Calling...
There was a time when I used to have difficulty with what I wanted to do versus what I felt was 'important' to do. What I really wanted to do was spend my time playing games, working on games, designing environments, creating characters, filling out adventures, designing the games themselves. (By games here I mean, of course, table top role playing games, good ol' traditional, analog RPGs) When I wasn't wanting to do that, I was interested in writing, but writing what would be the literary equivelant of fluff. I was never really pulled to write that great, deep, meaningful story. No I was always more inclined towards stuff involving blasters, aliens, space ships and/or mummies, adventurers and lost temples.But I always felt a certain guilt factor while doing (or wanting to do) this. It didn't seem 'important' enough to me. I mean, here there were people out there making billions of dollars by building huge things or selling great products (or crappy products, right Bill?). They were out there trying to cure cancer or solve Fermat's second last theorom or discern the meaning of the great pyramids. Stuff that seemed (to me at least) 'important'. But how imporant is it, really? So then I started thinking about how I could make my writing 'important'. What can I do to create the great, meaningful, heavy story that would be the literary equivelant of that old cure for cancer? The problem there was, I don't think that way. I couldn't really come up with anything. So I stalled.
Lately, though, I've been rethinking this whole thing. Okay, like I said above, back when I was in LA I'd at least made peace with the concept of working toward entertainment, rather than 'importance'. But it was still there, that differentiation. I'd even managed to convince myself that entertainment was 'important', but what I had to do was find that 'cure for cancer' sort of way. But, now, I'm even rethinking that. Knowing what I know of our little reality we dream ourselves to be in, what really is 'important'? Knowing yourself. Being true to yourself. Going home. These are the things that really are *important*.
So where does that leave me? Well, the way I see it, it leaves me almost back at my starting point, where I've discovered my interest, my desire, lies in games and fluff stories. But now, instead of the feelings of guilt and inadiquacy over that interest, I'm embracing it. One thing I'd always wanted in my life, that I'd always wanted to find, was a calling. I wanted to have something that I felt was truly calling to me, something I was drawn to that I could not resist, even if I tried. Finally, I realize, I've had that calling all along, I just trivialized it to myself and did try to ignore it. But it would not be ignored. I have my calling, and my calling is fluff, but it's fluff that's important to me. And that's what's important.
