Imagine that you are on a featureless road, exits don’t come often but when they do, you’ll need to be sure it’s the right one. The road leads through Primary School if you’re lucky, heads on through Secondary if you wish and the road I’ve taken has lead me to a place where I find myself caught in a roundabout. For those of you who know me or have been keeping up with any of my blogs, any of my writings, or even my Facebook; you realize I’ve been here for awhile and have no idea what exit to take.

I am indeed a writer at heart, or even more so, a daydreamer. I am constantly imagining things, ranging from stories to events, and some are so vivid they could have been a dream, or memories, or truly real. However I am also very mathematical and analytical which has lead me down many other paths. I also love business, and the dream of being my own boss and seeing my own personal success is something I have also dreamed of. After Secondary, or High School, I jumped straight from there into Computer Science. I belittled the career aspect of being a professional creative writer myself and discarded even the remote possibility that it was an option. You must be extremely talented and lucky to gain notice in the field of writing. Just ask JK Rowling how hard it was to get Harry Potter taken seriously and then published. She kept on with it and if I ever meet her, no matter where I stand personally in the world, I will ask her how she planned those books.

For the moment I am circling at forty kilometres an hour trying to decide if I will exit or try and wear a firm circle through the asphalt beneath my tires (or tyres if you’re Australian). I guess I could also hit the accelerator and try to generate a tornado. Sadly, these are the choices I feel like I have in the meantime. My love for instant gratification finds the business side of me fulfilled and while I maintain an upward motion in the retail world, my business side grins like the Cheshire cat. But then my creative side lashes out and makes me feel absolutely guilty about ignoring it. So I force myself to sit here, in front of this computer screen, and I write. Sometimes meaningless things: “Star Wars, Episode Seven: Prophesy of the Force – Luke orders his secret apprentice to guard and train his niece while staying back to fight the new Sith Order. Meanwhile, Luke’s nephew is taken from his mother to become the newest Sith apprentice.” Sometimes meaningful things: “The Mediocre Assassin – A man trying to break into the top ten assassins in the world, finds his eleventh place standing lacking in pay and perks as he struggles to perform hits as well as maintain a family.”

So creativity is fun, it’s two in the morning and I constantly think about what next? The hardest part of writing a story is I know the beginning, the climax and the end… but being able to join them together becomes impossible. My mind jumps from idea to idea and inspiration cracks like a whip, snapping my attention from what I was focused on. No matter how hard I try and force myself to continue on, sometimes the more interesting story keeps my attention… until the next. I am a writing “slut” (if you’ll pardon the language) I’ll write for anything, but at the end of the day, nothing holds my attention long enough for me to finish it. Now maybe “slut” is a bit harsh, but you get the idea.

The roundabout continues on toward my analytical and mathematical side where I want to create using computers. I love the concepts and ideas behind artificial intelligence. I would love to go and be the first person to somehow program understanding. We are all trying so hard to make computers learn, that we ourselves cannot figure out why they don’t understand. Is it because they’re a machine? Perhaps. But I think even with how intelligent people are today, we cannot overcome our own limits. Do we understand how we understand? No, therefore, we cannot program understanding. No matter how deep that sounds, I’m no philosophy major. In fact the only degree I finished was a diploma and that was in animation.

So I see my choices: Analytical/Mathmatical, Creative, Business. I also shouldn’t forget the things I’ve been considering which go hand in hand with many of the skills I have and want to have, one of which is the ability to teach. When asked to write a list of the top fifty things I wanted to accomplish in my life, my biggest goal in life was to run my own school. This caught me by complete and utter surprise! But now that I am circling the roundabout of my future, I realize so many reasons why running my own school is perfect. It satisfies my business side fully as using the profit from the school would allow me to invest in a school run media business for game development, computer animation production and other various computer media opportunities. I could also invest in independent ventures and help start-ups as well as support indie developers and issue some grants to support creativity. Also maintaining a school would be an extremely rewarding and challenging opportunity that would give me an infinite amount of problems to solve while giving me a personal base for research and development for my creative side, while satiating my analytical side.

The problems with that are all the worlds, beings and stories I imagine never coming to light. I find myself frustrated with the idea that these worlds live and die with me. I almost feel it is my obligation to help the beings in my stories live and to see this passion through. Once again, I make another pass in the roundabout. From applying to school again, to writing again, to choosing career over all else. I feel the seasons coming before they do now.

The choice to go back to school is the hardest one to make. Do I take a computer engineering degree and turn it into an education degree? Or do I do the same thing with a business degree instead? Can my ten years in management, in diverse roles and positions be enough to get me past the hurdles in business? Or will career be the winner overall as it is always the most patient and most consistent. A safe promotion is guaranteed a return unlike taking a chance on school. But the only way to earn more money, is to use more money.

“You need to go to school, to get a job, to make more money, to pay for more school, to get you a better job, to pay off the debts you gathered while attending school.”

“You need money, to make money.”

For me I cannot tell if I am impatient and the lack of instant gratification in these choices makes it even harder, but I know I want to own a profitable school so I am able to invest it back into the future of the students as well as creative ventures. Just how to get there, and maybe I should just publish myself shamelessly and do the marketing myself. I’ll bet many authors have found some success in it! If anyone out there has an opinion, helpful words of wisdom or just want to say hi, please feel free to email me or leave a comment. Thanks for listening to the rantings of a madman, I do appreciate it!