Of Dragons and Fireballs
So I’m back from home. It seems fitting in a way that I left 2011 one way and 2012 begins and it’s feels different. Going back east always enables me to reconnect to a former self that I often forget exists. Years of moving places, meeting new people and so forth leave me constantly reinventing myself. While this offers me new opportunities, it leaves me wondering what I’ve left behind.
More than anything, going home always makes me remember who I’ve become and more comfortable in that. My uncle always reminds me when I see him, “when you were a kid, you always said you were gonna move far far away and you did.” Then he laughs. I think back to that loquacious little guy and I wonder what we have in common now.
Our hopes and our dreams. He saw the globe and believed the world was smaller than it was at a time when it really wasn’t. Now it is, but I look around and wonder where I fit into this whole mess of things.
Driving back I thought about video games. I don’t really play them. But life can sometimes be like them. If you think back to the original Super Mario Brothers, there are levels and each has a boss at the end. You beat the boss and advance to the next level. At the end, there’s a big boss and you win if you beat said creature. Older games didn’t allow you to waste time deviating on your own little tasks. I watch my brother or friends play current games and it’s possible to be part of the ecosystem while specializing in a particular kind of gameplay. (Guys who only sniper in Call of Duty)
In real life, there’s the path you’re on and where you’re headed. Then there’s all of these extraneous things on the outskirts. I told my dad that when I was younger, I saw possibilities and opportunities and always wanted to take them. Not because all of them were necessarily fit for me; but simply because I didn’t want to miss out on anything. When you traffic in the mysteries of what’s possible, you want an escape hatch or a scratch-off ticket that gives you what you want faster than just hunkering down.
When you’re younger, life seems full of mystery. When you get older, it feels very different. People still impose their will, they still communicate their expectations and want you to ascribe to the absolutes that govern how they live their lives. I’ve always been estranged from these ideas because they simply defy how I see the world and live my life. But I’ve been fighting upstream for years trying to get where I want to do in the face of all of it.
Right now, it’s about building a foundation from which the other stuff can live on. It was interesting when someone said as much without me having to express it. “You’ve got these goals and you’re working towards them. You’re building the future you want for yourself and I’ve got nothing but respect for you for that.”
I try to be ethically consistent. I don’t necessarily know my ultimate destination, but I know what I don’t want now in a way that I never used to and have become a lot better at avoiding it.
So another year of chasing down dragons and dodging fireballs.
There is not a win column for moral victories
In Finding Forrester, Sean Connery tells the kid to just start typing. Writers block is such a bitch, especially when you’ve got a ton of things clanging around in your brain and not the first idea of how you want to tackle all of these things.
Perhaps it’s just a desire to be less honest. Not with myself, but with strangers. When I first started this blog it was refuge and now I can’t really decide what I think of it but I can’t quit it either.
It’s funny. When you’re not gainfully employed in a steady, purposeful job the immediate thought is not to do anything online that some random person might stumble upon and use it to judge you. On the flip side, once you’re doing something purposeful and career laddering, you don’t want to say anything that people might misconstrue and screw up chances to do other things.
The result is creating this false construct that isn’t really you at all, but a caricature that’s hidden behind a third-person bio and the hope that some sliver of personality makes it out. This year like the ones before it, has been full of change. It’s winding down now and I’m beginning to wonder what the future holds. Not because I don’t have a plan, but instead because I wonder what will come of the things on that horizon.
I look at the present and can understand what I was thinking about two years ago when the wheels came off of this tricycle and I was riding up and down the street trying to stay on the sidewalk because if I needed to hold onto the fences I could rather than riding in the street where I’d fall off. When I got tired of falling off my bike, I got my big wheel and rode that. Eventually, I got sick of being lame and just decided that I’d ride until I stopped falling. And sure enough, one day I stopped falling down. I even figure out how to ride with one hand and would go miles and miles away.
