An Extension of the Previous Gripe

In my off time today I found myself looking through Carletons courses, the English bachelor of arts in particular. What I discovered isn't of any real shock to me; I know I would enjoy the course as much as the one I'm currently enrolled in and have no real enthusiasm when faced with that fact. I did come to the realization I may not be entirely qualified for it however, which puts me in something of a new albeit equally wretched state.

The blame can be laid solely on my shoulders, though to be more specific I should say my shoulders back in high school. I was never a really engaged student and was rather sure that I was going into either policing or fire fighting at the time, so I felt no need to kee myself in the harder 'university level' courses. See, my school system split it's high school courses into college and university levels, the latter almost always more difficult - though they like to phrase it as more of a difference between applicable and theoretical knowledge. Since in my youth I didn't forsee any sort of university entering my life, I opted to slack off. Appropriately enough enough fooling no one when I said it was to 'raise my grades'.

Hell, if I wanted to improve my grades I would have simply began to give a shit.

What this means is I find myself lacking the required four university level credits, one of which unsurprisingly is English. I'm not certain if my college courses make up for this hole in my learning cycle. The only one that seems pertinent to enrolling looks to be the English course, which I received in a mildly augmented form via Police Foundations. They called it 'communications', perhaps in some vain hope that it wouldn't be skipped as frequently, and said it would relate to policing instead of just being a regular old English class. This proclamation lost a bit of it's effect when my entire class noticed that every other program was signed up with an identical course, regardless fo relation to policing. To say the least of it; yes, it was effectively just a grade twelve English course, but I don't know if the distinction in their own definitions disqualifies me.

I suspect that should communications qualify as the English course the rest won't be an issue. A college diploma should suffice to replace the already generalized secondary requirements. No, the wretchedness of it all stems from time lost. I haven't come very far in life but this issue already highlights the difficulty in going back and restarting where you want to go. I have no doubt that should I not qualify I could spend a single summer taking all four required courses online and smash them out with no difficulty, but this is the very first stages. I don't envy the notion of giving up three or four years of my life to university in the pursuit of the wrong career.

I've still not made any decisions about what intend to do, rooting myself in the middle of the dilemma. I'm just gathering in information to make the inevitable decision a better one. On that note I intend to go into Carleton in a couple days to work through the details of my registration process, once there I'm going to ask a few secondary questions about the English bachelor. I could worse things than make sure that my decision is made with a firm understanding of what I'm getting into, but it's beggining to feel rushed. I feel like I'm running out of time. I don't think I'll ever reach the point where I won't be able to turn things around, but that my indecisiveness could cost me a very great deal.

Writing as a Career

Somewhat shamefully I find myself drawn back to the old thought of trying to make the various and often inane things I write into career. No, I dont mean this blog. I'm not so egoistical yet as to believe that the idle thoughts running through my head could ever serve as a feasible source of income. I understand that such has happened in some capacity on the Internet before, but hoping to find yourself standing in that exalted crowd is a bit like waiting for your winning lottery ticket, only a bit worse. After all, once you win the lottery your journey is effectively over. The interest of the Internet is a much more fickle thing than money will ever be.

No, I mean writing in a broader sense, and one that certainly moves past that of creating stories. It's not that I feel that writing stories is in any way beneath me, quite the contrary, no it's just becoming a published author can be well on near as daunting a task as entering the profitable Internet crowd. What I've been focusing on is journalism, professional critics, or maybe finding a column somewhere that doesn't immediately reject what I type. I don't have grandous aspirations here, I wouldn't be dissastisfied should I enter a modest career. I simply find myself enjoying writing. The process of finding words to properly describe my feeling and thoughts is becoming a form of entertainment to me, and the potential to make a job out of it is enticing.

These decisions - and there is a decision to be made here - cannot be undertaken lightly. I find myself in a unique position in my life; enrolled in university and on the verge of exploding out in to my adult years and embracing all that such entails. It also means what I do now will likely shape my life for decades to come. I'm currently on course to pursue a life in policing in one form or another. As I've said before, policing does intrigue me as well. There's a very simple reason I found myself in my current courses; I placed myself there. I was not forced by any means, and suspect I could find a fulfilling life if I take that path. With time however my opinion of what might be best continues to err on the side of writing in some fashion. There trick is figuring out whether it's a passing fancy or a truth that shouldn't be ignored any longer.

