I've waited a while to mention it, since some Internet Detective-type users might've followed me as I exited the game site Shacknews. And in case any of them are reading now, I won't say anything about it here, but I've explained what's up to most of the people I talk to regularly.My time there taught me a lot - namely, that being a professional blogger, specifically a "video game journalist," is just digital blue-collar work. It's not journalism, it's an extension of the cottage industry for video game PR. There's nothing professional, much less glorious, about "informing" the masses of Internet users who strive to be uninformed.In short, it's not a dream job for the ambitious and it's really turned me off of the 'net in general, and I spend less time online than I did before. I'm more productive, just because my shiny new iGoogle homepage gets me my info much faster so I'm not surfing aimlessly.So what to do with this newfound time and distaste for YouTube commenters?Enter grad school.I was finally convinced to give it a shot after years of hesitation on my part due to a fear that I'd get boxed into some mundane, super-specific kind of study and wind up living out my days being the world's leading expert on Japanese Economic Inflation From 1951 to 1953.Thankfully, International Relations saves me from that pain, and lets me flex my cerebral muscles based on the skills I picked up in school - foreign languages, writing, people skills, and generally being a flexible kind of guy.While part of me still mildly fears joining the rat race - as opposed to doing something dramatic and risky, like funding my own video game or TV show or suddenly becoming a musician - I've been convinced that taking the IR route through grad school will let me do real, ambition-satisfying work that I don't dread when I wake up in the morning.And that dread is a serious issue - I've seen it take a serious toll on my mom over the years, and it instilled in me a deep distrust of work and of bosses.It's indicative of a larger trend, the whole twenty-something issue with getting over graduating from college and resorting to The Rat Race.But I think the biggest transition I might face is going from more self-centered to less so. I don't mean in a sense of charity or niceness to others, though I do hope to work on all that. No, I mean that our primary motivations shift from self to others. I suspect that many are forced to confront it at some point - "Oh, you got her knocked up? Time to quit the band and get a job. And a marriage license." Others, on the other hand, might consciously choose the time to make the shift, and perhaps they're better off for it.My friend Lisa put it this way:
I definitely don't want to be a famous video game writer anymore. And I'm still ambitious as hell - I'm applying to tough grad schools, and I like Type A women - but I had a taste of a simpler life in Japan, where I was a more generous and easy-to-please person, and it wasn't all bad. There's a lot of that life that may come back to me in several years, and I'm not afraid of that.
I have lately been thinking that the most important thing for me, rather than trying to be a famous concert pianist (which isn't really my dream anymore anyways), is to have my own loving family and to raise a child. then i would think about my own life. Is that bad?
I definitely don't want to be a famous video game writer anymore. And I'm still ambitious as hell - I'm applying to tough grad schools, and I like Type A women - but I had a taste of a simpler life in Japan, where I was a more generous and easy-to-please person, and it wasn't all bad. There's a lot of that life that may come back to me in several years, and I'm not afraid of that.