In Defense of Comics

When certain people discover that I read comic books, I get a variety of responses, such as: "So, what do you mean, like, Charlie Brown and Garfield?" Yes, this was actually said to me. Another of my favorite responses comes when I talk about "Superhero" movies. I get the scrunched-up-face-smirk/grimace look followed by "Isn't that a comic book movie? Those movies are SO dumb." I find it amusing that these responses usually come from one of two sources: First, girls who wear FAR too much makeup, and second, those who belong to the Talledega Nights/Superbad/Anchorman crowd. Yeah, COMIC BOOK movies are dumb...riiiiiiight. Anymore, I won't even mention the fact that I wouldn't mind expanding my writing career to include comic books or graphic novels. I'm not embarrassed. I just don't want to deal with the headache.

I must admit, some of these responses are justified. Hollywood was not always good at bringing comic books to life on the silver screen. Sometimes it's still not very good at it. (The Fantastic Four movies, the 3rd Spiderman movie, The Hulk, the list goes on). Still, I find that when people call something stupid it is usually because they didn't understand it, or they have absolutely no experience with it. This is true when it comes to comic books. I'm curious to know how many people that think comic books and their cinema-counterparts are stupid have actually ever READ a comic book. My first guess would be, not too many. Or at least, they've never read the RIGHT ones.

It amazes me in this age of mixed-media and freedom of artistic exploration that comic books are still seen as the black-sheep of the literature family. When comic book writers are shunned from academic circles, confined to "Children's Literature" at book fairs, and consistenly overlooked for the most prestigious awards. I ask you, why are comic books not considered a legitimate storytelling medium? Why are they different from any other method of storytelling?

Let me ask this: Can a painting tell a story? Can a photograph? One has only to look at any number of paintings and works of art to know that images are perfectly capable of telling a story. The Creation of Adam on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. The Adoration of the Name of God. The School of Athens. American Gothic. If one but takes the time to look and look DEEPER, these are incredibly telling images.

And there is no need to ask if books, songs or poems tell stories. Even if it is just a simple passage of dialogue. Dialogue was the traditional method of learning and teaching among the ancients (something I believe would benefit the modern generations greatly, were it revived in education institutions). Plato and Socrates, two of the most influential thinkers in history spread their ideas solely through dialogue.

So if images can tell a story, and words obviously tell a story, then why is the combination of images and words suddenly cast out among the bastard children of literature? Why does this combination nullify literary, philosophical, or cultural significance? Why is a comic any less capable then a folk singer strumming a guitar, a mural on a wall, or a poem in some dusty volume? If anything, this combination of words and images should only increase its potency and potential to expand and inspire the imagination.

But beyond that, certain people scoff at the idea of superheroes, and I honestly have no idea why (Besides the idea of grown men running around in tights...I will cede that battle). What it comes down to, no matter what the media, is the story. Does the story draw me in? Does it inspire me? Does it make me feel that all too rare sensation of a very real possibility of epic things happening within the world?

The Greeks had their legendary heroes. The Romans had their gods. The Britons had Arthur and his knights. The Celts had the Fae. Literally every culture from every period built around themselves a unique set of myths and legends that inspired them, encouraged them, awed them, and ultimately spoke to the inner parts of their hearts and invited them to look at the triumph of what is best in humanity.

So here's my point: Comic books are American Mythology.

What is Superman and his Kryptonite if not a reflection of great Achilles and his heel? What is Batman and Gotham except the mythical struggle of one or a few men battling to defend their city and their home, just as Hector and Paris?

Virgil had his Aeneas.

Homer had his Achilles and his Hector and his Odysseus.

We have Superman. We have Batman.

We need them.

We need these stories, because they reflect the best of us, and the worst of us. These archetypes are essential for us to explore the meaning of what exactly we are, and what we are capable of being.

America has succeeded in creating its own personal mythology.

It's time it was embraced.

