ambition

Animated Change

/ fatesalchemist / Leave a comment
wallup.netPhoto From: 5 Centimeters per second.

It was the 1980’s, a time of great change in music, movies, and media. You see, up to that point, this small art style coming out of Japan was starting to make headway with western audiences.  An older generation appreciating the art from the 50’s and 60’s huddled together at small expos and cons to collect as much of this foreign delicacy as they could. What they didn’t know is that a few short years this would all change, and change quickly.

The first change came fast, a new popular show called Sailor moon came out with a roar, bringing young girls flocking for more from animators across the sea. It was such a hit that the transition period between the old and the new felt more like a crash than a movement. Gradually as the 90’s pressed on Americans were introduced to a variety of styles, artists, genres, and stories never seen on home TVs.  These pieces of Anime as is was called presented new ideas and spun the idea of exactly what show could be like. Shows that weren’t afraid to tell a story where the hero dies at the end, where the send-off is bittersweet, and you’re forced to think about yourself and the world around you a little bit differently. Masters of their craft illuminate the halls of an art form that continues to shift and changes with each passing year. New stories are being told, new artforms being discovered, and new people finding this glorious cacophony of beautiful minutes shared across millions around the world.

Why am I telling you all this?

I discovered Anime a little over 12 years ago.  One night, sitting quietly in a room watching a marathon of a show I have never seen before got me hooked.  A show about a soul reaper and a boy with the power to see the dead.  It was easy enough to pick up, even read, and that’s saying something from a boy who never read.  It consumed me and held me it’s magical embrace, so when the opportunity arose I went to my first convention and I hadn’t looked back since. It has a staple of my early July, more regular than my schooling and in some way connects me to the craft I grew to love.

This year demarks my tenth year of going to Anime Expo, and something is different this time.  Year after year, as I’ve gotten older a little less comes with me each time enter those grand halls.
Sometimes it’s friends, I’ve seen my fair share move forward and on from the con.
Sometimes it shows, I’ll feel a little more out of touch with what people are excited about.
Recently it’s been the focus,  what everyone seems to want and buy there doesn’t interest me as much anymore.  It could be from the familiarity from many years attending but it all feels repetitive, distant.

It’s a combination of all these things that makes going back a little bit harder each year. This by no means is it a bad convention. It’s a great convention, with some growing pains but people still get excited about all the new and wonderful things they are experiencing. It’s just me, I’m changing, and my relationship to the fandom is different now.  Like an old man coming back to a schoolyard years after he graduated, it’s more reminiscent of times past than times present.  Things have changed, people have changed, places have changed as they should. It has to adapt to the people it’s still serving, long after we make use of it.  But is it my time to graduate, to move forward onto something new? It’s this conflict that weighs heavy in my heart. When I leave, it may not be forever, but if I ever return it will be different, for different reasons and a different me.

This fight with my personal obsolescence hits me because this con is part of me, my childhood and adolescence.  Giving it up means part of me has changed, that young kid inside though always with me is pushing me forward beyond him.  He’s telling me to let go and find my next adventure.  Let go and choose a new path beyond, whatever it may be. Live life with these memories as wings on my back, not as a tether around my neck.

It’s hard to give up and put away these things.  Truthfully, I will always read manga, and watch anime as its part of who I am now. But I have to pursue my next adventure.

Thank you Anime Expo, for all that you are. You helped introduce me to the heroes who showed me how to give it all I got, no matter the odds.

 

A Thousands Not Enough

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It’s like drugs I think, working towards something you love.  Each and every day I feel consumed by it, consumed by wanting it, always pushing for it. From dawn til dusk and from dusk til dawn  I work or think about working all the time which I know isn’t the most balanced way to live but if I wanted a balanced life I wouldn’t have chosen academia as a goal.  But it reminds me of a saying from high school when they made us do drug prevention education.  One’s too much, a thousand not enough.

It’s hard sometimes because it always feels like I’m behind. When I am sitting alone with my thoughts, it comes up. I should be productive right now, the better me would be productive.  My imagined competition doesn’t have these problems or worries, they simply work.  They are a machine and by the time we both apply, their long grocery list of accomplishments dwarfs the lines on my applications I managed to throw together. These thoughts have started to peek into my normal life, my social life, my relaxation.

I know I should keep many of these things in life separate, but I can’t, or more like I won’t.  It flows through me, and in some ways is me. To be so intertwined is ultimately detrimental for my wellbeing, for I will live and die in this small world that has no reason or recourse to reciprocate my feelings.  It’s a dangerous thing, dreaming, not because of what happens when you’re doing it but what happens after you wake up.  So I must tear myself away from it kicking and screaming, enjoy the world around me while it lasts, invest in other things knowing full well that each moment I spend away is a moment deprived from my goal.  I should think of it as an investment, it’s always good to diversify my portfolio, but I found the one thing I want to be the best at, so it’s hard to pull away from feeding this monster.

I have to turn off at some point. Let go and drift for a while to rest. Other people deserve my attention, and I should give it to them.  It’s what they deserve, and it’s with them that I will make it through.

These restless moments, this forlorn daydreaming keeps me going and pushing forward into the day where everything is always slightly out of reach.

Transcend​.

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I find myself here often now, this place of mounting frustration for the limitations of myself. I know, I can’t be everything,  I am trying so hard to be something, something more than I ever thought possible.

This all leads back to a belief I have, the belief that anyone is capable of anything.  That the legacy of humanity is founded on the word “can”.  Generations built on the idea that we can push farther and further than the generation before creating scaffolding for those who will come after.  It is up to us to build our lives in the way we see fit.

I find trouble though, in this belief as it causes me pain.  I find myself in pain when my hands have stopped moving, my eyes begin to close and fade, when everything winds down to a still. My mind reminds me of the people who keep going, who push through, and are continuing to walk along the path ahead of me.  It’s then I have the fight within my head, between the two voices that cry out from within. One yelling “Go! Do! There is still much to be done!” and the other crying “Stay! Wait! We need a second for air!”. My life feels like the result of the battle of these two forces trying to out-compete the other.
I want to keep going, I know I have to if I want to accomplish all I want to do during the short period of my life.  Diligence and discipline are required.  As with all things, I feel though I come up short of my goal, of my potential still. I keep grabbing at my future but never reaching the bar to know I have got there.  At times I feel as if I could only set aside myself, drive my being to its limits, to really push the boundaries of my existence, then perhaps I could be satisfied.
The thought pops into my head, a small analogy that takes presents itself as a colder truth.  To strive is to bleed, to bleed out of yourself, to suffer for your dreams, to push past the pain of these long nights and lonely hours.  It’s in some sick way what I want, to feel like I am finally putting my heart and soul into something.  The feeling of giving up everything I am and becoming if not for a moment 100% of something. A being of directed madness and constructive obsession. Maybe then I can say that I’m not making excuses for anything, that I can look in the mirror and see the sacrifice etched upon my face. Maybe then, I can finally rest.

I’m tired, my body is tired, my mind is tired and all I want is rest. I keep going, keep pushing, because I know if I do a little bit more than I might be able to grasp the thing I seek. I find peace within my heart but drive within my head.
I sit there in the quiet moments as my body ache and my mind fogs, I feel a mounting frustration as I reach the limitations of my body. There, I say to myself, one more, just do one more thing, push yourself farther than you’ve ever been before.

Just one more.

Transcend.