Writing has always been one of the more meaningful things in my life. I had an English teacher that might have described something like this as, “A little gem you can just keep in your pocket.” Growing up it was a basket full of stories that only got through the first chapter, or poems that perhaps had some eloquence that was possible due to my increased ignorance at the time. But now, though writing remains my refuge, the enchanted island has taken on a darker tide.
These days, if I’m writing like this, you can bet I’m troubled by something, and frankly I don’t give a fuck if you care. I’ve been accused of being an angry young man by my father a number of times now. I suppose I don’t find the point of saying anything more ambiguous than the truth. Everything else just reinforces this mental illness people have, which has disgusted me since the day I was old enough to see it.
I’ve never done this before, best to my knowledge. I’ve never grown up before.
I know what I like to do, and if my world was populated by lost boys and pirates then there simply would be no reason to write this now. But I do not exist in such a place. Here, lost boys are replaced by the truly lost, the downtrodden and abused—oppressed by either by themselves or by the real pirates of the world.
I’m afraid to fuck up. I’m afraid to go my own way in fear of missing out on some great opportunity. The bitterness I have for those words, upon reflection, runs deeper than you may understand. I grew up, like most children in a wealthy culture, in a classroom. There I learned how to count to a hundred, write a bibliography, speak in a public setting, and even how to conduct an experiment to chart taste aversion in lab rats using lithium chloride. But the focus of school, I feel, was none of this. Not at least until I got to college and started to work with my upper level classes. The true focus was social programming. I hold bitterness for those earlier words because the only great opportunity I may be missing might be because I’ve chosen to convince myself the world is a big and scary place, and that I will amount to nothing without becoming violently ill before finals just a few more times.
I have an inner dialogue I’ve been calling on a lot recently. “You know Josh, maybe you’re one of those genius types that quit out of college before making your success.” Now if you’re an advocate of our society, and stress the importance of college, and happen to be a zealot of the well-beaten-path, first off—fuck you. Secondly, I can imagine that inner dialogue may have put your little tummy-wummy into a spin.
Recently, (and the only reason I choose to start this paragraph with the word “recently” is because of my somewhat habitual annoyance of staring the last three paragraphs with “I”. No worries, I’ll put it in…wait for it…now!) I have been involved in a few video game projects. Working with people to create a finished piece of “art” has always been rewarding to me. I hope to go to graduate school…or at least that’s what I tell people, frankly I again feel violently ill at the thought…and earn some sort of smiley-face sticker saying I can be a business consultant. That’s because my first choice, being me flashing a middle finger to the world and directing films happens to be one of the more sought after jobs of my peers, and I know they would probably do a better job than me anyway, so hats off to them.
I’m learning more working with these PC game development teams about life and the whack-jobs who run it than I have ever in the social programming factory. My career at the factory was some what polluted, you understand I’m sure, by reciting the pledge of allegiance every day for seven years, announcing a big powerful human fuck-off in the sky is over our “undivided” little slice of social euphoria. Fuck.
Sigmund Freud, my friend, if you can read this now from the little plot in Hell reserved for intellectuals and free thinkers, dust off a seat for me before I get there, would you? Tooth fairies, Easter bunnies, Santa Clause, 12-step programs, social security, the war on drugs, the war on terror, fucking “Precious Moments” drawings, God himself….Fuck!—what the fuck were we thinking? Listen to me closely you religious bastards, pray to your god that I never rule the world. The first thing that would be done is to strip you of your clothing and march you through your home city. No more hiding behind gody breast pins, designer clothing, or makeup made by eight year olds in
And that, in all its pathetic, anti-climatic nature, is the bottom line.
So I quit out of college. I say to my parents, “I’d like to take a year off.” What then? I work with my development teams, and we make video games. I learn about marketing, and management. What the fuck else do you need to know in this shit hole of a society we have.
I’m a virgin. Did you know that? Twenty years old. I’m not afraid of becoming attached to someone, I’m afraid of someone I don’t want becoming attached to me. Every time a woman, and I don’t care how gorgeous she looks, drops some suggestion, I recoil in alarm and fear. I also get to deal with the same sorts of feelings for men. I’m attracted to both. I’m a bisexual in the
I had opportunities as early as 16. I didn’t.