My Best Year of College

It seems like for the past year, my life has been a vigorous exercise in Murphy’s Law. Jobs, money, relationships, friendships, personal struggles, family health issues, student loans, etc. There have been times when I have wanted to throw in the towel and walk away from life. This, however, can never and will never be an option, however much I may want it to be. After all, I will never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever quit.

A year like the one I’ve experienced is a good way to discover a lot about yourself, and an excellent way to see what you’re made of. Maybe that was the point for everything I’ve gone through, to get me to the point, personally, where I am right now. If it is, so be it. I have prayed consistently throughout my life for God to make me into what he wants me to be, even if he has to hurt me, even if he has to take things away. And God always answers prayers.

There are a number of things that I have discovered about myself. I have often wondered at what point one can know he has officially become a man. It seems to me that there is a certain…potential to a person that, unless exercised, will be eternally just that: potential. It seems that a person is this squishy and malleable mass of attributes, and unless those attributes are fired and hardened, then they will fade away and become nothing. I feel like that has happened to me, and I’ve reached the point that every person comes to eventually, the point where what you could be becomes either what you are, or what you never will be.

Here is what I am: I am a man of fortitude. I am iron. I am confrontational. I am a fighter. I don’t back down from a challenge. I am a fierce friend. I am a writer. I am a loner, in a good way. I am a romantic. I am all or nothing. I’m a darn good cook.

But there is something else that I have learned this year. Something else has happened.

I have been graduated from college for almost a full year. Due to circumstances, I have found myself still in Lynchburg, still haunting my alma mater. I have been able to live the life of a college student, minus the classes, responsibilities, and stress. I have more than my share of my own stresses, but I have been able to experience the best parts of being in college without actually being in college. It seems like I have spent more good, quality time with my friends this year than when I was actually in school. Whether it’s jamming and recording music with one of them, going to intramural volleyball games and supporting my old team, or staying on the dorm until all hours of the morning, playing multiplayer games, watching movies, talking, hanging out, laughing myself silly, and generally having a romping good time, this has been the best year of my college experience.

If I’ve learned anything in this relatively short life of mine, it is this: Friends come and go. Some of the people you care about the most will decide that you are not worth it, and they will leave your life. Some of the best friends in the world will fade away, not due to anyone’s fault, but just because that’s the way things are. Some people just refuse to make an effort. But what everyone else does isn’t the point, is it? No, the point is, what did you do? What have you done with the friends that you’ve had? Have you done right by them? Did you make an effort?

See, the important thing is, what are you becoming? And what are you to the people who matter the most?

People come and go. The best that you can hope for is that you have enough time with your friends, your real friends, the ones who stay true.

For all the bad parts of this year, I’ve learned one thing about myself.

If a man is the sum of his friends, then I am one hell of a man.

Men and Women: Vol. II (On Expectations)

This note piggy-backs on the previous one, entitled “Men and Women: Vol. I (On Marriage)”. If you haven’t read that one, I would advise doing so before continuing.

According to a recent study, the divorce rate among those within the church is higher (about 60% of those who get married) than that of those outside the church (about 50%). When I learned this, I was appalled, but not exactly surprised. Here’s why.

It is very easy, especially in a high-caliber, spiritually-charged atmosphere such as the one found at Liberty University, to form expectations so high that they become unreachable. In that kind of environment, ideals are easy to form. Here, I speak more to the ladies than I do to the men. Men, I believe, usually have a much more realistic picture of what marriage will be like, and more realistic expectations of their women. I personally know a few young women who think that they will end up with the next best thing since Jesus himself. It is easy to get caught up in the high, and many people end up chasing around a carbon-copy of Christ, and when they find out he’s not what they expected him to be, they are crestfallen. Somewhere along the way, they have forgotten that they are dealing with people. Imperfect, fallible, fallen people.

To clarify, there is nothing wrong with expecting a godly man. You should. Likewise, men, you should pursue godly women. The problem comes when our expectations outweigh reality, and we miss out on someone who is a blessing from God.

Now, I am giving you all fair warning: In the next paragraph, I am going to get up on my soapbox. If you don’t particularly care for soapboxes, or you find yourself at odds with opinionated people, then I suggest you gloss over what I’m about to say. Better yet, stop reading this altogether. You don’t belong here. There. You have been warned.

LADIES. STOP expecting your boyfriends/fiancés/new husbands to be your fathers. They are not. They never will be. And guess what? They were never meant to be. There is nothing wrong with wanting a man who is like your father. What I’m saying is STOP EXPECTING YOUR MAN TO BE ABLE TO GIVE YOU EVERYTHING THAT YOUR DADDY HAS GIVEN YOU. Yes, you have lived in a nice home all your life, your father has been able to give you all sorts of nice and expensive things, he gives you lots of spending money and buys you a brand new car. Do you know why he was able to do these things? Because you were born into an already established family environment, one where, more than likely, your father and your mother have already formed a financial basis before they had you. Your father worked his entire life to be able to give you what you have. You weren’t around to see Mom and Dad living in a crappy apartment, scraping by on next to nothing before they were able to provide a better home for you. My Dad worked in a gas station for several years before he was able to find the job he wanted and the job that would provide for his wife and his family, one that is STILL providing for us this very day. Guess what? Your husband is going to have to work for awhile before he’s able to give you everything you want, and you just might have to make some sacrifices along the way. Your husband/significant other is NOT some sugar-daddy who will float you cash and expect you to sleep with him once in awhile, some emotional robot who you don’t have to support and indulges your materialism (but let’s be honest, that’s exactly what some ladies WANT, isn’t it?). STOP BEING BRATS, and be a good girlfriend/fiancé/wife.

*He quietly and calmly steps down off his soapbox and clears his throat.

Ahem.

It is unfair and unreasonable to expect a college student or an early to mid twenty-something man to have the wisdom, experience, bearing and maturity of a forty or fifty year-old man. Of course we are not all that an older man is. We are still becoming the men we should be and want to be. Are you, ladies, all that you should be? Are you already the complete picture of what you want to be and should be as a godly, mature woman? I would wager that you are not. The only difference is, we don’t expect you to be.

It is equally as unfair for you to expect us to be.

Further, since when is it a prerequisite to marriage for you to be everything you should be as a person? Since when do you have to be the perfect example of a fully-developed godly man in order to get married, or be in a relationship? Isn’t that part of the beauty of falling in love? The mutual respect, the common understanding that you BOTH are still growing, still filling the roles of what you want to be and should be, and pursuing that? Together? The whole point of a man and a woman coming together is so that they can fill in each others’ weaknesses and benefit from each others’ strengths.

Now, I DO believe that there is a certain level, as far as provision and maturity is concerned, that a man should reach before getting married. I’m not making excuses. But realize that your man is still striving to be that man you want him to be. Men – you SHOULD provide for your wife, love her as Christ loves the church – that’s our job, to protect our women – to fight every day to make the world a better place, to use our strength to change things so that they can live in a better world. But women, realize that, at the end of the day, when we drag ourselves home, tired and beaten down from trying to provide a better life for you, that’s when your job kicks in.

I recently had a conversation with an older man, one that I respect very much, and someone who has been married for over twenty years, and who has a solid marriage and a great family. This is not a sissy, overly-sensitive, overly-emotional man. This is a hard man, a man who has worked all his life. I will use his words here.

“Men are emotionally fragile creatures. There is a degree of instability to us that can only be corrected by the presence of a woman. God knows where I would be without my wife.”

Ladies, we need the kind of comfort that only you can give, that feminine touch (I’m not referring to physical intimacy here) that only you can provide. God created you to help us, so that we wouldn’t have to be alone. Because we aren’t meant to be alone. Every man’s soul longs for the lady with which he can have that sense of comfort, that feeling of home. You are the salve to the wounds we endure while fighting to be a good man. You assuage the tension, pain, and emotional injuries we sustain.