I find myself haunted by a story of my mothers past in which she came across a similar dilemma. Years ago she found herself freed from a marriage gone wrong, capable and willing to move herself about the world and faced with the choice about where her life would go. On one hand lay the path of uprooting herself and her children and moving down to Toronto to pursue a career in the zoo of all places; for you see if was always a dream of hers to work with animals. She has an uncanny ability to empathize with them, and a heart that loves them more than any other I've had the joy of knowing. It required a sizable readjustment to her life. She would lose her friends and have to take her kids hours away from their father. With a decision I believe my mother came to regret more than she would have ever thought possible at the time - she relented, and chose to stay in Ottawa.

I understand the reasons why she choose to stay and live here, but it doesn't change the way it's remembered. It was a chance for her to do what she wanted and I can't help but feel the regret every time it's brought up, a cloud of wistful "what if"'s encircle the thought. It's lead to my poor attempts to revive some faint possibility that she might be able to do what she truly wishes now - much later in her life. Time itself has become an enemy, it makes the decision so much more difficult when you've become entrenched in your current lifestyle. The money that we all want doesnt give the freedom we thought it would, it just restricts us in subtler, different ways. To find herself in a job that she would really love and really want to go in every day she'd need to change so very many things in her life, and risk even more. I could encourage her to take the chance and see what comes of it every time we talk and I still wouldn't be able to overcome the burden responsibility has put on her shoulders.

I would like to think that I could go to university for criminology and policing and see what that life has in store, certain that I could see what writing has in comprarasion at any moment - but I know that isn't the case. Life is too complicated, it's a frail and distant hope that I might avoid the entanglements that'll make choosing my own future impossible. I don't want to look back on this time in my life and regret what I see, and that means I need to walk down the right path now.

Passion

I recently found myself in an argument of quite some length. Furthermore I was having it with two of my closest friends - but let me be clear; this wasn't a bad thing. It's not even a particularly uncommon occurrence. I may have mentioned this a couple of times before; we argue for fun. Occasionally there's an goal had by one or more of the people involved, but mostly it's just a casual distraction for an evening. If I were sincerely trying to waylay the negative connotations this behavior inevitably brings about I would probably be more careful to call it discussion. Yes, spirited discussion. However I feel the severity and strength with which we press our points means our little 'fits' cannot be accurately labeled anything other than an argument. The main difference is we seem to brush these off with no real offense or worry. It's commonplace to us and hasn't ever hurt the friendship we have, proving at least some level of lie to the old thought that you can't ever discuss politics or religion with friends should you want them to remain so.

I will admit here that I do give that expression some credit in regards to virtually everyone else I've met, but perhaps we are a somewhat rare combination.

The argument in question brought up the idea of passion. It actually touched upon it in a number of ways that would take a great deal of time to explain here, but the one I wish to focus on is whether it is a positive force or a negative one. I'm once again massively simplifying things here, but thats a necessity when dealing with our forays into debate. We wander you see, quite vigorously - if that can be applied here.

Nonetheless the question, or the bit I wish to focus on, briefly touched upon how passion can influence your behavior. It's certainly known that people who are extremely passionate about their work can create great pieces of art, but is that all that such passion does? Does it solely fill you with the motivation needed to push you to greater and more magnificent lengths, or is there a darker element involved as well? Obsession, that is. The difference between the two seems minute and mostly concerning the tone you want to have when describing a person. The fact there are two words at hand here doesn't necessarily dictate that they must be separate things after all; the intention of the speaker is sufficient to create new words. Hell, with English you barely need an excuse to make new words, let alone a unique definition.

However if passion and obsession are indeed one and the same it brings us to the question of whether this is a good thing to have. How does one harness the good traits associated with passion without putting themselves at risk to losing themselves in obsession? If they're the same it would seem to indicate you can't. So is it worth it? This is a question that must be asked on a purely personal level. Naturally we can see the benefit of passion to a society as a whole, so this is a matter of whether you should guard yourself again such levels of care and investing so much of yourself in things.

The thing here is we must realize this isn't a choice that can be clearly made right before you fall into the fiery depths of obsession. It's quite likely you won't actually see it coming. You might have an epiphany, but as a rule I wouldnt recommend relying upon random happenstance as your failsafe. This means it must be a measured decision beforehand about how one will operate. A decision between pouring as much of yourself as you can into everything you do in life or keeping a level of distance, a barrier to shield yourself from the effects of obsession. And it's when faced with this choice that I find myself for once, thankfully, not divided.

