Quo Vadimus?
Dec. 4th, 2006 08:51 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
abbandonoStill don’t know what I was waiting for
And my time was running wild
A million dead-end streets and
Every time I thought I’d got it made
It seemed the taste was not so sweet
So I turned myself to face me
But I’ve never caught a glimpse
Of how the others must see the faker
I’m much too fast to take that test
It all started when I was watching Sports Night again. This time around, what lingers with me is how the act of making something, over and over, making and remaking, night after night, how that shapes a person's life. How thoroughly it makes you who you are.
And it occurs to me how much I miss that. How I miss the way time compresses as the moment approaches when the curtain goes up, until it is as hard and clear and immutable as diamond. I miss it from college theater in particular, but it occurs to me that it's a more fundamental part of who I am than that.
It's why I prefer writing poetry to writing anything else, and it's why I've never been anywhere close to finishing a novel. It's why I loved doing high school homework in the class period just before it was due. It's why I liked swing dancing when I was thinking only about the dance at hand, and why it started to bug me when I began being too concerned about long-term improvements in my dancing.
It's why, as much as I like my current job, I don't like the part of it that is big long projects with very few notable milestones, because most days feel like I've done nothing, and I really like the feeling of making something every day.
Until now, I'd never entirely decided what I wanted to do with my life. What I know now is that I was framing the question in the wrong way. I used to think the problem was that I was good at too many things, and couldn't bring myself to pursue just one to the exclusion of the others - am I a photographer, a writer, a programmer, a musician, a composer, a mathematician, a lighting designer, or something else entirely?
What I'm at bloody last realizing is that my "bliss" is none of these things - it's a way of living that involves making something every day, that compresses hours the way the weight of the atmosphere squeezes wet and loamy life up through the roots of plants and trees.
It doesn't really matter what I do, as long as every day (or as close an approximation as I can manage) has that feeling in it.
I don't know where I'm going yet, but I know at last what the destination looks like. As Mr. Bowie sang in the song, it's time to "turn and face the strain".
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes...
And my time was running wild
A million dead-end streets and
Every time I thought I’d got it made
It seemed the taste was not so sweet
So I turned myself to face me
But I’ve never caught a glimpse
Of how the others must see the faker
I’m much too fast to take that test
It all started when I was watching Sports Night again. This time around, what lingers with me is how the act of making something, over and over, making and remaking, night after night, how that shapes a person's life. How thoroughly it makes you who you are.
And it occurs to me how much I miss that. How I miss the way time compresses as the moment approaches when the curtain goes up, until it is as hard and clear and immutable as diamond. I miss it from college theater in particular, but it occurs to me that it's a more fundamental part of who I am than that.
It's why I prefer writing poetry to writing anything else, and it's why I've never been anywhere close to finishing a novel. It's why I loved doing high school homework in the class period just before it was due. It's why I liked swing dancing when I was thinking only about the dance at hand, and why it started to bug me when I began being too concerned about long-term improvements in my dancing.
It's why, as much as I like my current job, I don't like the part of it that is big long projects with very few notable milestones, because most days feel like I've done nothing, and I really like the feeling of making something every day.
Until now, I'd never entirely decided what I wanted to do with my life. What I know now is that I was framing the question in the wrong way. I used to think the problem was that I was good at too many things, and couldn't bring myself to pursue just one to the exclusion of the others - am I a photographer, a writer, a programmer, a musician, a composer, a mathematician, a lighting designer, or something else entirely?
What I'm at bloody last realizing is that my "bliss" is none of these things - it's a way of living that involves making something every day, that compresses hours the way the weight of the atmosphere squeezes wet and loamy life up through the roots of plants and trees.
It doesn't really matter what I do, as long as every day (or as close an approximation as I can manage) has that feeling in it.
I don't know where I'm going yet, but I know at last what the destination looks like. As Mr. Bowie sang in the song, it's time to "turn and face the strain".
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes...