Revelations

I just realized something rather strange. For the last few years (the last year especially), people keep asking me what I want to be when I "grow up". When I'm done school, ready to slave away in the work world and lay down my life for that carbon-copy, picket fence everyone more or less dreams of (we'll call the picket fence the "ideal future" since that idea is a little outdated by a few decades). In other words, people ask me what I will become, but they never ask what I am. Then I noticed that this is the same for everyone. For young people, hardly anyone cares who you are, what you do and what you love. Instead they treat you like a unimportant blank slate and ask what you'll be when you are older and more "interesting" (or carbon-copied). I think this is why I can't answer anyone when they ask me what I want to be after university (or high school since everyone seems to think I'm still a teenager). It's not because I'm in History and English and the uses of those degrees happen to be ambiguous, it's because I already am (more or less) what I will be in the future. Of course people change, but it seems like a stupid question to ask what a person will be, mainly because no one has any idea. I certainly don't. It's more useful to ask what a person currently is. For example, I can say I am a warrior writer who is battling as a retail slave in order to win the freedom of finance to travel to the mysterious land of Las Vegas in November and to defend a new-found love of skiing. That's a lot more exciting and realistic than saying "uh er I dunno maybe I'll try to uh teach or something...I reckon I'll go through the mill and knock the galley west".

I have no idea how the Old West slang got in there. I might just have to respond to people with that exact line now.

Maybe this is because I have been spending a long time with people 10-50 years older than I am. They have no idea how to talk to people younger than them, so they ask the same, safe questions. Just our way of being social I guess. Silence is more unnerving than petty chatter. At any rate, living in the now is a lot easier and practical (maybe I should be like my friend and attempt to disregard time altogether...though that would make scheduling difficult). The only dream I have at the moment is to get this damned book finished.

Speaking of which...I fixed some of the parts, cleaned up some lines and had a few giggles. I also wrote most of the missing part of chapter 8. SO CLOSE AAAAAA. In thinking about my characters and events, three of my main characters are a little blandish. I mean...some of the side characters are more exciting than them. Dan is one of the ones I need to liven up a bit. Dedrad too. Grypt is a little blandish, but that's part of his character, so I'll let it slip. I'm just glad I'm slogging away at this again. Writing does wonders for me. Life isn't so bad if you can live half of it in another scenarios, frame of mind, or world altogether.

I should post some excerpts.