Late night thoughts
Sep. 26th, 2004 12:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vaxjediJust some late night thoughts when I'm in a weird frame of mind. And made weirder by the sudden change in LJ's default layout.
As the possibility of this job grows, a weird feeling grows inside of me. There was a feeling for a long time after I left grinnell and moved to Oregon that my life was on hiatus - like it just didn't exist. The entire time I was in the house, I didn't feel alive. I merely existed with little very real life. Everything felt disconnected. I had work, which was stressful. And then there was home, which was stressful. And the welcome oblivion of sleep. I named my new (to-me) car Charon because I saw it as what took me across the river Acheron (i.e. I-5) from the lands of the living to the lands of the dead. And most of the time, I wasn't sure if work was the lands of the dead and home the lands of the living, or vice versa.
Once we realized that we had to leave, that began to let up. The last year has been painful in many many ways. But it is necessary. Both Eleri and I needed a life where we felt had a chance to live. And it doesn't really matter we had a chance before or not, who was write and who was not. Whatever the truth, we had to leave. For everyone's good. For us.
This job opportunity has reminded me that time has passed. I am 30 now. I don't feel old. But I do feel different. I have strength now I couldn't imagine 5 years ago when I was graduating from college. I have burdens I could never have fully conceived. Skills I never thought I would have. Experiences. Fears. Joys. Revelations. I guess I never fully accepted that I wasn't the same person I was in high school. And then I added to that in college. But I still felt like a teenager. The name Blade was an attempt to build strength and identity on that foundation. But things are different now. I have become more and healed and hurt and grown and decayed. I am a veteran of the psychic wars, truly.
I think it's time to move on. Not from anything specific. Just time to grow. To transform. To become. It's time to live the rest of my life and no hold onto who I was just because it was who I was. It's time to be who I am.
It's not about 'growing up'. The fear of growing up is a confusion, I think. A fear that we will peter out. It's the closest thing a young person has to a fear of death. But it's misplaced. We never grow up. We never finish. There is no 'real world' where everything stops and we become curmudgeonly old people bent against fun and freedom and that sort of thing. We never truly 'get it', young or old. We don't need to get it. Life is not a puzzle to be solved, a game to be won. Life is. And we live it. And I am ready to live life. Whether it be as a 30-something geek with a bald spot and a perchant for linguistics and kinky lovers, or an 80 year old dirty old man who likes leering at 18 year olds and reading books all day at the park.
There are times I have damned my life, damned whatever powers that be. For what they have done to me. For what they have done to my wife, to my kids. To the world around me. But I think it's time to let go of that too. I can't change it, go back and take away the pain. I can't go back and be the clever witty person I wanted to be. I love my kids, all three of them - they are turning into good people that I will be proud of, proud to be connected to, proud that I had some part in them being that way. I love my wife. I love to see her smile. I love to make her happy. Life isn't so bad. The world is often a bad place. But life isn't so bad. And I think that's the best place I've been in a long time.
I am thinking of changing my online names. I have used VAXJedi for years. But it isn't really me anymore. The Grinnell VAX has been gone for years. It is another one of those things that ties me back to a past that doesn't exist anymore. Maybe I'll change my LJ and IM names to 'lakem. That's more about who I am now. Maybe it's time for that sort of shift.
Words mean a lot to me (if you haven't noticed). Names do too. The name Blade doesn't fit me very well. But it will probably stick with me, as everyone I know calls me that. But it really is an artifact. Without specific meaning. Of course, that's what a lot of names are, really. I mean, does 'Scott' really have that much specific or inherent meaning? Not really. 'Blade' is the same.
Okay, that was frickin' weird. The actual editing window for LJ suddenly changed in the middle of me writing my post. It's much more WYSIWYG all of a sudden. I guess that there are updates going on to LJ even as I type. The world is ever changing, is it not? How Zen.
Projects continue for me. I feel more... motivated lately. More likely to want to accomplish things.
I am working on Sinnish, but have gotten caught up in the Wiki that b00jum set up for me. Wiki is an interesting thing. I can see where it will be useful. But I can see it's limitations as well. I think I will move most of my personal pages over there. I may leave my FNORD pages on the backtable server, just because they will be easier to find. I need to revise my pages, and significantly revise my FNORD pages.
