Luckily, my qualifications spoke better than I did and I think it all came out well. Now, I just need to let my references speak for me and they are all fairly eloquent folks so I should be okay. This is only a part time gig and the pay is what you would expect for a student position. It’s worth it, though. If just to give a little back. Besides, with the combination of this, Courtney’s salary, and my financial aid (if it all comes out right) we just might make it.

To live life the way I want and still be able to make it in the world. That is the challenge I face. So far, so good.

Most of the stories I write are interactive stories. I create the world. I fill it characters, create a series of plots and subplots that are constantly occurring and evolving and then drop other creative people into the midst of it all. They interact with my world. They push at it, tug at it, scream at it, rip at it, and out of it they create their own stories, their own narratives. I am, in essence, the meta-narrator. It is a job that I love. If only I could find a way to make it pay.

Not that it matters, mind you, I create worlds in my head every day. Some are pleasant, cheerful places, others are dark and terrifying. This is their nature because it is my nature. I put the work in because I must, I do it because it is who I am. Even if all the other people went away, I would still be here creating worlds. We don’t do this to play a game. If we do, then the time is wasted. We do this to create a circle of storytellers, to bring together people to create new narratives and new adventures.

For most of 2009, I found myself trapped in a loop. I was creating stories that weren’t new. They were simple, and nothing more than a sad rehash of other stories. I can’t do that. I realize that now. I need to create stories that move and flow and evolve. Stories that are unique in some form. I’m back doing that now. Even during this protracted illness my mind has been fluttering around my True20 system adaptation of the both The Sixth and another, unnamed, project. Now, I am also looking seriously at maybe writing for Pathfinder as well.

This is what the work gives you even when it doesn’t come to fruition. It gives you stories, it fills your arsenal of tropes, tricks, and hooks. It keeps you creating even when there is no one to share it with and even that is sometimes enough.

Most of the people who remain in this medium are not like me. Most of them simply want to play a game and then go about their way. My belief is that their time in this medium is limited. There are better options out there for them. I am looking to a different niche entirely and I really believe that is where the future lies.

The narrative is key.

With that cheerful thought in mind, I almost think of tossing my meal and heading upstairs. I think it would be easier than to watch this. I am hungry, though, and I can’t will myself to throw away food simply due to my own frustration. I sit at a table far removed from the rest, pull my sandwich out of the brown paper bag I’ve been carrying with me and commence eating.

They all talk at once. I listen and I watch and I catalog a hundred conversations about nothing. Jim is ranting about politics, George rambles on about his ongoing home repairs while Angie and Chad are whispering in the back almost too conspiratorially considering they are both married and not to each other. This latter issue would count as gossip here. I can already see the social butterflies, more vampires than butterflies, watching closely.

I know I should get up and leave. Upstairs there is nothing to do but log into the same systems and do the same thing I have been doing. The new technology has left us behind. Now, I work on 10 yr. old platforms that just won’t die. Now, I watch high school politics play out in a nearly empty cafeteria that used to house hundreds.

This is my life.

And yet, there is always that whisper in my ear. That echo that says,

“It doesn’t have to be…”

What to do, what to do? I sit here and stare at my future. I have three papers to write and all I can do is ponder how to merge them all into a new media narrative. I feel so far behind and yet, in some ways, I am still ahead. My goals are coalescing. New Media narratives can and do exist but only by accepting that we cannot hold on to the paradigms of the past. That includes the paradigms of the the Internet.

New Media is not youtube, it is not the Gutenberg Project, or Google’s mad dash to digitize all text. Text exists within and without. Narratives are human creations and we now live inside and outside of the machine. Inside the machine the world is only slivers of grey. This is the Greyrealm that has hosted me for so long. Beyond the realms of that are only illusions and vast tracts of advertising. Narratives exist in between. They exist in the colleague who tells me of a dwarf who stands against the horde. They exist in a boy who delights in telling me how so silly tripe changed his mind and in the many shared laughs caused by that cursed narwhal song. They are teh reason that a crappy boy band from – what was it, Moldova – will be forever remembered for one really annoying song. New Media is the narrative of life and in that it is no different from the narratives of the past. The only real difference is that more people are talking and more tales are being told and the giants of old media are doing whatever they can to make money while the giant corporations of new media prepare to devour their forefathers.

