Okay, I'm not stupid or anything but sometimes I wonder what the hell I'm thinking or what the hell I'm doing. I do things and I'm like I don't really know why exactly in words I'm doing these things but shit I'm gonna do it no matter how uncomfortable and weird a situation it puts me in.
It's a gut reaction that I'm way too used to doing. But sometimes it pays off.
This usually applies to me self-sabotaging different things.
Money. Relationships with girls I like. Friendships. Almost everything.
So it is this mindset that stays with me on this, the eve of everything coming back to bite me in the ass. Maybe it's me trying to rationalize my irrational way of conducting myself for the past semester or two. But I honestly think it's something bigger and a lot deeper.
First off, I've really painted myself in a shit stained corner with school. I've intentionally skipped one class all semester and am bound to fail. This was a conscious decision as it was my way of rebelling against not only a class full of freshman business majors who were boring as fuck and a class I didn't actually need to take, but also my way of first saying "I'm burnt out at the whole school thing". It was also my way of saying in actions not words that I'm starting to realize a large chunk of my schooling has been ultimately worthless. Not all of it. Most.
But then there's the class I thought I dropped out of but actually didn't and I'm gonna fail a class I didn't even realize I was taking. I don't even wanna get started on how pissed off this makes me. And it only leads me to being more pissed with the way the school handles this type of shit. I don't trust the system. I've seen it screw too many people over and now I'm being fucked over by it as well.
This leads me to a class which I love but honestly was just too busy doing something I knew I wanted to do then that class. My ACTLab class was badass as shit. I loved it, but I only also went a handful of times. Why? Well besides me working on CHICKEN FEET more so than should be healthy I also was very anxious when I was in that class. Why? I love having those types of conversations the class did but I also realized many people in that classroom for one reason or another and at different points in their lives did not know exactly what they wanted to do. Some were just trying to kill time, some were just too comfortable in the semi-lazy way of life academia provides, some were just too damn ADD to stay on any one thing and loved the ACTLab's hyper ADD environment.
Me personally, I am way too anxious and focused to not start getting my ideas out there and produced in the biggest way possible. Not that I'm better then any of them, in fact I admire them for being so whizbang. But ultimately and sadly enough it was another reason I realized college/academia was not for me. I'm gonna do my final presentation for the class and I am gonna put my all in it but I don't feel like I did enough and I am man enough to admit at least that.
The whole idea of school to me is kind of assbackwards. I'm gonna put myself thousands of dollars in debt so I can get a piece of paper that will for one reason or another give me magical money powers that I can get a magical money grubbing job with and work myself out of that debt and somehow be on top albeit totally unhappy for the rest of my life? Everyone I know with a college degree right now is in some way either way too stressed out, not where they wanna be, unhappy or all three.
That leads me to the big two letters: LA. There are many reasons for this.
I'm a senior, I should be graduating, but I'm not. Far too many of friends have over the past four years gone to Europe or backpacking or just generally done some self exploring or gotten a huge much needed break from school. I haven't. I do wanna travel and see the world and such I really do. But I know I can't afford it both financially and personally. If you follow me on the most irrational course of action way of thinking I'm prone to, you'll arrive to the same conclusion I have: Go out to LA on your own and see what happens.
Right now honestly I want nothing more professionally other than getting my ideas made onto the screen and for many people to enjoy. I want people to enjoy the things I create. Not a few, but lots and lots of people. Why? Money? No. Not really. Celebrity? No. I don't ever want to be on perezhilton. It's because big wide spread stories have effected me greatly throughout my life and I have the most fun making these types of things. This semester the one thing that kept me from total depression was the fact that for the first time in college I met and worked with people who knew what they were doing and are good people. We get along, creativity flows, work gets done and the whole time we have fun. If I can get that along with a job that pays I'll be super happy at work all the time.
My point of this is that I really really want to get Bengal & Rourke made into a TV show. I want to do it while I'm young and hungry and I feel like I'm angry enough and starving enough to produce something that people have never seen before. I watched some of NBC's new drama Southland and it's like they stole half my ideas and infused it with a big no fun only drama attitude. Bengal and Rourke is the fun loving bastard punk rock child of Southland and Miami Vice. I also want to get Kick Bigfoot's Ass made on a $75 million dollar budget by the time I'm 26.
All this talk gets me super excited but honestly I have all these ambitions and I definitly have the will to do all the work necessary to get them made but I realize as I type them out I am totally not sharing this with anyone.
Let me be honest with you. I'm a romantic at heart. I believe in true love. I believe in love at first sight. I have been in love. I have been out of love. I have been hurt. I have hurt people. But when it comes down to it, it depresses me to shit becasue I can't open myself up like I used to. Am I jaded? Cynical? No. The answer just like that little asian guy who changed my life said. His name is HAL by the way. He told me what my problem was and it applies to me forever. I'm afraid.
In this case, I'm afraid of being hurt again like I was. It makes me so sad that I am and I swear to god that I won't stay this way. I need to open up and again and trust again. My friends started me watching this show SKINS. It's british and I'm only watching the third season but that show stirs something inside me. It reminds me of a time when I was all or nothing. Not afraid. When ANYTHING was possible and I didn't have a care in the world. When I would embrace each day as it came and nothing weighed down my heart. It's the same feeling a good M83 song ellicts from me.
I've lost touch with that feeling and only had mere glimpses of it in the past four years and it's something I want more than anything. I remember most of my time at UTSA as crappy as it was, the environment and the people there shook me and forced me to do alot of growing up mostly for the better. I love them for that and I owe them all greatly.
The other time was around this same time last year when I went for this jog with my friend Caitlin. It's almost summer and she takes me down this path that's just beautiful and it's all sunny and then it starts to rain a little as we jog. The way the sun was setting and the river reflected the rain and sun was moving but then BOOM it started hailing and we took shelter underneath some school area. It was so moving and life affirming that I just wanted to kiss her or cry, it was just amazingly beautiful on this clear day sunset watching it hail on this hill in the silence of just the setting. It really moves me even thinking of it. The point of all of this being that I need to and am reconnecting with my true inner die hard romantic self. It sure is happening.
I want to find someone to share all of the awesome things in life with. Someone beautiful with a beautiful and positive outlook on life and the world. Someone who pushes me and forces me into making myself a better person. And someone I can do hopefully the same to.
Which now leads me to leaving my beloved city of Austin behind. Will I come back? I don't know. Austin will forever be a place of romance in every sense of the word for me. Youthful abandon and energy. Mystery at it's best. I love this city. It doesn't make sense to leave. But my gut tells me to for better or worse.
And for one of the few times in my life I don't have a single clue as to what's going to happen next. It's really scary. Frightening actually. But I know that if I follow my heart, my gut and put my back into all the work I have no doubt about me coming out on top of it.
