Blogocentric Formulations

"I used to think" & The X-Files

PROMPT: Write for fifteen minutes using "I used to think..." as your starter.


I used to think that I was going to be rich and successful and essentially able to "retire" by the time I was thirty. Well, I'm a few years past that deadline now, and while of course I'm a little disappointed that I don't own my own private island and live a life of leisure by now, remembering this teenage goal of mine did cause me to reflect on some of the choices I've made in my life and the reasons why that expectation of mine was so ridiculous in the first place.

Okay, let's get the big one out of the way first. It was a ridiculous dream because, honestly, how many people are able to retire within eight years of the age they graduated from college? (Not many, I'd guess.) But that's a pretty obvious reason why it was a ridiculous dream. The more applicable reason is that I really don't know how to *not* work. I don't like being idle and I'm at my most comfortable and relaxed when I'm *doing* something. Maybe in the back of my head I knew "retired" meant just not having a day job and instead occupying my time entirely with reading, writing, playing video games, playing sports, etc. - in which case I could kind-of understand the thinking there - but the idea of being retired in a sedentary sense would probably drive me crazy in the first few weeks. Not to mention the fact that travel and vacations would be pretty boring if that was the status quo and I was just relaxing all the time!

So the idea was definitely flawed in the sense that, if I'm truly honest with myself, working on something is a big part of the way I define myself and my own happiness, so it doesn't make much sense to live a life without some level of work in my life. If I'm being honest with myself, I'll probably be the opposite; one of those guys who's still writing, still tinkering around with something, still making to-do lists of things he wants to achieve when he's (God-willing) in his seventies, eighties, or even nineties.

But what's perhaps a more sobering reason why that dream is ridiculous is the fact that I really haven't done anything to actively make it happen. I haven't tried to start a company, or invested money in the stock market, or even put the effort into writing that I know is required to build a sustainable career as an author. I've been lazy, and there have been long periods in my life where I've more or less waited around and hoped success would find me, rather than actively working toward it. Maybe that's because I've never really had to struggle or work that hard to achieve stuff over the years; maybe it's because I'm afraid of really putting myself out there and still failing. Regardless of the psychological motivation behind it, the truth is that I've led a fairly passive life where I've merely reacted to things rather than actively stepping up and accomplishing them. Without that passion and that active engagement, success (short of winning the lottery or inheriting some other massive windfall) is unlikely at best.

I've been better in recent years. Both in terms of taking control of my life and setting goals, as well as understanding what it is I consider "work" and what I would do to stay productive even if I didn't have to, say, have a day job to pay the bills. Ultimately, I think I'm getting better. As I'm getting a little older (and hopefully a little wiser), I'm learning that I didn't spend a whole lot of my teens and twenties doing what I should have been doing. I'd like to think that I'm doing those things now, or at least recognizing they need to be done, but I definitely used to think that I was destined for a life of luxury without putting in a whole lot of work.

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PROMPT: Write about a movie or television series that terrified you as a kid and still gives you the creeps today.

THE X-FILES
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106179/

I didn't watch too many scary movies as a kid. For some reason, I always listened to and believed my parents when they said, "Hey, don't watch that... it's scary." But the one thing that absolutely did terrify me as a kid was watching The X-Files on TV. I was totally hooked on the show because I loved the sci-fi aspect of it with Mulder investigating what happened to his sister and the conspiracy stuff with the Cigarette-Smoking Man... but holy hell did this show ever have some creepy episodes. Some of the worst nightmares I had as a kid were from episodes of this show, most notably:

          Shapes (Ep 1.19 - Shapeshifters attack people by turning into ferocious wolves.
          Darkness Falls (Ep 1.20) - Darkness Mites that cocoon and desiccate humans when the lights go out.
          The Host (Ep 2.02) - The Flukeman lives in sewer systems and camps out in a Porta-Potty.

Looking at the episode numbers, apparently that first season did me in for a couple of consecutive weeks while I had nightmares about werewolves at first and then flat-out was terrified of the dark in general. What made it particularly bad was that we lived in a relatively rural area and we had a kennel for our dog that was out back behind our property. With only a lone floodlight for illumination, one of my household chores was to put the dog in the kennel before we went to bed (he could run around the yard all day). Usually our dog was pretty quick about running into his kennel and getting ready for bed, but every once in a while I had to track the dog down, wandering around our acre-and-a-half property trying to figure out where he was hiding to avoid going to bed. Let me tell you, trampling around in the dark is *so* much worse when you think little bugs are going to cocoon your body and drain its fluids if you leave the radius of the floodlight!