Okay, maybe I lied about posting part 2 tomorrow. I don't feel bad though - it's not like I'm spamming anyone with blog posts (I highly doubt most of these are being read anyway). If you haven't done so already, read part 1 below first.
So back to it. How my mind works. As I last wrote, I labor under the delusion that my story has to start at some point. Note that I am perfectly well aware that this is, in fact, a delusion. Mostly. The problem is that I grew up on books and television and movies where people's dreams came true because they were the ones in focus. You knew that something amazing or terrible or heartwarming was going to happen to them simply because they were the main character. This perception has leaked into my brain. There is no way I can perceive myself as anything but the main character in my own head (well, on my bad days I think of myself as the comedy relief side kick, but then I don't know who the main character in the story is). The only thing I haven't worked out yet is the genre I'm living in or about to enter. Romantic comedy? Hopefully. Action-adventure? Even better, so long as I don't get shot, stabbed, tortured, or killed. Horror? Hopefully not. Reality show? Please no.
(I think this genre-uncertainty issue is why I have more sympathy for stupid characters in movies than other people. "Why are they going into the creepy old house?" my friends say. "They don't know they're in a horror movie," I reply).
This world view of mine is part of why the YouTube idea gripped me so hard. I really wanted to be a contributing, valued, and visible member of the online community. My story sensibilities whispered to me, "Maybe this is it. Maybe this is your story. The girl who started an informative online show and gathered a community around her. Maybe you'll even get to be on Channel Awesome, just like you've wanted for so long." I have also been living, or trying to live, by the motto, "You regret the things you didn't do more than the things you did." Because of that, my YouTube project gripped me tight in its clutches and didn't let go. Oddly, it served as a point to hold on to for keeping me sane. I could placate my inner eight-year-old with a promise of things to come while telling my logical half that it would never really happen.
The YouTube thing has mostly lost its grip on me. The more academic projects I complete, the less important it becomes. It's not gone entirely gone, but it's mostly been worked out of my system. I've almost gotten rid of the early-twenties-crisis part of my drive, the one that says I've accomplished nothing and will never be anyone and look at those ice dancing gold medalists and American Idol finalists who are my age or younger. However, I still think this project could be a fun way to pass the summer if it works out that way. There are few things I like better than teaching people things I know about media and pop culture, and if I make a video about it I'm proud of, then I'll post it. It is a relief, though, to feel the urgency and turmoil receding (at least for now - hopefully forever).
If there's one thing you should take away from this whole post, it's the following: I want my story to start. I don't know how; I don't know where. I do know that it almost certainly won't come to me if I don't do something to get the ball rolling. People make their own luck, at least partially. So I'm going to start taking risks and going on adventures. Small risks and small adventures, but they're going to happen. It might be YouTube, it might be something else. This blog is a risk. I'm putting myself out on the internet, and even if I'm using a pseudonym, someone could track me down. Someone could use what I'm saying here against me. But I've seen these parts of the internet, and I actually trust them, believe it or not. I've seen Allie Brosh and Charlie McDonnell have good experiences with their blogs/vlogs, and they're a million times more famous than I'll ever be. I trust you, readers who are currently all friends of mine (I think). The thing is, I'm tired of having to explain my facade to everyone. I'm breaking it down right here. It's the internet age of self-broadcasting, and I'm taking this step. I don't know what's going to come next.
One last thing: thank you to my followers, who give me an admittedly small but countable number of concrete presences here. I don't know if you guys are reading or not, but you give me a reason to write. This is a very good experience for me. I'm bad at keeping a journal because there's no motivation. But I've made a promise to you to blog once a day, and so far I've kept it. It gives me a way to feel like I'm contributing to the internet and still gives me a very slim hope of one day becoming an internet community builder like Allie Brosh. Hopefully future entries will be more funny and less, as Callie would say, "Young Girl Talking About Herself." Despite what I said earlier, this is not actually meant to be an online version of a journal, just a way to express myself. As soon as I get the time, I'll pull out MS Paint (taking a page from Hyperbole and a Half) and give you an illustrated version of the time I learned the literal meaning of a common saying. Also, the time when I thought my sheet of music was like a stick of TNT.
