On Storytelling and Self

I’ve just been reading someone’s post about Neil Gaiman’s speech at the Texas Library Association’s annual meeting, which unfortunately didn’t include the entire transcript but more of an analysis of his talk, and it got me to want to write for a spell. I will admit I haven’t read much of Gaiman’s novels, except Good Omens but that was due to it being co-authored by Pratchett, but I have read a several different articles and internet posts he’s done and I have a huge amount of respect for the man. One thing I got from this analysis of his speech was about storytelling and about how people respond to it, namely if a child doesn’t comprehend something they’ll move onto something that suits them until they are able to. This in a roundabout way got me thinking about myself and what I strive to do.

Lately I have been struggling with what I want to do in regards to career and life in general, one of the drawbacks from having to fulfil job searching requirements imposed by the government so I can afford to do things, and honestly it has been getting me down a bit. It’s that paradox between doing something you want but for no reward or doing something you hate to get a reward, and lately I don’t want to do the later. I have a very loose and broad skill set I’ve developed over the years, not really a ‘Jack of all trades’ but definitely ‘master of none’ so to speak, especially because if I’m interested in something I’ll try my hand at doing it, which makes a lot of what I do very flexible but I feel I have nothing I can showcase. Whilst I have a couple of IT degrees, IT is the last thing I want a job in (a few bad experiences have kinda ruined that pursuit for me) and I just don’t fancy pursuing my current degrees any further at this time (academia gets in the way of learning things). About the only thing that gives me any kind of satisfaction has been costuming, but it’s becoming a rapidly expensive habit again with little reward... and yet I’m actually okay with that to some degree but I just don’t see my current skill/exp level as being able to afford me a career.

The long winded point I’m trying to make is that I’ve had a lot of time of self-reflection lately, looking over what I’ve done recently and trying to assess my strengths and weaknesses when I came along a recurring thread amongst a lot of things I do. I have a lot of creative pursuits, some old, some new, some fresh, some atrophied, but all practically revolve around storytelling. Lately nearly every single thing I try and do I try and tell a story with it. A perfect example is when I’m weather proofing an object, I always just and think of what happened to it to become damaged in what way, even including when I included a boot mark on my helmet to look like someone had kicked me in the head. Even recently when I’ve been gaming, I’m either consciously (because of the game) or subconsciously meta-gaming, adding my own layers upon the game itself... and yes I learnt it from watching Wil Wheaton, and it is such a fun way to experience things.

It was a revelation, albeit it one that wasn’t accompanied by a beam of light or a chorus of angels or any sort of life affirming change, but it did give me some sort of comfort. Just like writing this blog, I post daily and I know no one reads it unless I promote certain posts on faceblargh, but having an outlet even at my most shittiest of times is somewhat comforting (or at least when I’m not feeling like utter crap or wallowing in self misery). I think I’m happy I reached #100 posts, and I whilst I don’t want to negate what I said all the way back in post #1, I’m unsure just how far I can push this thing but I’ll sure give my best shot and I hope some people will come along for the ride.