This feels different than that. The criticism of this generation is that we don’t want to wait, that we want to rise through the ranks quickly and don’t want to pay our dues. It seems unfair, but the more I think about it and I realize it’s more true of me than I used to believe. It’s so much about a desire not to pay the dues or even about having a chance to be in charge. I just think that being in a dead-end situation feels harrowing. I remember sitting in my office five years or so ago. It was actually removed from the main PR office because there was no space for me, so they put me in the back room behind the student newspaper. This was fine except for the fact that it was behind a door that was outside and when it got cold outside, it got cold in there. But I digress.
I remember sitting in that office — it was summer — and I’d brought my lunch that first week. I felt like a kid, because that was the last time I’d had brought a sack lunch to work. I stopped after three days or so, because it just felt too depressing. I don’t think I’m really chasing after anything in particular. I mean, there are things that I can do. I’m fortunate that even at my worst, there are bevy of things that I can do at a very high level and I manage to weave in and out of these different areas throughout my life.
But at some point, I look at the scoreboard and I feel like — gosh, still losing. w. t. f. — and it’s been a game that I’ve been playing for years. Unlike video games, there’s no gaming the system. Well there might be, but you have to finish at an Ivy and make the right connections to exploit those things it seems and that’s not my story.
I’ve seen enough though to realize that my life pursuit is much like the way I eat — selective. I know what I want enough to know when I see what I very clearly have no interest in. The pressure to conform is a big one. The desire to ascribe to the cultural norms of the place I’m at is hard to break, because everyone wants to be accepted with family, with friends and to feel like there’s a place. Lots of people go in search of this and find it in their own way.
For me, right now, the mantra is to avoid getting off my bike because it’s too difficult to steer. I seek comfort and there’s a part of me that feels like you can postpone ever sliver of joy possible in the hopes that what you really want will appear, only to get older and realize that everyone around has found theirs and you’re still waiting to get what you hoped for.
That’s not to say that my wants are one-dimensional or that there aren’t other things I intend to do. I don’t think I’ll be satisfied here forever. I don’t have a strong need to own a house with a lot of rooms or to possess a lot of stuff. I used to think it’d be nice and there’s a part of me that would be very happy with that. But I can’t help but believe that experiences and vivid living could trump this experiment of the last few years that’s revolved around impressiveness and wonkery and trying to stand out amongst the fray.
The tradeoff is building a platform for where that’s possible. What I failed to figure out the last time I felt this way was realizing that just because you want to do something, doesn’t mean you need to react. It doesn’t mean creating the conditions where they don’t exist to build something you might not have the means to build on your own. I’ve been trying to do this forever under the guise that you could construct a reality out of spare parts. It just leads to a lot of junkyard experiences that are never fully realized because I’m always compromising what I really want for the need to be accepted now.
In short, I get off my bike. I am a bit wary of being so focused on a singular idea that I deviate from what’s really important. I just don’t want to waste anymore time savoring moral victories. This is just the beginning of something that I can’t quite explain…but will make sense as I paced towards it.
For these reasons and more…
I forgot I had this draft….so I finished it and posted it. Funny how that works.
I haven’t written a long post in a while. Too much to say and none of it really for public internet consumption. But something I have been thinking that is worth sharing is how much music plays a part in how I judge people.
It seems sort of trivial in a way when there are so many other things that you could use to evaluate folks; and I’m hardly saying that there aren’t things that end up being more important later. But as a method of screening or figuring out who I want to associate with even in just a casual conversation sort of way, it’s amazing to me how difficult it is to relate to people who don’t listen to good music.
Let me try to explain three grafs into this. So much of what I find myself listening to would be roughly termed as cerebral. (Yes, even when I’m listening to Drizzy Drake; that shit is cerebral.) It requires context. Not to say that pop music doesn’t, but the inherent joys of mass market consumption is that it’s supposed to be fluffy so as to appeal to a wider audience. Sometimes quality bubbles to the surface and people expand their horizons. Perhaps I dip into the well of mass culture and intake their craptastic music carbs.
But more often than not, I’m reminded how distant I feel. Not because I’m a black guy living in the hinterland. Or because I feel old (sometimes) and not accomplished enough (sometimes) or like I wonder how we’ll get from where I am to where I’d like to be. No, none of that really matters when it comes down to deciding what tunes I want to hear.
