make it a career, it would end up being creative endeavours on the slow season and 14-hour days on the busy season. Not something I aspire to at all. I don't want to be an IT guy, I want to be an artist.
When does my grace period end? I'm still figuring shit out - is that still acceptable for a College freshman? Junior? Grad-school student? When do I need to figure shit out by?
Certainly, I'm distressed over all this. I'm predisposed to believing I can create art, but I doubt I can. I want to put myself in the position of creating something that others are engaged in regularly, whether it be a song or a comic or a game. I fantasize about all of them, yeah. I know where I want to be. Fucked if I can.
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