I coulda been somebody!

Well shit, I’m not sure what to write about. It’s not like I don’t have ideas, I’m overwhelmed by them but I have no clue where to start or how to elaborate on any one of them enough that it’ll make a worthwhile read so I’m just gonna put something down or I’ll work myself up into a frenzy and be unable to get to sleep tonight. Which can’t happen because it’s back to work in the morning. I have to say though, I actually quite like this feeling. You see, it reminds me of when I was still in school. Homework or any other kind of written assignment would always cause me to go blank. I’d get so worked up thinking about all the different routes I can go I would end up sitting there staring at the page for hours and not writing a word. Then I’d feel shitty and go play vidya or watch something and say I’d start the next day. It’s a pretty common experience this isn’t anything insightful, I just like having that feeling again. I have an assignment due in and now I’m even more free in my potential options than ever before.

That age was also the last time I was truly happy, not to say I haven’t experienced happiness since then of course but that was the last time I was truly happy and optimistic as a general rule. Nowadays to be happy is something I actually appreciate, at that age it was something I could take for granted. I had finally managed to get a small group of friends at school and one other boy in particular quickly became a very close friend. We were together so often the rest of our friends and people we associated with were constantly making gay jokes, a teacher of ours even made a similar quip although much less crudely. That teacher while I’m on the subject was hugely important to me, he was an English teacher and was one of the few I genuinely always wanted to impress with my work. He also said something to me once that left a huge impression, something that’s been back on my mind the last few days. In response to an assignment we had, a kind of mock review of a television show of our choice, he said he laughed out loud multiple times while marking it. He also said he could picture it in a genuine pop journalism publication, or something like that but I might be looking back with rose tinted glasses because this was a huge moment for me. I’m not sure I trust my memory completely in this case, but still it was certainly a very well received piece of work and one I never quite lived up to again. Naturally that one comment was enough to make someone as insecure as me feel indebted to him right until the last day of school. The reason it’s been back on my mind though, is because writing again in a longer form than just the occasional effortpost is reminding me how fun this is. I used to write for fun and that particular assignment I remember especially fondly. I remember laughing at my own attempts at humour the entire time I was writing the thing up. It was just a silly school assignment in the grand scheme of things though, only impressive to him because I was about 14. If someone my age were to write that it’d be laughable, but because I’ve dropped off in almost every single one of my interests and pursuits since not long after that age I haven’t progressed. Hopefully doing this will help me to catch up to where I could be if I never quit writing, one day.

Back to the what I was going over though, at that age I was still hopeful for the future. Not only did I finally have what you could call a best friend, and we really were incredibly close. We were together at all times outside of lessons, and also in lessons that we shared. We would hang out after school every day, on Fridays for hours and hours and most weeks one of us would stay the night at the other’s place. Weekends we’d hang out too, often with a few of the others from the group at school. He also first got me thinking about politics in a meaningful sense, my politics have changed drastically several times over since then but it started with him. Before him I was really uncritical, I don’t know how but he awoke this thoughtfulness in me that never went away. Not just in regard to politics, in how I looked at any kind of art or media and how I analysed the things people did. Maybe it’s all a coincidence, this was after all around the same time I went through puberty so maybe this was all latent. I don’t think so though, and at the time I definitely didn’t. At the time I felt this huge sense of gratitude, I felt like he’d saved me. To keep up with the current memes, it was like I was an NPC and he somehow made me into a player character. We were also actively looking forward to our futures, we spoke about what we’d study at uni and the places we’d travel to in our 20s. I was enjoying life and looking forward to every day, and excited for what the future would hold. I wasn’t even really bothered by not having a girlfriend, I would have liked one and I’d certainly already had crushes/oneitises at this point but it wasn’t something that I really thought about frequently. I just assumed I’d get around to that aspect of my adolescent development later on. There were girls who had expressed clear interest in me, but because I always dropped my spaghetti I ruined it, so naturally I’d just get better and things will work out like everything else had been doing I thought. Just not right now.

My music taste first started to develop around this time too, I was mostly listening to a few fairly well known alt-rock and indie bands so I had pleb tier taste but it was the first time I started paying attention to what I listened to and actively developing a certain taste rather than just seeing music as something that’s in the background. I wouldn’t say I saw music as a hobby or real interest of mine until about a year ago though. The album Velociraptor by Kasabian is basically the soundtrack for those three years, along with maybe Nevermind or In Utero. I don’t listen to any of them very often now, but the few times I have I get hit by a wave of memories from back then.

That’s why I like this feeling anyway, it puts me back in the headspace I was in when I was last truly a happy person. This was the last meandering post for a while now though. I have that idea about school shootings which I really want to talk about. I just hope it is as original as I think or I’ll feel like an idiot. I know I have an insight that most people don’t, and I’ve read and watched a lot about the subject and never seen someone put it quite like I would so far. Making a whole blogpost on the thing though is going to be difficult and might take longer than these last few did. Talking about myself is easy, but writing an intelligent (hopefully) and in depth (kinda) commentary on a modern phenomenon like school shootings isn’t. Also I’ll be working on and off again over the weekend and into next week. What I’m trying to say is I’m not done yet, and there will be more from me.