I’m just thinking about how hard it is to survive when you don’t have that common language. Sports, politics and religion share some of these commonalities. Just like anything else that’s special interest I guess. Somehow I’m just reflecting harder on this because for years I was literally surrounded by people who knew what I was talking about. And increasingly, that’s not the case.
I can go find them on the internet — as I always have — but that’s not the same as having someone to call up who is down the road and likeminded. Move, you say. Sure, it if were that easy I probably would be someplace where my hipster tendencies are more appreciated. (I don’t think I’m a hipster fwiw.)
One of the things about going back east for those few weeks before camp this year did what moving to Chicago did the first time I left here. It reminded me that’d afforded myself a wealth of experience by being willing to tread in places where others aren’t. It’s not a long-term solution, but when you start from where I did, it’s often remarkable to reflect that I’m in a position to do anything.
Going home this past summer before camp was illuminating. I kept thinking that “but for a few different things, my entire life would be dramatically different.” It wasn’t following anyone else’s blueprint necessarily and while at times that’d have led to much safer scenarios than the ones I’ve encountered, I feel edified knowing that there’s hope still for something more.
The biggest difference between now and then is just leading myself there without sacrificing everything to get it. It’s a lot like playing video game football. I have this penchant for throwing the ball down the field on every play. The rush of scoring touchdowns this way is pretty enthralling. But what sucks is how many times you miss your receivers, don’t time your plays and have to go about it another way. Life doesn’t come with sliders and you can’t alter the conditions to your own liking unfortunately. You simply play the game and try to adapt and weave through it the best way you know how picking up whatever you can along the way.
In those same games, I eventually learned to balance out my offense. I was always pretty good at defense, but I developed my own balanced attack and while I still have a penchant for throwing the ball down field and spreading the field with receivers, I appreciate a good running back who can slog through and pick up yards more than I did before.
As in most things, art imitates life.
Well why would you do that?
I was listening to Tegan and Sara and sitting in my comfy new chair and thinking about this point I meant to write. Like for instance, why the fuck are you where you are right now? It’s a point I often feel like I need to qualify in my own life, if only because so many of the decisions I make seem less than linear.
That’s because they usually are.
I think we’re all entitled to decide what makes sense for our life at a particular time. The past two years have been fraught with many things, not the least of which, a metric ton of introspection. Much of that has been chronicled on bled ink on pages prior to this one. The thing that came out of many of those moments is that it’s okay to change your mind, but it’s more important to realize that you can’t set your flight pattern against false expectations.
I can’t always say that I’ve been realistic or that I’ve made choices that other people would make. I can say that I own my choices though and realize when I screw up that there’s a lot of steps that go on between what I’m doing and actually making the decision.
All of this seems like talking around something.
I live back in the hinterland. Like, a smaller place that I’ve ever lived full-time before and by and large I’m okay with this. Probably because I have a good job and co-workers who seem genuinely happy that I’m on their team. What they don’t realize is that I’m pretty darn happy to be in that space too. For every day that I felt like I had it figured out there were hundreds more that I wondered what the fuck was going on and how things arrived at the place they did.
Maybe I’m the only one, but I doubt it.
I told a friend that when this job was offered to me, I knew was I was doing. I was eschewing the east coast after having made my peace with being back there, because taking this job was “a decision you make when you’re in your early 30s, but maybe not in your mid-20s.”
I didn’t realize the wisdom of that statement at the time. The thing is, I’m sober enough with life to be less than enthralled by having stuff. It seems that most people are motivated by living life to get out of their parents shadow. They smoke, drunk, have babies and then feel that gives them license to sit and bitch like grown folks do. Then their kids get old, they get older and spend the blessings they’ve been given on stuff. Or maybe paying off their kids debts. Or you know, more bitching and avoiding getting old.
This isn’t really going where I’d hoped. But the point is…(wait, is there a point?) I feel like for once that it’s possible to be content even in a situation that on the surface wouldn’t be one you’d imagine for yourself. No, I don’t have a bevy of friends within 100 or so miles of me. I’m hardly well off and I still have a lot of loose ends to tend to over the next few months.
