the folly of trying

I have noticed a recurring theme in movies especially but also in books with an American protagonist. The theme is as follows: a person has a dream and doesn't want to follow it or doesn't know what that dream is and but someone close to him convinces him to follow that dream at all cost regardless of the consequences or the validity of that dream whence the person follows his dream and everything comes up daisies. If only this scenario were more realistic. In 99.99999% of the cases in which someone actually tries to follow their dream, that person runs face first into the Reality Wall, realizes that society at large does not give a fuck about their dream, understands that they will not be able to eat or otherwise sustain themselves on their current path, and gives up. they wash out and go back home to shitsville and Nobody gives a fuck about the fact that they even tried because even if they did try they were not good enough or lucky enough or well connected enough to succeed.

I am currently trying something that will more than likely fail, unless there is some serious mojo in my future. I have failed at this many times in the past, mostly because i have not even tried to do it, and i mean really doing it while saying fuckall to the critics and to the world. I have failed before I even started because I am as scared of success as I am failure, consequence of an alcohol father in my youth and an escapist adolescence, which I am now trying Really Hard not to use as an excuse to let myself off the hook. a word to the wise: don't have kids if you're a druggie (and I'm talking ANY drug here, including and especially booze), and don't marry druggies and have kids. the repercussions are vast and never ending and you'll have a kid who Wants to do something revolutionary with his life but who is so afraid of his own Potential that he runs around in circles like a chicken with his head cut off trying to finish a short little novel. Then why am I still doing it? Because I am sick and tired of being a fucking failure, not in the eyes of others, but in the ever-present, all-seeing eye that sees everything I do and gives me no rest if I'm slacking - i.e. my undying inner virtue, my soul, the dozens of facets, the snippets of personality that collectively make me who I am.

The media rarely portraits the actual series of events in the lives of the majority of the American population (i.e. the people living in the boonies or in Flyover country or anywhere that is not a major metropolitan area): 1) you are born. 2) you go to school. 3) if you are lucky, you have smarts or are beautiful or someone recognizes a talent in you and fosters that talent [if none of these apply to you, you are Fucked - skip to step 6]. 4) you leave the boonies to pursue a career involving smarts, beauty or your talent in a major metropolitan area. 5) you spend your life doing what you are simultaneously good and and love to do 6) you die, or wash out and move back to the boonies, which are basically the same thing.

Remember Icarus, and keep on dreaming, kids.
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