P.S. Does anyone else think with this story-filter over their world? I rather think/hope that I'm not the only one.
P.P.S. I want to make clear that this was not supposed to be a way of guilting unofficial followers into becoming official ones. Having any number out there is helpful - small or large. It's having some kind of external motivation that counts.
This follower business confuses me. I like me my RSS feeds. However, I also understand the inherent pleasure of making numbers larger. There ya go.
ReplyDeleteMy projects also tend to be marked by furious initial activity that gradually tapers off, generally as a direct factor of school workload increasing (they always seem to start during breaks). I've been working on one website for several months that I wrote about 1/3 of the code for in the first weekend. But I don't mind leaving a bunch of unfinished projects around so long as they're fun to work on. vlogging is probably harder than coding since you have to work at it constantly to maintain a following; I can pick up coding a few hours a week after taking a break no problem.
I don't generally think with the story veneer, but I'm not very introspective anyways. Sometimes I step back to look at the narrative arc of the events in my life (and have great fun doing so), but it's not really my default mode of thought. I love your descriptions of it though, and think it's probably to your benefit!
M'dear TropeGirl,
ReplyDeleteI, too, think that my life is a story, much of it waiting to start. Since we've been in college, though, I've had less time to think about my story.
The great lie, though, told by movies and stories, is not that stories must begin, but that they have ends. I hope that sort of makes sense; I'll try expanding on it further in this comment. As a scientist, you should know that something like J.D. Salinger's "Catcher in the Rye" (don't you say a word about my example - it's not my absolute favorite, but I like it a lot) is only a portion of the life of Holden Caufield. It is a segment excised from the greater 'narrative' of his life and examined. It's a sample size! You know that you can't analyze an entire subject, so you take a bit of it at a time! Shouldn't your Science Senses be tingling? Also, that this is a portion of his life's 'narrative' is a poor way to phrase, but I can't think of any other good words to use.
You may dispute that this is a sample size. Sure, we may go back in time to see how he viewed his brother/juvenile delinquency/etc., but we don't necessarily know where Holden ends up forty years after the novel's end, nor do we know every last detail of where he has been. That would be... too much information.
What I'm trying to say is that stories, as are presented in our Western tradition, are sometimes terribly limited. As autonomous, real beings, we get to start our stories over and over again - and we get to end them over and over again. Do not come back at me with some snarky comment about death. That's the final ending if you don't believe in life after death, and if you do believe in death, it's the beginning of a whole new chapter. Personally, I find the latter much happier.
Most literature and film also fail because they do not take into account the complexity of human life: to speak of humanity broadly, we are each other's main characters, side characters, antagonists, comic relief. In my story, you're a close friend - and comic relief! - of the protagonist. In someone else's story, you might be a minor footnote. In your own story, yes, you are the protagonist!
I have gone on long enough, but please bear with me a little longer - it feels as though this comment is longer than the original post. When I was twelve, I played Final Fantasy X for the first time. The very opening lines were "Listen to my story." Tidus kept on saying, "This is my story." Boy, did that resonate with my twelve-year-old self. It still resonates with my twenty-year-old self, though in a different way. Not to be banal, but I think you might gain something valuable from either playing or reading a detailed summary of FFX.
Lastly, TropeGirl, I'm sure you realize that you're already in the midst of your own story. You're in the midst of multiple stories of your own and others' invention. Just don't get caught up in waiting for something to start when it's already started :)
There might not be a TARDIS out there that you and I can see, but magic does exist. Magic exists in your imagination and the ability for you to transform with that imagination your surroundings.
That last statement was the best cop out ever.
I totally think with a story filter. And sometimes when I'm bored I add the theme music.
ReplyDeleteI'd love to make some sort of profound statement in this comment but I'm kind of too tired to think of one at the moment.