#2 - Limbo. Tiki torches and roast pig optional.

[reileen]

I'm at a point in my life where it feels like everything and nothing is open to me. Doors are shutting behind me with every step I take, windows slide open as I pass by but I don't notice them because I'm lost in my own fear and indecision. But I can still see a map of my existence before me, with its web of highways that lead to a myriad of unknowns that could be Hawaii or Hell. I haven't committed to anything yet, not really. The fact that I'm majoring in animation and minoring in Japanese language doesn't say much other than I'm majoring in animation and minoring in Japanese (and that there's a 95.142% chance that I'm an otaku with the faint notion of heading to Japan and making it big in the animation industry there). I'm only halfway through my sophomore year of college, and so it's perfectly normal (or so the voices outside my head have told me) to still not know what the fuck you're going to do in life.

However, even though I don't know what I'm going to do, I know what I want to do. And it's...scary.

I have this very insane aspiration of gaining a fair amount of recognition in the wider world for my creative endeavors in art, writing, and music. And by fair, I mean: "I'm making enough money off doing these three things that I can live the life I want, which includes being able to afford both what I need and want and being able to financially help out my family in America and in the Philippines." Seriously. Not kidding. What the fuck am I thinking? Clearly I'm not thinking at all, most would say. The majority of people are lucky if they make it big in one field - how can I hope for three? Especially since it's just now that I've managed to make the cannonball jump into original creations. I haven't even had any quasi professional experience with any of these fields: no art exhibits, no short stories or poetry published in a young writer's magazine, no original recordings or small performances of my compositions. And I know from my fan-related endeavors that focusing on even one field drains energy like mad. My career, assuming I'd have one, would be like lightning: one brilliant flash and it's gone. (And I probably killed a person or two in the progress.)

Yet...I can't see myself doing anything else.

I wouldn't doubt that right now, I'm probably being impetuous and idealistic. I'll take bets from anyone willing to stake money (or anime DVDs) on me coming back to this entry and going: "What the fuck was I on when I wrote this shit?" I vaguely remember childhood dreams of taking care of dolphins off the coast of Hawaii, or of leading my team of astronauts to whole new worlds. Those visions are faded, now, and kept in my heart for nostalgia value only. So there's the very real possibility that this current obsession of mine could be relegated to the status of "quaint memento of my college days."

But I can't make myself back down from the prospect. At the very least, I want to be working in the creative industry somehow, in a position where I'm aiding in the actual creation of a work of art. But if I can do that, then why not make the leap to being not just good, but really damn good?

This is where I see myself walking life's limbo bar. On the one hand, since I'm still in college working my way through my degrees, and I haven't landed a dream job, the sky's the limit and then some. But since I'm still in college working my way through my degrees, I don't have as many opportunities or doors presented to me for what I want to do. Perhaps I should re-phrase: the doors are being built as I'm huddled over my laptop swearing at Adobe AfterEffects to just get the damn timing right already. And then it's a matter of which door I decide to take. Door Number One, or Door Number Two? I have little to no idea what's behind either door, and the answer could very well kill me (or humiliate me on public television - same difference). But I'll be damned if I'm settling for the consolation prize.

I'm starting to ramble and meander, so I'll confess something to you. There are two reasons I created this LiveJournal and my deviantArt account at http://reileen.deviantart.com. One is mainly a psychological reason - doing so allows me to "set aside" a bit of myself solely for these things, to let me balance my life out better. In some senses, it's also a re-working of how I usually perceive this part of myself, an evolution. I mentally re-define who I am to give myself better focus. The other reason, however, has more to do with my vanity, and probably proves just how out of whack my visions are.* The creation of these two accounts was done with the expectation that I would need to do so as a result of being reasonably well-known. I would need the separate deviantArt account to be able to best showcase my original pieces; I would need the separate LiveJournal account because I'd be well-known enough that people would actually care about what I thought on certain things. Am I jumping the gun? Honey, I've jumped the gun and landed in fucking India. This isn't even counting the damn chicks before they hatch anymore - this is counting the amount of eggs the hen's going to pop out before the cock's even knocked her up. This either says that I know what I want and I damn well am going to get it...or that my pipe dreams are terribly clogged.

I want the recognition. I want the freedom such recognition could possibly grant me, and the satisfaction of knowing I've pushed myself to my limits and then gone past that. Does that make me ambitious and focused? Or does this make me an irrational dreamer?




-Reileen
all I'm asking is to be alive for once

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*It also probably proves what a flaming Leo I am. Pun completely intended.