As much as we don’t want to admit it, ladies, we need you.

Why do you think so many guys have big trucks, so many silly gadgets? It’s because up until now, our lives have been empty, and we’re trying to pretend that we’re okay without you. We’re trying to act like we don’t need you. But we do.

Unfortunately, if that “emotional instability” falls into the hands of the wrong woman – an ungodly woman, the woman who doesn’t know what to do with it, or doesn’t want to know – then it only aggravates the situation, and the results could be destructive. If a woman derides her man for his struggles instead of encouraging him and comforting him, it only makes things worse, and knocks the man’s feet out from underneath him, and his incentive to strive to be better is gone. This is not to say that a man shouldn’t be emotionally strong. He should. But understand that we ARE human.

Should people within the church get divorced? I think the question should be, should these couples ever have gotten married in the first place?

Unfortunately, that question comes too late for many people.

What’s the point? Men, be strong for your women, but realize that she may need some practice at the whole feminine comfort thing. Ladies, work with your man, not against him. Realize that he is fighting to be the kind of man you want him to be, God wants him to be, and he knows he should be.

Stop expecting.

Start being.

-a.

Men and Women: Vol. I (On Marriage)

I begin writing with somewhat of a heavy heart. Perhaps this is the price I pay for attempting, through writing, to ease the weight that burdens my mind. This post has been a long time in the making.

Over the last year or so, I think Satan has been systematically attacking my hopes for marriage, love, and a relationship with the godly woman that I so hope for. Suffice it to say, I’m a romantic sort of man, which makes this attack all the harder. It seems like I’ve heard things from everywhere and everything about the negativity of marriage. Here are some examples:

“Give them the hips, not the heart.”

“Don’t get married. You’re young, and it’s not worth it.” This from a young woman not four years my senior.

“Marriage will make you miserable.”

You get the idea.

Honestly, I’m scared. I’m scared of being alone, but because of what I see and hear, I’m equally afraid of getting married. I hear people talk about how they’re uncomfortable being in the same house alone with their spouses, after however many years of marriage. I hear people say they need a “buffer” in between themselves and their spouses. I see men become hard, unaffectionate stones, and I see women become cold and bitter shells. And I ask myself, is this what marriage is like? Marriage shouldn’t be like this . . . should it?

In the words of my good friend, “This is why I think it might not be so bad to not get married, because it would probably make me miserable anyway.”

Then I find myself sad and despairing about my future, and my long term interaction with the opposite-sex. The more I hear, the less marriage seems like the beautiful union of two people becoming one, and the more it seems like two miserable, completely separate individuals living under the same roof.

And so, I have been wondering for a long time exactly what has been the root cause of this. Why is marriage, a holy gift from God, in such a fallen state, to the point where more than half of the couples who get married end up getting a divorce? I may have found an answer.

Satan has not only been systematically attacking my view of marriage (something I’m sure he knows is a soft spot of mine), but he has also, for years and decades, through trends and movements within society, been systematically attacking and breaking down the roles of men and women in relationships. Particularly, in marriages.

Through the rising trend of individualism, and the older trend of feminism, women have been told that anything men can do, they can do (better). They can be CEOs of major corporations. They can be major leaders within the church. Men and women in many realms are on a level playing field. These things, in and of themselves, are not problems. The problem comes when women try to fill roles for which they were not designed and were never meant to fill.

I speak of relationships. I speak of marriage.

The Bible defines the roles of men and women in marriage in this way:

“Wives, submit to your husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior . . . Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her . . . For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh . . . Each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.”

I believe there is a mutual failure of filling these roles, both on the part of men, and on the part of women, that has led to the current state of marriage.

