have a dream

I had an unsettling discussion with one of my co-workers yesterday that I haven't quite be able to wrap my head around yet, so I'm writing about it. This guy is the same age as me, and is about to start his second year of college, and we both have a bright future ahead of us.

I grew up in a small town (population about 2000) and had about 100 people in my graduating class. We all knew that the town we grew up in had given us a good life, but if order for us to continue growing, we had to leave. Neither of us had any intention of ever coming back. Some went on to be track stars at A&M and UTSA, one got accepted to Baylor on a scholarship and will soon be traveling the world, another is about to launch her own business, but we are all trying to live our dream. We're all trying to be successful. 

I didn't go to school with this co-worker, but I just assumed that everyone wanted something more. After having our conversation it was clear to me, he didn't want anything more than to just go back home after he graduated. I tried explaining to him that I am willing to go to extreme lengths to make my dream come true so that I can leave my home town and be successful, and all he did was laugh and say to me, "that's what they all say." It's as if he was submitting to the fight, before the fight had even begun. That's just baffling to me.

Now I don't want to dis his future. Some people are simple and don't need extravagant lives to be happy, but he's an incredibly smart guy and a very hard worker and I just feel like he's capable of so much more. 

Wait, I got it.

Everyone my age needs to have a dream. If you can figure out what you want to do early on, you can start to build a life that is full and meaningful. I guess it doesn't matter what that dream is, as long as you're happy with the life that comes with it, then you'll be successful. 

BL 1034: Intro into Blogging

Here we go

First off I would like to say that I'm amazed that the name for this .blogspot account wasn't already taken. I figured I would have to name this thing LLcoolJ1825 by the end of all this. Secondly, and more importantly, I would like to apologize to the next guy who wants to name his blog "shits and grins", finds out its taken, then searches it in fury to see if the person who stole his brilliant idea is actually doing something with it. To that person I assure you, I will. 

Even though I never thought it would happen to me, I had one of those "discover yourself moments" everyone says people around my age have. It's a scary thing. It was scary because for the first time in my life I was unsure. I was unsure and nobody could help me; but me. I still remember the day it happened to, which is the crazy part. I was sitting in my dorm room, studying for a math test while constantly being distracted by my phone and the tv show I had on. I "studied" for a while until finally I couldn't handle the distractions anymore and decided to try and find a quieter place to go. So I grabbed my penny board, threw my laptop into my backpack and took off. When I made it out of the building, the view I was confronted with was breathtaking and I remember stopping and thinking to myself, "While I've been sitting inside, watching tv, texting, and just BS-ing around, I've been missing this." That was when I decided that I was going to do something different. 

I want to entertain. Not entertain in the acting sense, but in the media sense. With the rise of the internet, so came the rise of internet entertainment companies. Shoutout to the people that inspire me; Burnie Burns from rooster teeth, Colin Moriarty from kinda funny games, Will Smith from Tested, Adam Savage from Tested, Patrick Klepek from otaku, and all of the guys from Giantbomb. These guys, and people like them, are personalities. They write articles, produce videos, record podcasts, all to entertain. They are out experiencing the world, so that they can share it with everyone else who can't. THAT'S what I want. I've heard these people say countless times, not everyone can do what they do. They say the way to get into that kind of work is to set yourself apart; to give yourself an internet presence. Teach yourself to write, to act, to film, to edit, to public speak. Teach yourself to be a personality. So I guess this blog is the start of my attempt to do that. 

Being able to write is a wonderful skill in todays society, and the only way to get better is to just write, right? Thats what this blog will be. Just a huge dump of posts about me attempting to write. It might be about politics, it might be about war, it might be about movies, it might be about love, it might be about video games, it might be about pizza, or it might being about none of those things. The one thing I  know for certain is, it will probably be bad. I have so many things pent up in my mind just waiting, and I have to put them somewhere. The end goal however is to get comfortable writing, and to have digital proof of all the writing I've ever done.

Before I went to college I thought I had it all figured out, but now that i'm here, i've never been more sure about anything in my life. I'm going to give it my best shot, and thats more than most people can attest to. Hopefully, in three years, I will writing an article viewed by thousands of people.