I would dive into every aspect of life I experience with my whole being. I would pour my heart and soul into everything I make and do, never stopping until I have satisfied my own hopes and dreams. In his regard we came to a conclusion. Should one undertake such a mentality they would leave themselves vulnerable to loss, depression, and obsession. But if that's the risk needed to take life as I have, I whole heartily agree to do so.

Hurrah! Progress!

So pretty much everything I talked about hoping to get done in yesterday’s post we did mere hours after I posted it. This is a good thing, even if it does make me look like a bit of an idiot. It means we have a video up and running for the first in a new series, and both Josh, Trevor and even my dubious self will be looking around for games to add to it. It’s title ‘Difficult to Find Minerals’, because puns are their own excuse. In case it wasn’t too blatantly obvious, it’s about finding hidden gems in the gaming industry. It’s actually encouraged me to possibly try videos of my own concerning the various games I run across – even the more popular ones. I know making another “hey looks at my shit in minecraft” video won’t shock anyone, but it might be fun to edit it and show off what I’ve gotten up to with my friends.

You have to keep in mind that the goal is making content and learning how to have it suck less in the future. Sitting around waiting to find the perfectly awesome thing to make a video out of is what limits us and means we end up not only posting virtually nothing, but tend to lack the skills to do a good job when the real things come along. Such as, say, a documentary video concerning the making of Arnold Schwarzenegger: Road to World President, a game that Trevor’s making along with a couple of our other friends.

I’d explain what the game is all about, but it’s not only still in the process of being designed, but that’s what the documentary is going to be about. See, I want to take a genuine stab at making a professional looking documentary here which means it’s going to involve plenty of work and lots of dedication to complete. I hope the continuing development of the game along side it will encourage us to keep pace. I expect this to be a multi-part series on our you-tube channel, but we’ll have to see how it all turns out.

All I know is after yesterdays meeting I’m feeling a lot more confident about our capacity to create stuff without completely succumbing to our usual pitfall; apathy. I don’t want things to run at a frantic pace – I know we’d never keep it up – but some sort of consistent content output would set a great precedence for us. Anyways, I suppose it’ll be clear in the next couple weeks whether we’re going to achieve that or not, so keep your fingers crossed.

The Future

Well things have slowed down the last couple weeks, so I wanted to a take a moment to address what’s going on and where it might lead.

First thing on the list is the videos – yeah, they’ve never materialized past the original few. It’s the one thing on this list I’m both most hopeful will success and most pessimistic about its chances. It’s a matter of work ethic at this point, and that’s something we’re not going to be able to change in any short order. Really the only people gung-ho behind this video idea besides me is Josh and Skye, the latter mildly hard to get in contact with. A distressing lack of interest from everyone else means it’s difficult to get a number of people together to do things. The camera has also been shifted back to Josh’s lonely abode and thus tends to be out of minds whenever we get together. Personally that leaves only the Ipad to me for vlogging purposes, something I’ve not yet managed the courage to use it for. Oh, I’ve made vlogs on it, but I’ve not posted any due to the lack of any real contend and overflowing embarrassment.

I am not without ideas however. I intend to introduce Trevor to the exciting world of fraps. I know he likes trying out a huge variety of games, even ones that don’t really do all that well and hence get ignored by the media. This isn’t exactly reflected in an equal vastness of genre, but the sheer amount of games means there’s potential for a sort of highlights real in there. Failing that, perhaps a ‘hidden gems’ series of some sort. Let Trevor play a game through once to get a feel for it, then let him pick out what makes it unique and record those bits with fraps. After we’ve whipped up a decent video piece we can give him the microphone to do a voice over – likely with the rest of us commenting in podcast style. Josh might be interested in trying a similar series, I’ll need to run this by both of them next meet up.

Which brings me to the next point – meet ups. Right now we run on a zillion different and weird schedules which makes getting together a very hectic and on the fly thing. I tend to just throw out phone calls and see who’s around. If everyone is I just grab people and we roll, which works great for doing random shit, but not so much for sitting down and doing work. Work really being what this stuff is. Fun work to be sure, but there’s still a hefty work component. We’re working to find times and dates that we can actually sit down with a different mind set; one in which we intend to get shit done.

It’s overcoming these pitfalls that’ll decide whether I just continue to blog here all alone, or we turn this into a real content-creating site.