Women have become unleadable. Filled with an air of self-entitlement and empowerment, many women have assumed the role of leader in every area of their lives. Women don’t know how to submit anymore. And you can’t lead someone who refuses to follow.

Further than that, when men attempt to lead, women revert to an old standby: manipulation. I hear snide remarks all the time from married men about how wives run everything in marriages, however subtle it may be. I observe things, and I find this to be true, many times. If women want to, they can make your life miserable. If you don’t lead the way they WANT you to lead, they’ll find a way. They’ll cut you down with words, exploiting your weak points, giving your weaknesses as an example of why you’re not a good leader. This is NOT respect. This is NOT mutual cooperation. The Bible calls that malice, and it’s sin. The one thing men crave over any other is to be respected by their women. It’s in the Bible. What is God’s one commandment to women? Submit. Respect. Women treat men like this, then wonder why there are so many emotionless jerks, so many men who are disillusioned about marriage and love and relationships. They wonder why men treat women likes pieces of meat. And the answer is, many men think that that is the best they can hope for.

This level of disrespect women have for men leaves men feeling downtrodden, and women feeling like there are just not any men good enough to lead them (This ties into another blog I intend to write, forthcoming, about expectations…should be up within a few days, because all of this is related). So women continue to attempt to lead, and wonder why things went wrong when their men turn sour.

Women were never meant to lead.

I do not place all the blame on women. Doubtless there will be many women who say "We wouldn't have to lead if men were doing their jobs." They would be correct. This is another way Satan is trying to skew the roles of men and women. Men are to blame, because in a large part men today are not pursuing God, and when you don’t pursue God, you can’t have a good sense of how to lead someone else in a relationship as delicate as marriage. Men need to stand up and take back their position as the leaders of the women, the heads of the household, and sadly this is a value that is significantly absent among the rising generation of young men. Again, our roles as men and women are under attack, and the skewed perspectives resulting from this attack have marred our capacity for true, meaningful, godly relationships.

On a personal note, I do not claim myself to be the master of leadership. In fact, I have been accused of being a poor leader (one of the things that led to this thought process, and thus, the blog you read now). While I think this accusation was unfounded, I do believe it hit upon something that is behind the scenes in modern American society, particularly within the realm of the church (Also a subject that will be discussed in the blog concerning expectations). While I am not everything I should be as a man (yet), who is? I don’t expect my future wife to be the purest, sterling example of a submissive godly woman. But I do expect her to strive toward that end, and respect me in the process. Just as I expect myself to strive to be a better leader for her, to treat her the way Christ has treated me, with unconditional and unwavering love.

And for all the attacks, I would just like to say that they HAVE NOT BROUGHT ME DOWN. So Satan, you can keep trying, but suck it. My wife is out there somewhere, and I will not give up hope. I will die alone before I settle. I will not give in to whatever depths of despair you are trying to cast me into. I believe marriage still can and will be a beautiful, wonderful, God-honoring (and difficult) thing. I’m willing to give it my best shot.

-a.

*I would be remiss if I failed to mention Sir Bill Monthie, who helped capture my thoughts, and whose words I have used here. Despite what you may think (or he may think) he holds some great wisdom within him. You can, and should, find his blog here: http://www.deckerintheface.blogspot.com/

If I.