I’m still reflecting and so, I think I’ll have more to say at a different point. Right now, I’m just appreciative not just of right now..but of all of the things I really spent a lot of time not understanding. Like how great my family and friends are. I seriously have some of the best people in my life and it’s not because I’m always around them because my best friends are the people I absolutely never see because of my living far away.
I don’t want this feeling — of gratitude — to stop, because I’m “in a good place” again. I remember when I got my first job out of college, I was always tripped out at how differently people treated me that first summer when I “had business cards” than they did months before that when I was just me without a title at a place they must’ve respected. At the time, the transformation was beyond educational. I kept wondering — often aloud — “why is is that people care more? I’m not any smarter than I was last week…”
Now, I know better. Moving to a completely new place; a small community where a new person is often noticed anyway, this feeling is on hyperdrive. I’ve got so many thoughts on access, class and how these things affect everything that I can’t even begin to write right now. I’m just more aware than ever after the year I’ve had that I need to process everything and see where it leads me to go next.
This is just a new beginning.
You have to make your own path
I have this habit of checking the ages of prominent people to see how old they are. Then I’ll count back to the number of years in the bio to when it seemed they were normal. If they’re a decade older, it usually makes me feel a bit better and then I feel like I still have time.
My entire professional career and personal life have been subconsciously driven in this manner for a bit too long. I’m admitting it here because I’ve read enough “go empowered millennials!” blogs to figure that I’m not the only one. But even if I were, it’s worth sharing anyway.
There was once a time when my professional life seemed to be skyrocketing. I was riding a fairly epic win streak and even when there were losses, it seemed bigger wins were emerging out of the woodwork. I thought I was doing everything right, I felt beyond empowered and like most things in life; it was just getting figured out.
I remember the first professional job I got out of college was funny. The minute I got a business card with a college on it and people found out I worked at the local community college, they all wanted my advice.
“Hey, my computer is doing this.”
“Can you build me a web site?”
“What do you think of all of this Facebook business? Should my daughter be on it who is 11?”
I laughed and thought that all of the attention was weird. I mean, I didn’t get any smarter when someone gave me an office and said “have at it.” But it went that way off and on again for a while. Before too long, people wanted to hear what I had to say or at least, acted like it. It was a pretty fun time.
I don’t really miss those days now, to be honest. I mean, it never felt all that comfortable. I do my best work behind the scenes. While I make a decent candidate, I’m far better as the architect you don’t hear from until it’s necessary to get a point across. In the business of web strategy, teaching is something that comes naturally. I like demystifying the web to the point where people ask, “wait, if it’s this easy why do we need you?”
The future could be composed with many different things. I can go in a lot of different directions. I feel a certain desire to build on what I’ve done to this point. But on the flip side, I want more.
I’m sort of reluctant to say a lot, because it’s akin to taking the wrong turn using GPS, you find yourself recalculating to get back on track. The lack of context this platform provides is a blessing and a curse at the same time. So my goal, in a sense, is to start fleshing the story out more. It’s hard to take people back, so I’d rather take myself forward and just help people fill in the blanks as we go along.
It’d be one thing if I had a caustic background with lots of red flags. Or if my story were that of someone who didn’t have a lot to offer. I’ve learned a lot over the years and I’ve gained a lot of perspective along the way and a ton of experiences that I simply wouldn’t have had sticking to a conventional path.
What I’ve come to realize is the only way to really get yourself where you want to be, is to know it and pursue it earnestly. Maybe it works, maybe it doesn’t. But you can’t measure yourself with someone else’s scale and wonder why it doesn’t work for you.
It never will.
The importance of passing the baton
I’m prepping for my next startup project and I began thinking about how my projects transitioned one day from being just pet projects of mine — cults of personality, really — driven by me and when I’d leave they would die, to something more significant.
This was probably the biggest part of my leadership development over the years was learning how to create organizations that sustained themselves past the incubation period.
The clock keeps ticking
One of the things I’ve thought about from time to time over the past two years is how to “catch people up” with my life. When life sucks, recaps are the last thing on your mind. There are always people in your sphere who have a better handle on what’s happening than others. But after a while, there are only so many ways to say “things have not improved.”
