Head down, thoughts open.
Dec. 25th, 2003 05:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xyzzysqrlSo it's that time of year again, and no, I haven't made a big production out of it. Some gifts, maybe some cards. No tree. No celebrating. ... Eggnog yes, however.
It is distinctly a relief to spend the holidays not doing anything about them. At all. Now if I can just convince the rest of the world to ignore my birthday and so on too, we'll be getting somewhere.
Instead, I spent the evening and most of the AM hours playing Marathon: Resurrection deathmatches with the woof. (This is a port of several elements of Marathon to Unreal Tournament. Marathon being the only Mac game I've ever actually purchased IN SPITE OF not owning a Mac, just so I'll feel okay playing with the source port. Now I just have to get ahold of 2 and Infinity. Or someone needs to port them to something.) If this is any indication of what PC gamers were missing out on while they did the Doom deathmatch bit, then... well, I need a Mac, is all.
It's always about this time of year that my thoughts turn towards the future. 2005. Back when I was young and kind of inept at math (as opposed to now, when I'm older and REALLY inept at math) I figured I'd never live to see the year 2000, when man would live on the moon, when we'd hang around in computer-generated fantasy worlds all day long, where life would be an never-ending cavalcade of wonder.
I'm slightly put out by the reality of the situation.
It feels like all the dreams of the past aren't panning out at all. I'm twenty one years old, when I always kinda figured a Logan's Run style retiring team would show up on my twentieth birthday to kill me off before I did anything too stupid with my New Adult Powers. We're not on the Moon. We're kinda interested in Mars, but mostly the space program seems to be going flat. The computer-generated fantasy worlds... okay, that's close enough, I'll grant, but I'd go for a nice blue pill any day.
Part of what bothers me is that I don't feel like I have the RIGHT to be dissatisfied. Maybe things aren't so bad. They could be far worse. Who am I to open my mouth and bitch about the world when so much of what I want is just... there? I don't feel like I've worked hard to get to where I am. I feel like I got massively lucky. I shouldn't be allowed to complain. I'm not mature. I watch cartoons and play video games all day, for god's sake. Why should I have a voice in this sort of world, where I'm just not a valuable personality type? God knows I don't produce anything.
I've put off work on my novel, but it occurs to me I should get back at it. If I'm going to leave anything behind when they DO finally figure out I've somehow gotten old enough to vote and come to blow me up, it's going to be my words. I want what I have to say to matter to someone, I want to have written someone's favorite book. That's NOT going to happen if I stay lazy.
After all, only T-Minus 15.193792102158E+9 years until the universe closes. Gotta make up for some time.
It is distinctly a relief to spend the holidays not doing anything about them. At all. Now if I can just convince the rest of the world to ignore my birthday and so on too, we'll be getting somewhere.
Instead, I spent the evening and most of the AM hours playing Marathon: Resurrection deathmatches with the woof. (This is a port of several elements of Marathon to Unreal Tournament. Marathon being the only Mac game I've ever actually purchased IN SPITE OF not owning a Mac, just so I'll feel okay playing with the source port. Now I just have to get ahold of 2 and Infinity. Or someone needs to port them to something.) If this is any indication of what PC gamers were missing out on while they did the Doom deathmatch bit, then... well, I need a Mac, is all.
It's always about this time of year that my thoughts turn towards the future. 2005. Back when I was young and kind of inept at math (as opposed to now, when I'm older and REALLY inept at math) I figured I'd never live to see the year 2000, when man would live on the moon, when we'd hang around in computer-generated fantasy worlds all day long, where life would be an never-ending cavalcade of wonder.
I'm slightly put out by the reality of the situation.
It feels like all the dreams of the past aren't panning out at all. I'm twenty one years old, when I always kinda figured a Logan's Run style retiring team would show up on my twentieth birthday to kill me off before I did anything too stupid with my New Adult Powers. We're not on the Moon. We're kinda interested in Mars, but mostly the space program seems to be going flat. The computer-generated fantasy worlds... okay, that's close enough, I'll grant, but I'd go for a nice blue pill any day.
Part of what bothers me is that I don't feel like I have the RIGHT to be dissatisfied. Maybe things aren't so bad. They could be far worse. Who am I to open my mouth and bitch about the world when so much of what I want is just... there? I don't feel like I've worked hard to get to where I am. I feel like I got massively lucky. I shouldn't be allowed to complain. I'm not mature. I watch cartoons and play video games all day, for god's sake. Why should I have a voice in this sort of world, where I'm just not a valuable personality type? God knows I don't produce anything.
I've put off work on my novel, but it occurs to me I should get back at it. If I'm going to leave anything behind when they DO finally figure out I've somehow gotten old enough to vote and come to blow me up, it's going to be my words. I want what I have to say to matter to someone, I want to have written someone's favorite book. That's NOT going to happen if I stay lazy.
After all, only T-Minus 15.193792102158E+9 years until the universe closes. Gotta make up for some time.
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no subject
Date: 2003-12-25 05:01 am (UTC)And yeah.... I've been kinda disappointed with the 'future' thing myself. Maybe next decade or something, they'll come out with full-immersive VR, moon colonies, 0-gravity amusement parks (ohhhhh what fun that could be....), not to mention transspecies shifting.
Probably not, but we can dream.
As for writing.... writing is good. I need to do some of my own... but I'm afraid much of mine, as you well know, has one -particular- flavor to it. And besides, I don't think I can write a novel, much as I'd like to.... most of what I want to say manages to get out in 10 pages tops. I'll help edit yours if you want, though! ;)
Cheer up, sqrly. A lot of people go through depression at this time of year and all... And just think, you've got 15.(etcetc) of them left! :P
Or, er, at least 8.... The world's due to end on Dec. 21, 2012 or something. >_<
(And then the pigs started to fly, and Mickey Mouse ate Daffy Duck, and all was finally right with the world. And then it blew up like an eggplant with a fork in it having been placed in a microwave for the better part of an hour...)
no subject
Date: 2003-12-25 10:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-29 08:05 am (UTC)It's fun, but clunky. Still, it compared well with it's contemporaries and was a FPS on a Mac! They notoriously didn't have any games worth playing. I loved the story, the concept art. Several of my characters have acquired minor items in their illo inventories, that can be traced back to Marathon.