· If I have self doubt, maybe it’s because I’m healthy. There is such a thing as a healthy sense of self doubt. Maybe I’m not like these cold inhuman people who know no insecurity, and don’t know the difference between self-confidence and inhuman, uncompromising arrogance.
· If I’m disappointed in people, maybe it’s because I have reason to be.
· If I’m grumpy sometimes … I’m a man. Get over it.
· If I don’t trust you, maybe it’s because my trust has been violated too many times, too many people who I’ve called my friends have gone behind my back, and people don’t keep their word.
· If I expect too much of people, maybe it’s because my standards are high. But I don’t expect anything of anyone that I don’t expect of myself.
· If I seem to lack direction, maybe it’s because you haven’t taken the time to get to know me, and you don’t know that what I want to do with my life is a process. As I writer, most of what I accomplish you don’t see because it’s behind the scenes. Maybe you’re too immature to realize that you don’t become everything you want to be overnight. Besides that, what have you done with your life lately?
· If I’m insecure about some things, maybe it’s because there’s something in my past that led to those insecurities. If you’re not trying to get to know me, don’t judge my insecurities. I’m working on them, and people like you don’t help the matter.
· If I have dreams, don’t make fun of them, or criticize me for either not having achieved them or holding onto them. Especially if you don’t have any of your own.
· If I hold grudges, maybe it’s because the same thing has happened to me repeatedly, maybe by the same people, and I refuse to apologize for something for which I am not to blame. Maybe I’ve apologized too many times when I shouldn’t have.
· If I take things too personally, maybe it’s because I’m more than ready to believe what people say about me. Especially people I care about. Also, how is it not personal when someone criticizes your views, beliefs, activities, desires, character, etc. without purpose or reason? That’s personal. The end.
· If I seem opinionated, that’s because I am. When did that start being a bad thing? At least I have opinions. At least I’m not apathetic like half the people of the world.
· If I seem bitter, I’m not. This is just me clearing my head, and my heart.

The Greatest Rock Song Ever Written

There have been several times when I have listened to a song and my jaw dropped open. Bring Me To Life - Evanescence. Dolphin's Cry - Live. Welcome to the Black Parade - My Chemical Romance. Muzzle - The Smashing Pumpkins. We're So Far Away - Mae. The power of these songs, every single time I hear them, to reach me in a way that no other song can makes these go down in my book as some of the best songs ever written. (And I know some people will say "Evanescence? My Chemical Romance? Those emo bands suck!"...Okay, say what you will, but I'm talking about the FIRST time I heard Bring Me To Life, back when there wasn't a dozen copies of the "hard band/female vocalist" out there, and Amy Lee wasn't copying herself over and over. I'm talking about the moment when I listened to it, and I had never heard anything like it before. Those moments are magic, and few and far between.)

But above these, there is one song that towers over the rest, and will live on in my soul as the greatest song I've ever heard. At least until something surpasses it, which I severely doubt will ever happen.

That song is "Lateralus", by Tool.

I remember when the album Lateralus came out. I was a sophomore in high school, and I was already a fan of Tool. But that record blew my mind and took me in a direction that was completely new. To this day, that album, and that song, continue to inspire me. The band itself, psychedelia and artistic pretension aside, is comprised of four astronomically skilled and talented people. Not only is the band one of my favorites, each member is my favorite instrumentalist of their kind. Adam Jones has, more than any other, influenced the direction I take with my own guitar playing. Justin Chancellor is the best bassist I've ever heard; likewise, I don't think I've heard anyone who can match Danny Carey on drums. And Maynard James Keenan, disagree though I might with many of his outlooks and opinions, uses his voice as an instrument itself, and his style of lyric writing, and his subject matter, have greatly influenced my own.

Of all the songs on that record, Lateralus outshines, or out darkens, all the rest. Strictly in a technical sense, the song is dizzying. The rhythm and time signature changes from 9/8 to 8/8 to 7/8, making a complex pattern. Not only does this work well, but this pattern is part of the Fibonacci sequence, a mathematical theory which is directly related to the golden ratio, which is found everywhere in nature, and which I consider to be the fingerprint of God on everything he has created. The Fibonacci sequence is an ascending and descending sequence of integers that, when graphed out, forms a spiral. If one knows anything about the golden ratio, it is a pattern used in art and design, and can be found in radial symmetry throughout nature, from the Nautilus shell, to the orbits of the planets. It is rougly two-thirds to one third, and if one makes this division repeatedly, it also forms a spiral.

