Well where do I start? As I outlined in an earlier post, I many different goals of mine, spread over various timeframes and such. I supposed I've already covered the short-term ones, so time to look at the bigger picture.
My main dream has always been to live a comfortable life, where I'll have no problem with taxes and such - not rich, though. Rich would be excessive, and would just lead to an unsatisfying and probably tedious life. I don't want everything, but I want enough money to live comfortably and not have to worry about finances.
I also want to see the world, especially America, and perhaps settle there one day, as well as visit and experience Japan, a country that just seems like such a fascinating place to be, with a culture that almost appears to be a perfect mix of native tradition spanning thousands of years and modern Western contemporary culture. Obviously people will point to the whaling deal, and as Emily pointed out at her blog, the awful massacre of dolphins, but I'm certain that, though they are appalling acts, they are not indicative of the nation and its psyche as a whole. Just the same as the most ardent, jingoistic rednecks are not representative of America as a whole, see? I could perhaps also see myself visiting Spain and other European nations, as well as spending time down in Australia, funnily enough! That would be mainly for the fantastic weather, as well as the fact they are a nation big on rugby and motor racing, which links into my next point.
Being an unashamed petrolhead and motorsport fan, one thing I'd love to do is to visit and watch many famous motor races around the world - the Le Mans 24 Hours in France is very high on that list, as are the Isle of Man TT motorbike races, the endurance races at the Nurburgring (24 hours) and Sebring in America (12 hours), and atop that lists sits any kind of NASCAR (America) or V8 Supercar (Australia) race you can think of. They are my two favourite motor racing series in the world by far, and their flagship events - the Daytona 500 for NASCAR, and the Bathurst 1000 for V8 Supercars - are spectacular occasions; and that's just from me watching it on the telly! I'll have to settle for video for now, but one day I would love to experience this in the flesh:
Coming back around to the dream I started this post off with, relating to the kind of life I have; I've been pretty explicit in saying I don't want to get stuck where I am for the rest of my life. The regular life, with a wife and some kids, and a nice steady job in something you probably have no interest in whatsoever, doesn't appeal to me at all. Forgive me for being a dreamer, I'm aware I probably have very unrealistic expectations, but if I believe somethings achievable I'll go for it. The last place I want to spend the entirety of my life is Swanley and to waste my life away doing nothing in particular or of any satisfaction to me. The only two ways I can really see myself getting out of here and getting to the life I want are via either putting a band together and writing music, or writing poetry and novels for a living.
Isn't that what everyone wants, really? The ability to be paid and make a living by doing something you adore and love. There are opportunities to make my living by doing something creative, and writing and music are two of the most important things in life for me. I'm leaning more towards writing as I go along, but as music burns so strongly, I can't discount the idea of that at all. Writing is probably my strongest creative skill and the one I love doing the most - you can't beat the feeling of the creative process in action, and reading back something I've written that I'm particularly proud of is a fantastic feeling. Not in an arrogant way, simply in an "I made that, and I'm proud of that" type way. I love the feeling. I know friends of mine who are exactly the same, and they operate in other areas, such as photography, filmmaking, art, etc. I would love to see these people make a living out of that as well, simply because I can see that they are like me in that they get such a huge kick out of the creative process and realising something, but also - not to inflate anyone's egos here - but they are damn good at what they do, and I believe it would be a great shame if that sort of got swept under the rug as life went on and wasn't realised as much as it could. Plus, another thing about making a career out of these things - you can be freelance! Of course, say in writing, there is a publisher who would like you to write stuff for them to publish, but there is no formal boss like a traditional career - nobody saying "right, be here at x time and work for y hours and get paid z wages". There is a freedom and flexibility there, which would allow you to enjoy the little things in life a little more, something I feel too many people don't get the chance to in whatever they end up doing in life.
The only 'traditional' choice of career, as in, get up, go to work, come home x days a week type career, I can see myself doing is journalism - again, writing, but this time in a non-fictional aspect. It's what I'm hoping to do at university/college (with any luck, fingers crossed!) and it strikes me as a nice career choice as it still has a degree of flexibility, there are so many branches of it. The only thing is, it has a real stigma of snideness and secrecy about it - how many times do we see a person's secrets splashed over newspapers like nobody's business and a snide journalist just saying "well, it's what THEY want to read, don't blame me...". My conscience wouldn't allow me to be like that, and I hope I'm not placed in a position to do that by a future employer.
In a nutshell then, here are my plans and dreams for my life:
- Get out of Swanley as fast as possible.
- Work hard to try and make a living out of being a writer, with music and journalism being the other two options there.
- See the world.
- Have financial security.
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