What Am I? Re-visiting a post from about 18 months ago.

A picture from about 18 months ago. What a douche!

I never finished this post. I started it, but never quite finished it. I was here in the blog today looking at what I might write next and noticed I had some drafts sitting in the cue. One of them is the next Project: Iron Man, so I’ll get to that later, but the others were stream of consciousness/diary entry style articles that weren’t quite… right. Of all of them, this one was an interesting take on where my head was at about 18 months ago. It’s interesting to trace where your head is at. My friend Zeke likes to say that he was always an idiot 10 years ago, and I can totally agree with a statement like that. How often have you looked up an old journal or, now-a-days, an old Facebook or MySpace post and say to yourself, “dear God, what was I thinking?!?!?” While this entry doesn’t reach “Dear God!?!?!?” levels, I would be lying if I said that I didn’t cringe at a few phrases here and there. But in the interest of “putting myself out there” here is, the “What Am I” post.

So I’ve been exploring, through the use of an exercise a friend introduced me to, my “nature.” Yes, it might be just as pretentious as it sounds but screw you ‘cuz I’m all about self-discovery.  Anyhow, I have been trying to get down to my core and figure out what makes me tick by breaking down what how I like to express myself, my career choices, and how I like to spend my free time all have in common.

Thus far I have come to this conclusion: I like to tell stories.  I see myself as a story teller.

Applying this to the whole of my life it makes a lot of sense and seems to fit pretty well.  My parents say that I tried to tell them stories before I could actually speak and they could tell by my inflection that it was more than just baby babbling.  I’ve always liked to write and my affinity for the geekier things in life have always been based on the mythology or backstory – the “fluff” if you will – to the point where I used to use cheat codes for video games just to get to the next cut-scene.

Fun side story: I’m the guy who cared about the story behind the first person shooter DOOM.  I was the asshole sitting behind my friends asking, “What’s going on here?”
“We shoot shit.”
“Yeah, but why?”
“‘Cuz they’re on the screen!”
Cut to my friend’s faces with the “duh” expression on their faces while I go digging for the box to read the backstory in the manual.

And all of this carries over into what I choose to do now with the movies, shows, Shmimprov, even when I teach!  Choices I make are designed to help tell the overall story.

So why do I even bring this up?  It’s a mix of reasons:  1) blogs that talk about personal things go over better with the public, 2) I wanted to write about the exercise as a record as a record for me of where I think I am right now in 2011 and 3) because I feel like I need to justify some of my geekier pursuits – and as I write that I’m finding that I’m really mad at myself for feeling that way.

It’s come up again and again, in pop culture, in this blog, in conversation and over the decades, where geekier things like D&D, board games, cartoons, sci-fi, and fantasy all get a bad rap where as equally geeky pursuits, like sports fanaticism, fishing or golf, get a bit more of a pass.  We’ve been living in a time where “geek is chic.”  Beauty queens swear they love Star Wars, Star Trek has returned to the mainstream, and hipsters where glasses whether they need them or not.  ComiCon has power in the world of media, even if that power seems to be waning, and comic books may be dying as a paper product but the properties are as lucrative as ever. In the end I don’t want this to turn into geeks vs. jocks because that’s not the point since, really, we are all in the same boat, just enjoying different pursuits.

And then it just kind of ends. That’s probably what kept it from getting published. I have no memory of writing this one, so I can’t be sure, but I’ve been stopped plenty of time due to not finding an ending.

Comments are welcome, especially if they include your own “Dear God?!?!?!?” moments.

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