This design within the song isn't an accident, because the lyrics reflect this idea. The spiral is a universal sign of spirituality and divinity. Maynard sings about this in my favorite section of his lyrics:

"I embrace my desire to
feel the rhythm,
to feel connected,
to feel inspired,
to fathom the power,
to witness the beauty,
to bathe in the fountain,
to swing on the spiral,
to swing on the spiral,
to swing on the spiral of our divinity
and still be a human."

These words have directed me in a significant way, and I continue to explore the line between what it is to be divine, and what it is to be human. As a Christian, this idea is met in Jesus Christ, who perfectly human, and perfectly divine, simultaneously. I also believe there is something of the divine in all of us, and it is to be sought and embraced.

Beyond that, the music itself is one of the few songs that I can get utterly, completely lost within. Tool has mastered the quiet/loud dynamic that I love so much, and this song starts with a whisper and ends in an explosion. From the point in the song where everything drops out, and Adam Jones' guitar stomps like the approaching footsteps of a giant, to the quiet pondering of Keenan's voice, this song is epic in every sense of the word. Right down to the last eight chords that fall like the hammer of God on judgment day. Colossal. Monolithic. Gargantuan. Yet laced with moments incredibly small and intimate, I can't imagine any song every topping this one.

If you're reading this, and you've never listened to this song, do it. Then do it again. It doesn't matter if you've never heard of Tool, or hate them. Do yourself a favor and listen to it. Even if you don't buy into all the artistic meaning behind it (which many people won't, and that's okay) just listen to it as a fantastic rock song.

On Writing

The trouble with being a writer, especially an aspiring, as-yet-unpublished writer such as myself, is that no one actually believes you're a writer. No one believes you're actually doing something with your life, because they don't see you writing every day. They see you humping some meaningless 9-5 job that everyone knows won't lead anywhere, and that's it. People believe what they see, and they don't get to see the part of your day when you sit down at the computer screen or the desk with a blank sheet of paper and a pen. They don't get to see what you're really, truly passionate about. They don't know what really makes you come alive. They continue to think that you're wasting your days away, when in reality, you're accomplishing more than most people do in 10 years. At a thousand words a day, the current project I'm working on has taken on a life of its own, and its chugging down the tracks faster and better than I could've ever hoped for. But the proof isn't there for everyone else. Though I'm going to finish my first novel by the time I'm 25 (something many people dream of doing, then find themselves at 60, with nothing to show for it), no one will acknowledge that I'm a writer until there's a physical book in their hand. And even then, I'm afraid, they won't care.

It's hard to hold onto your dream when no one else believes in you. It's hard to believe in yourself when everyone else has more tangible, physical evidence of where they're going in life. But I've realized that you have to believe in yourself and in the integrity of your passion, because no one else will. Even your friends.

It's hard having a passion that no one else shares with you. It's a lonely, solitary life, being a writer. You know things no one else knows, you think thoughts that no one else thinks, your mind dwells on subjects that most people never think about. I often wonder if that is the nature of writing: privacy. I frequently get the feeling that I have this entire world in which I dwell completely alone, an internal realm that no one else really knows about, let alone is willing to enter.

There is a quote I have had stuck in my brain since I was in early high school. "To be alone is the fate of all great minds - a fate deplored at times, but still always chosen as the less grievous of two evils." Now, I don't say that I have a great mind, only that I have a singular mind, a mind that has yet to find its kindred. I have yet to find a person that can equal my passion, interest, and hope in what it means to write. I can only hope that one day I will find like minds, minds with which I can share this internal world of mine.

In the mean time, I will continue to tick off the pages, in my private little world, until I finally have something to show for my efforts.

01

Welcome.

This has been a long time coming. I have needed a place for all those stubbornly stray thoughts that refuse to leave me alone, and just won't stay pigeon-holed in any specific file in my brain. And so, they will end up here, exiled to the realm of online bloggery, and hopefully, this will help clear my thoughts a little.

Or, they could just infest YOUR thoughts, should you choose to read them.

Godspeed.