My Inner Child’s Resume

I looked through an old photo album the other day. I guess I was simply feeling Nostalgic, but looking at photos of myself from grade school led to a Revelation.

I used to be absolutely Fearless. Unselfconscious. Almost frighteningly so.

I believed there wasn’t a thing in the world I couldn’t do or be. This often resulted in the unfortunate wearing of a Costume in public.

I wanted to be Evel Knievel for the longest time. He was the definition of Awesome. In fact, everything I wanted to be during that time was Awesome. In many ways the late 1970’s-1980’s were a Golden Age of Awesomeness.

If my Inner Child had become all of the things he had Dreamed of, his Resume might look like this (click image to zoom):

OK, I was a weird kid.

Yes, I wanted to be Michael Jackson. Yes, my parents were concerned.

Still, this is the kind of person I need to become again. Someone that lives in the Culture of the Possible.

The Call to Adventure

Cover of Say Anything

Like many people, I am living an inauthentic life. This is an easy trap to fall into. Don’t get me wrong. I am in love with my Wife and I adore my Kids. It’s my job. I spend all day writing business proposals to sell parking meters and citation processing services to municipal government agencies. God has an impeccable sense of humor, since I have accumulated thousands of dollars in parking ticket fees and fines over the years. I’m the City‘s best effing customer.

It’s not that I dream of selling something more interesting, or something more prestigious. To paraphrase the legendary Lloyd Dobler, I don’t want to sell anything, or buy anything or process anything. I want to write Stories. I don’t want to do anything else.

Everyone has a dream that they harbor in Secret Places. The reason that it often stays hidden is because dreams are usually impractical. I have a stable career. We have mouths to feed. A mortgage to pay. My Wife‘s Groupon addiction to finance. How many furnace cleanings does one house need anyway?

I’m afraid to to take any Risks. That’s my problem.

In order to realize a Dream, one has to be Fearless. I have to embrace the Call to Adventure.

You know who else was living an inauthentic life before his heroic quest? Luke Skywalker. He was pining away on his moisture farm, longing for excitement and adventure, cleaning his droids, when bam, adventure came calling.

Or Neo. He was toiling in a cubicle when his heroic opportunity to do IT-related kung-fu in The Matrix arose.

My Call to Adventure is here. I have to embrace it.

Day 1: January the First

My long-suffering wife has graciously granted me one year to stop procrastinating and finally go after my Dream of writing Immortality. This blog will serve a number of purposes.

First, it will be a tool to WD40 my rusty writing chops on a daily basis.

Second, it will serve as a very public Reminder of my wifely Deadline to subdue the Imaginations in my head and put them to paper. God save me if I don’t make it count.

Third, I hope it will draw a modest but loyal group of followers who will join me in their own Heroic Quest to Transform their life. If I should become a Tony Robbins-esque motivational speaker in the process, so much the better.

Finally, I hope to capture some of the Wisdom and Sacred Knowledge I have accrued over the years and present it someday to my young Daughters, that they would recognize their own Dreams and follow them without distraction.

Let the Quest begin.