Retrospection

In retrospect, trying to live vicariously through others is not as exciting as I imagined it would be. Unless you are particularly adept at, or enjoy to a certain extent, the fine art of puppeteering people, the stories get boring. Certain stories are fun for the first time for their shock factor; once they are done more than once, they lose their charm.

If you have a friend who makes the 'at least we'll get a cool story out of it' argument often, take heed: the story will be gotten, and in retrospect it will be boring, quite in line with your storyline and will surprise no one. People will start looking at their watches, start snapchatting right as you tell them your exciting saga, and even friends will try to wriggle out of your stories.

Living life to get a good story out of it is no different than living life to get a good youtube channel out of it, or to getting good facebook posts. When you live for stories, the real stories elude you.

What gives good stories their power, then? Real life is certainly just as interesting as the best stories there are, for sure. Storytellers obviously matter, but the stories matter too. Just as you're not going to get an interesting tale out of reading a Nabokov novel on your couch (unless your couch happens to be in Iran, and you happen to be a pathogenic liar, in which case Iran is not a requirement) the most interesting tales are not going to happen by living purely for the tales.

Perhaps then, it is the burning fire of passion to live, learn and observe that matters, along with a passing interest in recording and collating reality. You can make a incredibly interesting life out of forging swords, or you could have traveled the whole world a hundred times over, and still have had a humdrum life.

I extrapolate here. I write these words with great uncertainty, fear, disappointment, and deep within me, strongly burning desire to figuratively show the finger to something or someone. That needs figuring out. You've not even seen the rest of my to-do list.

I asked a favor four years ago, and I do so again to the severely dwindled readers who still bother to check here. If you are a person of faith, pray for me. If you are a weirdo, ask for blessings from the Flying Spaghetti Monster and the Holy Kabballa Monster. If you consider yourself to be above all those stupid imbeciles, do they have no minds, they are so irrational, why can't everyone be perfectly rational and make good judgments like you, hope, wish, for me that the die-roll that is job-hunting gets me my number. My number in the die is like...12 . Soo, wish really hard for me to get 12 on the dice. Hold your breath for a minute, and the wish will be likelier to come true. Because, less competition.