This Latter Interest #

August 5, 2023
Chicago, IL

It often comes to me that I worry about what major decisions I have made for myself in the past that I really have little power to change. The most prominent perhaps of these was my decision to pursue Computer Science. I did, indeed, used to enjoy technology when I was a younger fellow, but as time passed, I had teachers and professors that consistently, compounded, pulled me towards the arts. Whether that was in relation to history, fashion, or, most prominently, writing. This latter interest is a curious one. For my chosen field, my writing ability is a bit of an anomaly. This is not to say that it is any good – you who have read my other work (to the nameless reader who, if all is well, does not and should not know who I am, but in all likelihood is one of less than a biscuit tin of people aware of my nebulous and ill-formed thoughts – and to you if that is you: thank you for knowing me!) would certainly be able to agree with me on this – but that it is of an, at least, minutely improved ability over my technological peers (of which you have likely realized is due to my overly flowery language that seeks to dazzle, but not to mean or explain). To make up for this, however, I am granted a significant lack in ability in my chosen field. I am, by no means, an absolute wretch at the subject, but I am, especially when in the minute gatherings of the few that for some God knows reason have chosen to be aware of me to a greater level than I myself am comfortable with (I provide the sound feeling of discomfort to myself on many a weekend night), not good enough. This is compounded with the people that I know, of greater skill levels in this field at this age than I may be able to ever achieve in anything ever. The numbers of these people and their grandeur in the subject appears to me to be increasing continuously. I don’t know if its something about me that ends up in their company, or if it’s simply…something else. I am fine at this subject, I know that, but clearly I am not in the right frame of mind to be in this subject. I wasn’t necessarily forced into it, I chose it of my own accord, but really I chose it for realism, or because it was within the scope of what others called realism (their scope included one other field). Am I interested in it? Probably, I do still on occasion find interesting things, and I am averted towards things I find interesting by those I know, but I don’t feel any need to learn it, beyond just what I need to survive whatever number of years at a job. The other interests I find much more intelligible, and I find myself relishing their presence more than ever as the time passes and as my conaissance with the impressives continues. And thus I have my latter interest, which compels me to be myself – lazy, indecisive, apologetic, confusing without reason, wanting to please – and sell that, if I want it to be present, or really if I want it to exist and to outlast me. I want to know that what I am writing is meaningful or at least is graced and affirmed by the eyes of someone who understands or appreciates. So I want the output of that latter interest to be good, but I can’t forget who I am; I also want to be over with it – to have sent it out there and to not see it again in my inbox. And I don’t want to have to hold it high above my head in the crowd of others and recite it to an audience to be accepted into their community as one from the beginning, and not a confused little rabbit seeing carrots in multiple directions thinking he can only move in one. I’m not sure if I want to end up the Sancho Panza realist and continue through my chosen field and discover (as Don Quixote never does) that life is dull and dreary, and filled with people ready to find humor (and especially monetary value) in your strong delusional belief to the contrary. I want to send out my work, hold it lightly in hand, and deliver it to someone who finds it interesting, and can parlay it to the world. Instead, I see my own work in my inbox, as many others do. I want to know that I can make you feel, that I can help you find meaning, or that I can help you yell inside the depths of your mind what you didn’t know how to phrase but knew so dearly and so desperately to be true. That you are alone and that the only way you think you can somehow help people or find meaning in your own life or find some people to be in good humor with is by creating things. But you know that those things are quite frankly not very good, and that you aren’t sure ever will be good. And even with all that, you don’t know if you want your work to be found, if you want it to be meaningful to some people, or if you just don’t want to be forgotten and you just want the people around you, sparse though they may be, to love you (and by God it is even hard to type those four letters), if not just find you to be an agreeable person.