My Life: Actually Not My Life #1

Well, since I started this blog, I've been riddled with disease, I had one of the most stress-filled weeks in my job's history, snow and fog have followed me, and I just spent four hours of unplanned overtime at work before settling to a nice meal of Burger King around 10. I'm not saying this is because of the blog, necessarily. I'm just saying it's probably cursed.

But the dark arts can't stop a writer from writing. It can just make one change the topic.

Yes, this was going to be a happy bit of reminiscing about my college Dungeons and Dragons group. But that will have to wait for another week. Because writers thrive on the darker moments, especially those who write fiction, and really especially those who write fantasy.

Also, "really especially?" Well, I'm not professional writer yet.

Anyway, it's those darker moments when fantasy becomes more real, and thus easier to express, because it's here that the writers need the fantasy. And so, without further ado, here's the fantasy for Joseph Barder, age 28. It's Joseph Barder, age 28, as imagined by Joseph Barder, age 18, with some paraphrasing. I mean, I last met that guy a decade ago.

6:45 am. Or possibly 6:30 am, I always imagine myself getting up more energetically than I actually do. I nonetheless get up with some reluctance. After all, I've only been married for a few years now. And what is my lovely wife like? That's hard to say, and frankly discussing what I find attractive in women is probably worth at least one blog entry. The one thing I definitely don't know is her name. I've fantasized about the kind of woman I'd want to be with countless times, but somehow giving the fantasy a name strikes me as creepy.

So, anyway, I get up. Do I greet the kids? Do I HAVE kids? Probably, yes. Certainly, at 28, it's not obligatory (I'd certainly hope not, now,) but part of me saw the appeal at that age of having children comparatively early. But they're still young, if they exist. And it won't be obligatory. After all, with the job I planned on having, free time would have been minimal, and I feel like a jerk just assuming my hypothetical wife is stuck doing more of the hypothetical household stuff. Of course, my naive younger self assumed I was so rich by now that I had an army of servants, but I'm paraphrasing for a reason here.

So, greet the kids, breakfast, a quick five minutes on the Internet (Ha! Now I know that's a fantasy,) and then read the paper. Which now strikes me as boring, but I'll let 18 me have that moment, plus it assumes I have that much luxury time before work.

Ah, work. Where I am, of course, the owner, producer, or head game designer of a video game company. Pssh, this is my fantasy, so nuts to that. I'm the owner, producer, and head game designer of MY video game company. And obviously it's so successful that I could afford that army of servants mentioned earlier. But paraphrasing me knows that isn't the point. Neither is the chance to hobnob with the Shigeru Miyamotos of the world, or the rock-star mystique of being a hot young video game designer (we didn't know what would befall John Romero yet,) or even being encouraged to wear a T-Shirt and jeans to work. No, the appeal is to go to work and bring ideas to life. I would hone my creative skills, study the best works of art both in and out of the video game medium, and bring emotion, wonder, and fun to tens of millions. I would have to explain every decision I made, every character's motivation, and I would love every minute of it. Sure, the paraphrasing me knows how little of this would be real. Okay, the T-shirts would be real, but that early into the industry, I'm making squat. I spent 2 years doing QA Testing, or if I'm really lucky, I got to design levels for years before someone even looked at my ideas.

But that wouldn't matter, because at the start of the day, I would care. When I came home, I would return knowing that what I did mattered, what I did was good, what I did was something that could only come from me. And it would be good.

Now, if only it was true. But I won't hold out hopes and fantasies for 38 year old me. Fuck that. I'm going to drag myself into emotional relevance and value before I turn thirty, and woe to the planet if it tries to stop me.