I had opportunities at 17. I didn’t.
18. Didn’t.
19. Didn’t.
20. Well I only have a few months left before I can add that to the list.
Fear kept it all away. Fear of her becoming attached to me. I can’t explain why that alarms me so. Maybe I had a bad sample. Relationships always felt like work.
I’ve started coming out to people I know about my dual attraction, and to my great relief they have been more than supportive. My parents will know if I ever come home with him. I’m not a very strong person. I would need him to stand with me as I told my parents who I am. Otherwise I will do what I can to keep them ignorant about it.
Recently my attractions have been more homosexual than not. I’m willing to accept being completely gay, though every time I say that I see a woman who inspires me to think otherwise. I do know I am a passive male. A subordinate. The kind of guy who thinks being held and cuddled with would be more pleasing than any amount of dick-ramming. Though at the same time, if I loved him, and I say this which a smirk, perhaps I could entertain a different opinion.
Of course one of my good friends through high school became an open gay, of course! Though at the time I was still confused about being attracted to both sexes. Even now though, he is simply unattractive, and a vile character. A social leech—and a backstabber, the fucker. The thought of him finding out how I feel about men would invite a fair amount of unwanted events in my life. I guess I would rather let my parents know than him.
I have to give my thanks to modern film. Finally they are breaking through. Perhaps it’s always been there, but I have not seen it until now. Film is beginning to ask the kind of question that would make a “Precious Moments” character piss itself—and believe me I would pay to see that. Amalie, V for Vendetta, Little Miss Sunshine, Crash, so many, so many more. Thank you all.
I have an on-line “signature.” I can’t claim much that I felt was particularly clever, but currently this is the simple saying I came up with. Fear is the compass of opportunity.
It’s nothing you haven’t heard before. This I know. I use it because the same mind that is plagued by fear joined the words together to make the statement. It wins awards in my own academy, though I would not expect it to do so outside the confines of my consciousness.
For the past few years, I made a point of plunging myself in situations that made me fearful. I don’t recall having regret for a single one. Naturally though, I’m somehow still convinced that “the next time” will be the one that does me in.
I missed out on things I wish I hadn’t in high school. A lot of my online friends are that age, I guess I’m just trying to make up for something.
It’s like I was so secluded from the rest of the world that everyone grew up before me. While they were experiencing the kinds of things we all must at some point, I was stagnate. I don’t understand why. I don’t understand how all that happened around me, and I was dead to it. Likely fear, I suppose.
So I have younger friends. When I was their age, I had older friends. I suppose it makes some sort of sense. In high school, the people I had the easiest time talking to were adults, generally my friend’s parents. I felt like one of them. I would stay at the table after dinner and talk with them about politics, popular science, and what not. The rest of my friends, if they hadn’t left at that point, would run off and play some video game. Now I find myself doing the opposite. I hold a harsh regard for most adults now, and tend to be very warm and jovial with high school kids. It seems all backwards, I know, but I know it’s in hopes of catching up with the rest of them—somehow. Best that I can tell, it hasn’t been in vain. I feel better about myself and a number of other things in life that I hadn’t before. The only downside is…well fuck that, there is no downside. I’m finally enjoying who I am.
But who I am is telling me I don’t want to be where I am.
College, with a few exceptions, is bullshit—just like high school, and just like the other social programming factories before that. No question, the smartest people I have ever met are some of my professors, and I revel in it. Determinist? Thank god, Jesus Christ halleluiah! Though at the same time, just because you call yourself a “doctor” doesn’t mean you are any more intelligent than a mongoose, sorry to break it to you. This was a disheartening fact that I found. I expected too much of the world. I just expected that there was some well-to-do organization running things up top that had just been quiet all these years, just out of view. But I finally have worked myself up to the front of the train, and I stand horrified as a monkey with a conductor’s hat turns to wink at me.
Fuck!
