Wednesday, October 20, 2004

Hello World

Duh, ... Witness a demotivated, cranky, dull, resigned, self-centered, easily distracted, good-for-nothing-never-gonna-make-it-anywhere-in-this-world with a thing for daydreaming enter upon the scene. That's me.
Had it all, well not quite. Lost it all, well not quite either. Idling about in the bogs of mediocre insignificance. Gifted? Pffft, who cares? OK, yes. All right?! YES!!! And incapable of putting it to any good use. Artistic, multilingual, discerning, analytical, open-minded, witty, resourceful, independent, honest, of high integrity, ... and yet, ever unable to integrate, complicated, disorganised, underqualified, barely able to make ends meet, a problem that's just good at taking care of itself.
That bad? - Yup! - Give up? - Nah! - Why not? - Because. ... Because that'd only make matters worse. Although I am in a tie, have been for quite a while. Doing things I never really cared for, but which I did anyway out of a sense of duty and respect. Staying sane by creating worlds only one synapse away where life would be hard, true, but predictably surmountable. Oh, and a million times more adventurous and exciting.
So here I am now, doing something with zero prospects for the future, barely allowing me to make a living and be a good, harmless citizen, while dreaming away and dreaming of making a living of my dreams. "Talented though you may be", a fellow underpaid colleague at work told me. "You have to realize there are thousands of talented people out there dreaming of doing the same things you dream of doing." Hundreds of thousands, millions even, would have been more accurate. "Yes", I relplied. "And there are just as many (if not more) doing just the kind of job we're doing."
To be fair, my colleague is making tracks at her job. She is motivated, says she loves her work, stays up late, takes on duties that I tried and was all too glad to be rid of. Last week she attended a course for which I'm lacking the financial means. I never would have known, if she hadn't told me about it. There was a company report we free-lancers got by snail mail. I still haven't read it. Now she has this written assignment to turn in. She expects to spend a night or two on it. She'll be done before this weekend. I wouldn't be done in a month! The last time I tried, I still had writer's block. She goes jogging. I doodle or surf the web. All right, I also do Irish Dancing - when I get to it!
I once read a book about what to do in order to be get paid more and get on with a career. The very first advice was to decide exactly what I wanted and dedicate myself to it entirely. It's not the end all and be all of all advices, it’s just the first in a row of more. Mozart and Van Gogh I'm sure knew what they wanted. Neither of them lived long or prospered. As a matter of fact, I can now proudly say what Tom Lehrer once said: "When Mozart was my age, he had been dead for 2 years." As for a comparison with Van Gogh, I'd just about be due.
But I'm no Mozart and I'm no Van Gogh. In fact I'm nobody. Well, not quite. I'm one of over 6.3 billion. Pretty infinitesimal, but not quite zero. So what do I want to do? Design and/or implement websites as long as I get to run the project, draw comics, write stories. That's what I can stay up nights for. I guess I could consider this a start. Something along the lines of my first day of the rest of my life, instead of my last.

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