alright, too many awesome posts in this thread, i'll give it a whirl.
most of my interests fit the typical nerd stereotype. i'm pretty sure i can hold my own in a star trek trivia showdown (except for anything voyager-related because it is teh sucks), and most other sci-fi shows and movies tend to be my comfort entertainment too. there's the odd smattering of anime if i can carve out time for it (mainly the popular stuff though, nothing approaching obscure weeaboo territory). same thing with PC games.
i'm a pretty avid volleyball player, but that's my pretty much my only source of physical exercise. i'm pretty terrible at all other sports. but i have been working out more lately because i've had enough of having a slight gut and poor posture and t-shirts not fitting well.
at work i do interface development - mainly Flash programming, but also some HTML/CSS/JS development. i got into this mainly to animate cool interface stuff, occasionally programmatic animation, occasionally 3D. on paper it sounds like great fun, and sometimes it is, but lately most of my work has been for flash banners which is incredibly tedious and thankless. hopefully that will change soon, but if worse comes to worse, i might want to quit and give film/audio production a shot (probably'd have to go to school again though).
in the end, though, a career is just a job, so i treat such pursuits with a grain of salt. many of my friends treat their work as the center of their life and base everything around it. frankly, i find that view incredibly dull and limiting - i prefer to see my job as merely the thing that sustains me financially while i pursue the other things i'm actually passionate about. i've also learned thanks to church life that work can never fully satisfy the deeper longings i have for meaning and purpose in this life anyway.
i'm fast approaching my 30's and there have certainly been days where i wish i had been more adventurous in my earlier 20's. but to be honest, recently those regrets have been soothed by the fact that i feel like i am living more out of passion, right now. a lot of it has to do with my getting back into creating music over the last few years and getting more involved in the international micromusic community.
i can honestly say that traveling abroad in the last year to blipfests in NYC and Tokyo and meeting so many amazing and like-minded people has been nothing short of life-changing. back at home there's always been significant pressure from family/friends/colleagues to conform to their interests, because my own have always been so different. i realized first-hand at blip that because there are so many people who actually DO share ALL my interests, i don't have to do a damn thing to compromise my identity. i'm also comforted by the the fact that there are lots of people in the chipmusic community who are older than me but are still incredibly passionate about their craft. this is a huge encouragment and tells me that my most interesting years can very well be ahead of me if i choose.
it's also given me new perspective on what i actually want for this life of mine. career, success, interests and even relationships can come and go for all i care. a life well spent, to me, is to simply have the privilege of crossing paths with interesting and passionate people that are wellsprings of talent and creativity. and to be present in situations where incredible things can happen.
and now, i present to you a fist going through a skull.
Last edited by bryface (Apr 30, 2012 8:38 am)
