Unnameable Randoms - July 14 2010

Happy Bastille Day!

Two centuries, three decades, and one year since the birth of the French Republic, and scholars still argue over the merits and detriments of the Revolution itself. 

Regardless of the typically anglophonic stereotypes surrounding the French people, institutions, and culture, we all owe much of Western civilization's heritage to la belle France, so here's a tip of the hat to mes amis francais.

"Vive la France....Vive la Liberté"

What It Takes

What's the timeline for success, anyway?

It took me ten years of hemming and hawing to find myself on my path, and you know, even I wonder if that time was still wasted.  Even still, despite previous entries and, frankly, just flat-out knowing better, I sometimes feel that I'm behind the 8 ball to get this life started.

As I mentioned last time, living in this city is tough sometimes.  Surrounded by all of this success, and I'm still not good enough, for my own standards, that is.  I guess nothing's ever good enough for anyone in our society, and given that Burlington is a city given to symbolic wealth as well as the real deal, I shouldn't be surprised that I'm feeling the pressure. It isn't necessarily a bad thing, getting a kick in the ass on a daily basis to get your life in order, though it stings afterwards and makes sitting down rather uncomfortable.

I'm starting to get what Jack Shephard goes through on LOST.  My actual parents are overwhelming supportive of me, always have been, but imagine having a dad who looks for any excuse to tell you that you don't have what it takes. 

That's basically Burlington, Christian Shepherd in city form.  It's tough on you.  It sacrifices your ability to really develop a relationship with it.  It causes some collateral damage and makes you "walk among them, but not be one of them".  But in the end, it turns you into the hero.  It's an instrument of destiny, this city.  And on a basic level, I love it like a father.  Twisted, I know.

It wasn't like this when I was in Westdale. Hamilton doesn't have daddy issues.  Hamilton's more like a divorced fiftysomething that's seen better days trying to figure itself out, and is just starting to make some brilliant progress.  Until it cleans up some of its own mess and goes through a few more years of therapy, you'll never see Hamilton giving you a lecture on success.  Hamilton is no hypocrite.  Then again, Hamilton won't expect you to do better, either.

Enough with the anthropomorphic city metaphors.  You get the picture. 

I keep adjusting and re-adjusting my constructs to suit my moods and emotions.  Truth is, I've been in a crisis/opportunity mode for a while now, and not just because I got a divorce at 29.  This is my quarter-life opportunity, as yet unresolved, in fact having moved two steps backwards in the past six months because I'm now single on top of everything.  Make no mistake, though: the crisis/opportunity was there before.

I've written about that already a lot, but the new revelation is simple: I have to do better at what I love doing.  That means making it make money.  That means recognizing the one simple truth of my life in 2010:

The only thing that truly matters is the book.  It's the key to everything that I'm missing out on.

Without a completed MS, there's nothing to pitch to an agent.  Without the agent, there's no credible solicitation to a publisher for the rights, and thus no advance. Without the advance, there is no success in my chosen career.  Without this success, I am worthless, just another cog chugging along in the public service machine.  An overly sensitive, original and creative dreamer with nothing of value to give outside of being exceptionally personable, quirky, and sometimes funny, telling new stories, and pushing paper behind a desk. An overeducated peon. 

People skills are good, spiritual values are sound, intellect matters, creativity is God in the pen, but if this city's taught me anything, they're all meaningless if you can't translate that into material success, to demonstrate that you're a man and can be a provider and a king. 

Drew Baylor says it best in Elizabethtown: "Success, not greatness, [is] the only god the entire world worship[s]."  Then again, maybe I'm learning the wrong lesson?

I'm sick of being told by others that I have potential, that I'm going places.  That's something you tell doe-eyed university grads, not 29 year olds starting to show gray in their hair.  I want to start manifesting my potential.  I want to actually go places instead of talking about it all the time.  This is the realization I should have had ten years ago.  I have to recover a decade.

That means getting my shit done.  And I'm doing it.  1,300 words added today to my story. Current word count as of when I started this entry: 109,403.  More to go.  Way way more.

I'm gonna do it my fucking way, without being a banker or an accountant or other suited clone of some evil corporation.  Without becoming one of those snot-nosed WASPish country club members in preppie scarves and polo shirts. 

I'll show you, Burlington. I've got what it takes.

"Girls don't like boys; girls like cars and money."

I dunno, maybe I'm becoming cynical, but this seems to be the rule rather than the exception when it comes to twentysomething Canadian girls.  Then again, once again, maybe it's just where I live. 

I can't completely fault girls who affirm this Good Charlotte lyric.  Who wants to date someone who has no job and no ambition?  No energy?  No creativity?  He'd better have either a great personality or a very big penis, 'cause really, chicky, that's all you're going to get out of that relationship. 

On the other hand, those girls are gonna spend an awful lot of their time alone at night with Haagen Daas containers and Sleepless in Seattle reruns....

There are exceptions, of course, and some are very exceptional exceptions, but it seems that if you don't have the toys, you ain't got shit as far as the vast majority of high value single ladies are concerned.  This is a very old discussion, I know.  It seems guys have been bitching about this one for years, but it's new to me, and I'm running into it more and more each day, mostly regarding online dating.  Putting "Writer/Government" as your job in your profile seems to be as effective a deterrent as saying you're the "D" word (divorced).  And I have both.  I might as well beat myself with an ugly stick and stop bathing.

Then again, am I wrong?  No bullshit here, single ladies: are you for real?  Are you independent or aren't you, because, really, I'm having trouble figuring out just what it is you want out of life?  Because if you want to be treated like a princess, then that's fine: I'll work my way up and spoil you rotten.  But if you want to be independent, then what the hell does it matter to you what I do for a living?  Maybe you haven't quite figured yourselves out yet?

Hmm...re-reading that now, it looks bitter, and I guess there's some venting here (it's my blog and I'll cry if I want to), but this is some serious discussion material.  It's frustrating both on a personal level and one of sheer intellectual curiosity, so I'd really like to know.

Where do we draw the line between realistic expectations and wanting what we want?  Discuss.

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