Eleri and I are working on the Myst Embassy as a Myst-inspired fan organization, like Starfleet command or such. It's just starting, but we have some very good ideas. Eleri si working on another demo CD. I am gonna put together a Yahoo! style directory for Myst resources with the help of![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
pliny. Plus other things. I think it could be a very successful group, if we handle it right.
I am working on a language called Ilathid'hi over at the Ages of Ilathid project. It's been fun to make another language. Different considerations than Sinnish. I get to try different things. I think I may make even more languages.
It's very late, 1am in the morning. We have things to do in the morning, but right now, I need this late night time to process, to write. I need to let things out, deplete myself. It is time to work on things that are uniquely me, listen to music that I like and create.
I know I will pay for it in the morning. But it's a compromise I need to make.
I make a lot of compromises. I have realized that it is just part of who I am. I compromise. I adapt. I try to understand.
And I know what I have to do now. I gotta keep breathing. Because tomorrow the sun will rise. Who knows what the tide could bring? -Tom Hanks, Cast Away
Eleri and I have been looking up details about Seattle. (Well, actually Eleri has. I've been nodding sagely and saying "cool!" a lot). If I get offered this job, we'll have a lot of planning and rearrangement to do. And we have no idea what time scale we are working with. So a lot of things have just frozen until we find this out.
I am alternately nervous and blase about this. I really want this job - this is the direction I want to go, where I want to build a career. And it is a big if right now. Yet at the same time, there is a part of me that thinks the job is a lock. Like it's about time that I got some good karma back after how much we've gone through in the last few years.
I'm confident about my ability to do this job. Which is weird, as I haven't really have any confidence about a job before I started it ever before. I just hope it doesn't turn into hubris and I messup my interview, or that the universe that needs to knock me down a few pegs.
I don't think it's going to affect how I approach things. And I think I'll be a wreck right before the interview. hell, I'm like that before the first call I take every day. But once I let myself make the call and follow my instincts, I do fine. There is wisdom in that.
Well, I don't have much to say anymore. Maybe I've vented enough for one night. Maybe it is time for sleep. Who knows what the tide will bring?
As the possibility of this job grows, a weird feeling grows inside of me. There was a feeling for a long time after I left grinnell and moved to Oregon that my life was on hiatus - like it just didn't exist. The entire time I was in the house, I didn't feel alive. I merely existed with little very real life. Everything felt disconnected. I had work, which was stressful. And then there was home, which was stressful. And the welcome oblivion of sleep. I named my new (to-me) car Charon because I saw it as what took me across the river Acheron (i.e. I-5) from the lands of the living to the lands of the dead. And most of the time, I wasn't sure if work was the lands of the dead and home the lands of the living, or vice versa.
Once we realized that we had to leave, that began to let up. The last year has been painful in many many ways. But it is necessary. Both Eleri and I needed a life where we felt had a chance to live. And it doesn't really matter we had a chance before or not, who was write and who was not. Whatever the truth, we had to leave. For everyone's good. For us.
This job opportunity has reminded me that time has passed. I am 30 now. I don't feel old. But I do feel different. I have strength now I couldn't imagine 5 years ago when I was graduating from college. I have burdens I could never have fully conceived. Skills I never thought I would have. Experiences. Fears. Joys. Revelations. I guess I never fully accepted that I wasn't the same person I was in high school. And then I added to that in college. But I still felt like a teenager. The name Blade was an attempt to build strength and identity on that foundation. But things are different now. I have become more and healed and hurt and grown and decayed. I am a veteran of the psychic wars, truly.
I think it's time to move on. Not from anything specific. Just time to grow. To transform. To become. It's time to live the rest of my life and no hold onto who I was just because it was who I was. It's time to be who I am.
It's not about 'growing up'. The fear of growing up is a confusion, I think. A fear that we will peter out. It's the closest thing a young person has to a fear of death. But it's misplaced. We never grow up. We never finish. There is no 'real world' where everything stops and we become curmudgeonly old people bent against fun and freedom and that sort of thing. We never truly 'get it', young or old. We don't need to get it. Life is not a puzzle to be solved, a game to be won. Life is. And we live it. And I am ready to live life. Whether it be as a 30-something geek with a bald spot and a perchant for linguistics and kinky lovers, or an 80 year old dirty old man who likes leering at 18 year olds and reading books all day at the park.
