What if I don't want to?
Is it so bad that I enjoy being somewhat child-like? I assume that it isn't. Yet there is a time and place for maturity.
Thus, the college experience comes to a close and the "real world" looms on the horizon like an angry bee hive. There're swarms of people everywhere looking for jobs. As I search from day to day, a job that might have been perfect for me flies past at an alarming speed. How am I to apply for jobs when I have the odd hours only as my free time?
It's a hard experience, growing up. When I was a kid all I wanted to do was grow up and be an adult, live like an adult, talk like an adult. And now that I've reached it all I want to do is be a kid, live like a kid, talk like a kid, believe like a kid. As a child, I was able to believe in things more easily. My imagination could run rampant and that was okay - I was a child.
But now that I'm a learned individual (or so I hope after four years of college), my imagination must be tamed and put into a cage. It's only allowed out on the rainy days, when I have time.
Yet even as this is told to me, even as I'm instructed that this is what grown ups do, I rebel. My imagination doesn't stay in its cage. In fact, I removed the cage all together. It now walks beside me and at any moment it pounces on something completely innocent and says, "Look at what I have! Look at what we can do!"
And I follow where my imagination takes me. Why? Because I like where my imagination takes me. I like the places I explore and grow in and can create. I like the fact that when I close my eyes and think, I don't just see blackness. I see a myriad of colors and lives and plants and things and people. I see worlds yet to be explored. I see characters yet to live.
Even as I write this, I want to abandon reason, stay up all night, and write a book.
But I have classes in the later morning where I need to be at the very least, a little focused. Oh how classes take the fun out of being a learner. It's been great for my brain, I suppose, to learn all of this stuff. But it's been horrible for my education. I believe Einstein said that the only thing that hindered his education was school. I may be wrong on that quote, in fact I probably am.
There are a great many things I wish to learn. None of which can be taught in a classroom. At least, not a contemporary one. I want to learn how to write a ground breaking novel. I want to learn how to publish it and create a cover and decide how the wording should be and craft truly unique and good stories. I want to learn about mythology and legends and expound upon them. I want to delve into the deep and then fly into the sky.
Instead, I'll go to my Calculus class that is required for me to graduate to ensure that my brain is worked in a variety of ways. That way we'll know I'm a rounded individual.
And when I'm handed my diploma, I will smile with the knowledge that the easy part is over. The difficult part of the journey has only just begun.
Oh, and P.S. - I finished my third book in under two months. That makes two books in under six. That's 200,000+ words. I feel fairly accomplished.
Currently Editing: End Game: Genesis (Chapter Nine)
Currently Reading: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring & How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy
Currently Listening to: "The Vikings Have Their Tea" from How to Train Your Dragon
