The 27th Year

My 27th year is the one I need to start with a bang, because this is the year shit starts to get right for me.

I think my past mistakes were putting my happiness and fulfillment with my life in the hands of others. I was looking at my life through other people's eyes, and using their criteria for whether or not I was happy. In addition, I was using these insignificant "markers" in life (a good job, money, creative talent, social situations, etc) to determine where my happiness level was. For example, my job prospects were based on whether or not employers would offer me something. If I were offered a job, I'd be happy. If not, I'd be depressed. Needless to day, based on this criteria, I was not happy at all in the past 3 years. Putting that much pressure on myself for something that I don't have all that much control over is just a silly way to exist.

In recent months, I've started to shy away from others, and have started to focus on myself. And it has paid off pretty well. I'm starting to get a feel for what I like instead of trying to plug myself into what other people like and hoping I get the same feelings they do.

It's kind of like when a movie is really really hyped up as the greatest thing ever, and you go into it waiting for your life to change. You're ALWAYS going to end up disappointed, because while maybe it's a moving, kick-ass, wonderful, perfectly shot movie, you went into it expecting it to change your life, and movies just don't have that power. Sure, a movie might push YOU into changing your life, but the movie itself is just some motherfuckers on screen talking to each other.

Same with all these things that I was hoping would make me happy. I moved closer to NYC because I saw how great my friend's life in the city was. He had a well-paying job doing what he loved to do, and was out partying every night and reporting back all the time about how much his life had improved (not bragging, just being honest and genuinely wanting to share his happiness). I saw that and wanted a piece of that. If that's what it takes to be happy, then I'll do that!

I did, and I do enjoy living near the city, but I don't have the high-profile job, or the creative fulfillment, or the social connections he does.

So instead I'm carving out my own path. I've started to shy away a lot more from the drinking and partying scene, and I find myself sitting and reading a whole lot more. I've always like the idea of reading, but I could probably count the amount of books I've read for my own amusement on one hand. I find myself being "sober guy" a lot more at parties and the like, and I really don't find myself regretting it much. I'm not going back to my straightedge high school days, because I do enjoy a good drunken night here and there, but they're much fewer and further between than they used to be.

I also realized that more than any creative endeavor out there, I enjoy writing. I've written nothing but pure autobiographical explorations to this point, but I sort of feel like fiction and non-fiction aren't all that different from each other, and here's why--if I'm telling a story about something that happened to me, I tend to embellish certain points of the story, maybe a little differently than it actually happened to me in the moment. I don't lie, of course, but the point is, I very well could lie, and the second I do that, one man's fiction is another's non-fiction.

Now say I stumble upon a situation and I imagine it going differently than it actually goes down. Say I see a dog dart in front of a car and quickly jump out of the way last minute. If I imagine the car swerving the other direction and hitting the dog, I've just made something up. It's not what happened, but it very well could have. Now let me take that simple premise and build what would be the logical outfall from it. I've just created a cause and effect. This is storytelling at its simplest, and it's from this simple building that I plan to create a story for myself.

Now, why do I embellish certain parts of the stories when I'm re-telling them later. Is it to make me look good? Is it to make me seem interesting? Possibly. But it's also for my audience's benefit. My audience (which is usually one or two people to whom I'm relating the story) has got no reason to be interested in what I have to say unless I make it compelling for them. I've got to appeal to them in a way that keeps them interested and makes them see themselves in such a situation.

I'm not trained in the creative writing department. I don't know the nuances of character development, story arcs, or plotlines. But I know how to tell a story to a captive audience. And that is what I plan to do this year. My big creative endeavor in this, the 27th year of my life, is to build up a story from scratch, and not just for my own wanking interests. I want to create something compelling and that touches on the human condition. I might be writing in some capacity to come off as smart or interesting, sure. But moreso than that, I'm writing for an audience who needs a reason to read it.

The fact that I haven't read many books, nor have been on the art of doing so, and by most accounts probably shouldn't be writing one is something I'm trying to spin into a positive. I'm trying to compare it to a great songwriter who isn't a virtuoso on guitar using what he knows effectively. Someone like one of my heroes--Ben Weasel--who admittedly is a very basic guitar player, but uses what he does know to craft some brilliant pop songs. I hope to use the storytelling tricks I've learned through my own personal experiences to make a readable, fun, and hopefully dynamic story that doesn't feel the need to flourish or use the millions of literary tricks that one can learn by going through a class or by reading innumerable books.

And I promise it won't be as jumpy or herky-jerky as this blog entry is. This blog is a dump for my own personal brain droppings, not a cohesive read for audiences of any kind. The difference is, this is for ME, while the story I'm hoping to write and share with the masses will be for YOU.

Oh yeah, and it will most likely be in comic book form, hopefully with my cousin doing the art, unless we clash over our creative differences. We'll see.