Where I am and What I Think It Looks Like.
I read a lot of Warren Ellis's work. He does a piece called The Ministry that I enjoy reading, and in it he talked about "public intellectuals" and what that meant to him, and basicly concluded that they are writers who talk about the world in a public forum. People who anser the questions, "Where am I? What do I think the world looks like?"
Which are good questions. Interesting to me, because I've struggled with a single over-arching problem for the entirety of my writing career: That I have nothing profound to say. I'll never write a Transmetropolitan or a V for Vendetta, or even a Preacher. I just don't have anything profound to say about the world I'm living in.
Where I am right now is the cusp of, I dunno, adulthood I guess. Maybe middle age, but that's more depressing. I'm just starting to build a life where I'm responsible, thinking about things like buying a house and starting a family. I'm looking at work as a career and not as a way to pay the bills. I'm starting to feel centered in my life, rather than like I'm riding a wave. I'm getting grounded, connected to my life seperate from a life defined by friends and extended family. I'm becoming my own person, dictating my life, and I think that's good.
But from where I am, the world looks really big. I'm coming to grips with the fact that I'll never be a mover-and-shaker. I won't ever be President, or fight in a war. I'll never be James Bond, or Spider Jarusalem. My life, through the action of me living it, will not send ripples that will change the course of human events. And I think that's okay.
The world is complicated. Wars happen, politics happen, and it's no longer something that happens to someone else. It also not something I can directly control, and that freaks me out a little.
I guess control has become important to me at the ripe old age of twenty-eight. What I cannot control scares me, and I cannot control the world. My sphere of influence is only so great, and I can only be responsible for changing what I can reach.
So I guess that's what the world looks like to me right now. More in my control on the micro-scale, and completely out of my control on the macro-scale.
So I'm still like every other person in the world, without a single original thing to say.
Which are good questions. Interesting to me, because I've struggled with a single over-arching problem for the entirety of my writing career: That I have nothing profound to say. I'll never write a Transmetropolitan or a V for Vendetta, or even a Preacher. I just don't have anything profound to say about the world I'm living in.
Where I am right now is the cusp of, I dunno, adulthood I guess. Maybe middle age, but that's more depressing. I'm just starting to build a life where I'm responsible, thinking about things like buying a house and starting a family. I'm looking at work as a career and not as a way to pay the bills. I'm starting to feel centered in my life, rather than like I'm riding a wave. I'm getting grounded, connected to my life seperate from a life defined by friends and extended family. I'm becoming my own person, dictating my life, and I think that's good.
But from where I am, the world looks really big. I'm coming to grips with the fact that I'll never be a mover-and-shaker. I won't ever be President, or fight in a war. I'll never be James Bond, or Spider Jarusalem. My life, through the action of me living it, will not send ripples that will change the course of human events. And I think that's okay.
The world is complicated. Wars happen, politics happen, and it's no longer something that happens to someone else. It also not something I can directly control, and that freaks me out a little.
I guess control has become important to me at the ripe old age of twenty-eight. What I cannot control scares me, and I cannot control the world. My sphere of influence is only so great, and I can only be responsible for changing what I can reach.
So I guess that's what the world looks like to me right now. More in my control on the micro-scale, and completely out of my control on the macro-scale.
So I'm still like every other person in the world, without a single original thing to say.
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