Into all of this we are born, the storytellers of the digital age. Finally, I think I start to understand. The technology I have spent my life wandering through, the digital wastelands that encompass most of my life exist because I can tell a story with it. All this work…and now I sit and look and realize the tools before me. I have them. I am ready.

Wow…I hope I don’t fuck this up….

I am terrified of you. I really am. Oh sure, I can write a thousand political screeds. I can bury you in research and, in relative terms, elegantly weave my way through an argument. Those are just words, though. They are a passage of text which I pulled from nowhere deep and now leave on the table. If you hate or love it, I really don’t care. I have no investment in any of it. Greyrealm is entirely that. I wish it wasn’t but, if I am honest, I never wrote a single thing that exposed me. For a long time, I even took pride in that. To be honest, I don’t think I have to ever put forth something that means anything to me. My fear won’t allow it.

That must change. If I am to be anything, that has to change. I want it to change. I want this all to matter. I have spent so many years doing things that don’t matter. I’m tired of it. I want that rush of risk again.

I spent an hour talking about this fear. It was a full hour spent learning from someone with different experiences and on a different journey but who shared that same passion. In a sense, I learned to find my faith again.

Faith is a word I have avoided for a long time but somewhere in the depths of my heart I always wondered why. Here I am being provided examples, help, and encouragement all along the way. Every time I feel like I am about to stumble on this journey another arm is provided to prop me up and to teach me to carry on. How can I not have faith in that? How can I not trust that?

We are all adventurers in the grandest game of all. There is nothing more exciting than this life and this world. No fantasy, no fiction will ever do it justice. I hope that as I step out there into that great scary world that I have hid from for so long that I can connect with a few of you. I know some of you will hate me. I can deal with that. If my stories can connect and be recognized by those in this world who need or want to hear them, then that is enough and I will be content.

What do I believe? Most of all, in who do I believe?

Two years ago, I set myself upon a path. At the ripe of old age of 32, I returned to school. My goal, at first, was simply to expand my knowledge and to add to skills I already had. This seemed like a good idea. Sitting still is the fastest way to doom in any industry and that is especially true of the tech industry. I attended class and I took online classes and I excelled. I forgot how good I could be at school.

I also forgot the danger of school. The fact that, if you let it, you will find yourself confronting your own beliefs and re-evaluating where you are going. As I continued to progress along my path, I was forced to face the simple fact that I hate what I do for a living. There is no mistake here. I detest everything about what I do. There is nothing of value in anything that I do and that is pathetic.

I originally chose to work where I do because I love technology. I love the tools of communication that now exist. I love that we have the capacity to create and design new forms of expression in less and less time and that we are always pushing the envelope. I love the wonderful synergy that is developing between the old and new forms. I love being a part of that. I love the creative power of the people who create these products. Best of all, I love the creative opportunities these tools make available to me, personally. I love that I have the opportunity to create in such a vibrant time.

I am a creator not a sustainer. I love words, I love media. The vast creation of all that crap that fills Youtube is both daunting, disgusting, and absolutely wonderful to me. Genre, style, and form is irrelevant. I love it all. I want to be lost in it and to be a part of it.

I sat in a lecture last night for three hours with an incredible instructor. As I sat there I saw my life stretch a long and winding trail filled with rocks and pitfalls both before me and behind me. I saw that I could really do this. I could actually succeed. I could descend into this world and I could succeed. Everything aspect of my heart, body, and soul wants me to.

Yet, I am afraid. I am afraid to let go of where I am. Though every day I come to work is a physical and emotional pain, I am unwilling to let that security go. Those my health has diminished and my weight ballooned (both of these are directly attributable to what I do) I still refuse to leave. I have these voices, these terrible, logical and wise voices, that tell me that I have responsibilities to attend to and that I should not risk poverty for their sake. These voices are strong and well informed. There will be many a hard year were I to leave.

It is here that I face my own words. It is here that I am forced to confront my own statements. Statements in which I believe in, but which I find myself unable to implement. I know that it is better to be poor and doing what I love. I know that a risk now could pay off even better and that if I was able to dedicate myself, 100%, to what I want I would succeed. Beyond that, do I really want to side with those who take the safe path? Those who choose regret over action?

Yet, this is exactly what I am doing.

So, this blog now has a purpose. This is Text and Hubris. This is the last refuge for that part of me that is willing to risk. Here I will chronicle my escape and my reasons for it. If it falls, it means that I have fallen. It means that I have given up and resigned myself to the hell in which I currently live.

May it never fall….