There are times I have damned my life, damned whatever powers that be. For what they have done to me. For what they have done to my wife, to my kids. To the world around me. But I think it's time to let go of that too. I can't change it, go back and take away the pain. I can't go back and be the clever witty person I wanted to be. I love my kids, all three of them - they are turning into good people that I will be proud of, proud to be connected to, proud that I had some part in them being that way. I love my wife. I love to see her smile. I love to make her happy. Life isn't so bad. The world is often a bad place. But life isn't so bad. And I think that's the best place I've been in a long time.
I am thinking of changing my online names. I have used VAXJedi for years. But it isn't really me anymore. The Grinnell VAX has been gone for years. It is another one of those things that ties me back to a past that doesn't exist anymore. Maybe I'll change my LJ and IM names to 'lakem. That's more about who I am now. Maybe it's time for that sort of shift.
Words mean a lot to me (if you haven't noticed). Names do too. The name Blade doesn't fit me very well. But it will probably stick with me, as everyone I know calls me that. But it really is an artifact. Without specific meaning. Of course, that's what a lot of names are, really. I mean, does 'Scott' really have that much specific or inherent meaning? Not really. 'Blade' is the same.
Okay, that was frickin' weird. The actual editing window for LJ suddenly changed in the middle of me writing my post. It's much more WYSIWYG all of a sudden. I guess that there are updates going on to LJ even as I type. The world is ever changing, is it not? How Zen.
Projects continue for me. I feel more... motivated lately. More likely to want to accomplish things.
I am working on Sinnish, but have gotten caught up in the Wiki that b00jum set up for me. Wiki is an interesting thing. I can see where it will be useful. But I can see it's limitations as well. I think I will move most of my personal pages over there. I may leave my FNORD pages on the backtable server, just because they will be easier to find. I need to revise my pages, and significantly revise my FNORD pages.
Eleri and I are working on the Myst Embassy as a Myst-inspired fan organization, like Starfleet command or such. It's just starting, but we have some very good ideas. Eleri si working on another demo CD. I am gonna put together a Yahoo! style directory for Myst resources with the help of
pliny. Plus other things. I think it could be a very successful group, if we handle it right.I am working on a language called Ilathid'hi over at the Ages of Ilathid project. It's been fun to make another language. Different considerations than Sinnish. I get to try different things. I think I may make even more languages.
It's very late, 1am in the morning. We have things to do in the morning, but right now, I need this late night time to process, to write. I need to let things out, deplete myself. It is time to work on things that are uniquely me, listen to music that I like and create.
I know I will pay for it in the morning. But it's a compromise I need to make.
I make a lot of compromises. I have realized that it is just part of who I am. I compromise. I adapt. I try to understand.
And I know what I have to do now. I gotta keep breathing. Because tomorrow the sun will rise. Who knows what the tide could bring? -Tom Hanks, Cast Away
Eleri and I have been looking up details about Seattle. (Well, actually Eleri has. I've been nodding sagely and saying "cool!" a lot). If I get offered this job, we'll have a lot of planning and rearrangement to do. And we have no idea what time scale we are working with. So a lot of things have just frozen until we find this out.
I am alternately nervous and blase about this. I really want this job - this is the direction I want to go, where I want to build a career. And it is a big if right now. Yet at the same time, there is a part of me that thinks the job is a lock. Like it's about time that I got some good karma back after how much we've gone through in the last few years.
I'm confident about my ability to do this job. Which is weird, as I haven't really have any confidence about a job before I started it ever before. I just hope it doesn't turn into hubris and I messup my interview, or that the universe that needs to knock me down a few pegs.
I don't think it's going to affect how I approach things. And I think I'll be a wreck right before the interview. hell, I'm like that before the first call I take every day. But once I let myself make the call and follow my instincts, I do fine. There is wisdom in that.
Well, I don't have much to say anymore. Maybe I've vented enough for one night. Maybe it is time for sleep. Who knows what the tide will bring?
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-09-26 01:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-26 01:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-26 06:49 pm (UTC)I am very specificually not chasing it away with my next thoughts! (got that Universe?)
I think every opportunity we face in life represents more than just that opportunity itself. It is more than just a trip to disneyland or a place on the team it's all the things that being a person who leaps forward to embrace those things are.
This job may just be a way of showing you that there is change.. there is possibility.. and to examine whether you are now the type of person that you want to be to leap forward at that possibility.
If this should not work out.. it only means that there is something else in store and dangling the prospect before you was just nother way to show you how far you could extend your reach to better be prepared for waht comes next.
I don't think confidence is hubris.
*kisses the center of your forehead and seals a blessing against you*
You've done good work love.