So, as far as you can recollect, what were your vocational aspirations growing up? And, upon finding those childish aspirations unfulfilled, are you left with a yearning for them now or were they always pipe dreams? My childhood to teen aspirations were: paleontologist -> author -> psychiatrist -> the vaguely chemistry aligned person I currently am (sorry for the arrows, I've been using a lot of R lately). As far as my unfilled aspirations go, I've always to an extent wondered what attempting to be an author would have been like. I guess egotistically many people (especially the less socially inclined) imagine they have some burgeoning creative voice that they think the world will find fascinating, but likely wouldn't be. I think in many regards, people love to believe they have some unfulfilled potential that would make them more exceptional than they are now; whether that is true remains to be seen. With chemistry, given that in the UK you have to take 4 subjects in your penultimate year before university and then strim that down to 3 in your final year of high school, really you have to make a choice early whether you want to be a humanities man or a science man in order to have a particular area of interest. I chose science, and being a lazy chap, I thought that selecting my weakest subject (and perhaps the one I was most interested in) would maintain my interest and raise me above my lazy funk (allegedly my school maintained I had a 20% attendance rate in my last year, but I think it was more like 30). Did it? Well no - my attendance went up but so did feelings of ennui. I guess in giving a more candid insight into the ugly circus that is my mind, do you really have a boner for the work you do? Because I look at people who have a boner for their area of interest and, though I like chemistry conceptually, sometimes I think I'm only ever going to be able to muster half-mast - yet maybe I'm just a trite, dispassionate person. Though my potential lack of enthusiasm for things right now doesn't make much of a difference, if I climb higher I'd feel a responsibility to tell others why they should give a damn about anything and I wouldn't want to give them the shallow answer of "you just should". At the same time it's natural to want to aim high; if not for supreme job satisfaction everyone appreciates the money. If you don't enjoy a vocational boner, do you compensate for your dissatisfaction with a throbbing social or family life, or maybe just a clandestine yet indulgent hobby? Personally, I'm hoping you all have a metaphorical throbbing boner for your family.
Work for most people is going to be a 40 something hour grind each week to keep a roof above your head and the ability to buy enough cheap porn and sugars/sodium/trans fats to keep you alive. Kinda enjoy my job though, but boners will be had elsewhere. Work to live, and all that jazz. Also, I get to have these awkward conversations with the headmaster whenever I have a throbbing hard-on at work.
It's mostly raw vegetables for me these days, but they are surprisingly affordable. I remember very vividly asking my parents for clarification on the claim that I could be anything I wanted when I grew up. With that affirmed, I proudly stated that I wanted to be a lion. I have three favorite animals and a lion is not even among them. I would trust only someone with the title of "headmaster" with a throbbing hard-on.
Everyone wants to write a book, especially if they're a rpg nerd on a forum. I've said before you're an entertaining writer and it seems like you feel a bit stifled in your career choices. Just do it. Even if it sucks, it's good practise. You won't be a professional author in a hurry no matter how good you are, so start now and try not to burn out contorting yourself into a chemist in the meantime. Then again, my general advice is to rebel against conformity and live hand to mouth in a field somewhere, so take it with a grain of salt.
Somewhere from the age of 8 to 12, I wanted to be either a underwater photographer, a solider or a scientist. Tried it all, althought not as a professional, and decided to stick with the last one.
I've wanted to be loads of things. Comedian, composer, teacher, architect, physicist, actor, lawyer. I took on fresh ambitions almost every time I encountered a new profession when I was younger. The only one I ever came close to realising was computer game writer, which I did for a couple of years out of university. Now I'm an office drone. But on the plus side, I've learned that life can be disappointing.
Re: That's part of the reason I made this thread, for responses just like this. I'm sure I've heard of a kid saying they wanted to be a firetruck before, which I always thought was pretty amusing. I guess I might at some point... maybe. I'm always thinking of weird ideas and/or imagery, I think after reading so many horror and rpg books I more or less can't help myself. It does require a lot of investiture though, which is always a difficult thing to bring yourself to do. Now that I'm not being a drunk miserable bastard like I was when I started this thread, I'm feeling more positive about my life choices anyway. That, and I got to be back in the lab for a short while which often has an effect of reminding me why I like what I do, even if my boner for it isn't as colossal as it could be. I think I need to learn that not every thread I envision whilst drunk is a great idea to post, that or I need to stop drinking more in the first place, but then again there's not much chance of that.
Ever since I was a kid I've wanted to make games. I think it really hit me when I just became a teenager, since I had access to modding tools like The Elder Scrolls 3 Morrowind Construction Set. Crazily enough, I discovered Arcanum when I was 14, my friend Toby showed me the game, said his brother and him used to play it a lot. I quickly tried out the WorldEditor, after some hours of gameplay... couldn't for the life of me work it out properly, since it targeted more knowledgeable people I suppose. I'll admit, at first Arcanum didn't appeal to me. I was an Elder Scrolls fan having played Oblivion, and then Morrowind. (in that order.) But over time it just, eventually grew on me. Not just the game's style, and core, but maybe it was because I moved states, and Arcanum was a game I could directly relate to Toby with. I was always shit at maths as a kid, could never work it out, I was always generally better with English. As such, coding and scripting didn't come easily, so I relied a lot on "by hand" editors. I used to invent HUDs for my own games in MSPaint, and try to create entire new island provinces in TES3 CS. I found GameMaker when I was 15, and I've used it since, didn't know a scrap of code then, but now I can say I know enough about the internal scripting language to make nearly anything. I've actually never had a real job, it might sound a bit depressing, but I do enjoy seeing what I draw come to life, even if it means I can't afford as many things. I've made a few games, but nothing spectacular. DeadBase "Alpha" (age 16) http://sandbox.yoyogames.com/games/159661 DeadBase "Beta" (age 17) http://sandbox.yoyogames.com/games/180667 "Cyber Assertion" shooter game. (age 17-18) http://gamejolt.com/games/action/cyber- ... pha/10583/ "DeadBase" - "DeadBasic" (age 19) Won $1000 in a HTML5 competition. http://clay.io/game/deadbase Some 3D modelling and anim. Isometrics, Windows Native. (dynamic depth, auto-iso topdown view-wrap) (age 19) http://gamejolt.com/games/other/isomeng ... emo/16012/ "Colony Defence", Arcade game. (age 20) http://bit.ly/ColonyDefence Isometrics, HTML5+WebGL. (normal/spec mapping) (age 20) I sure wish I had accomplished more when I was still under 20... but oh well, I could at least try now I suppose. Lately I've been looking for ways to make money doing what I love... but it's not easy.
Honestly, I was rather aimless in my youth, and still am in a way. I am very much a work to live sort of guy, and value my private time very much. I'm more of an avid consumer of the arts (rather than a creator), so I'm glad there are authors and game developers and such around so I can enjoy what they have made. When I was in high school I realized that I had the work ethic and basic smarts to succeed in a career that paid well if I was willing to put in the time and effort. I wanted a job in something medical that didn't require wiping assholes or diagnosing assholes. So I became a pharmacist and just talk to the assholes instead. So other than lamentations over having to work nights, holidays, and weekends (it's healthcare, part of the job) I'm pretty happy overall with my choice.
