california - phantom planet

Well, hustlers grab your guns
The shadow weighs a ton
Driving down the 101
California, here we come
Right back where we started from

A few of you might recognize the lyrics of this song, and state that it is used as intro-song to the O.C. So before I say anything else, no I don't watch that show. The reason I've got the song here is instead since it's used in the movie Orange County with Jack Black and Colin Hanks.

Now, this movie has been haunting the back of my mind since I saw it last weekend.

(Warning! Spoilers ahead!)
And not in the I'm-looking-for-monsters-in-my-closet-way of haunting, this is a comedy and not a horror movie. But it's the concept. Dude living in a decadent place that he longs away from, realizes he wants to be a writer, applies to Stanford, doesn't get into Stanford due to administrary problems, so he enters an odyssey with his hippie girlfriend and loser brother.
(Spoilers over)


The movie in itself is great. One of those Hollywood-comedies that's actually good, partially because of Jack Black's pure presence. But enough of reviewing, that's not why I'm writing about it.

As stated, it's the whole concept. The dude finds out what he wants to do, and he does all he can to follow his dream. And that's where I enter the picture. Because fact is, I don't have a clear and visualized dream yet. Something with politics, something with History, something about living abroad and a little of being happy.

Swell that far.

But honest, how much is that actually? It's nothing. It's vague and completely impossible to put an aim for, since I have no idea what I'll need to do to reach a place and position I'm happy with. I've only got one thing clear, and that is that my area of work is more important than my salary.

The dude in the movie wants to become a writer, and according to the movie he - of course - has got a big talent for it. I don't know how much or well I can actually write when it comes to books, the only project I've been doing seriously got 42 pages long and then died due to complete lack of historical accuracy.

Dreams, dreams... What do I want to do with my life?

Now, thinking like this all the time is of course a very impractical thing, since it takes my mind of schoolwork. Studying amino acids, radians and greek dramas doesn't feel that tempting when I'm sitting and being slightly anxious as well as slightly overwhelmed by the different possibilities when it comes to my future. I want to do something that I can enjoy, something that I want to work with. Something that can bring me out in the world and eventually have me die at old age with a smile on my lips, knowing that I got the most out of it.

There's only one thing coming to my mind when I contemplate the matter. History.

I do it on my spare time, I read about it, I do it in school, I play games in the matter, and I think about it if I ever think of any school subject. It's the only thing I actually really can, judging from my own experience. Burying myself in History-books is something I could definitely do without any regrets.

But then again... history? What do you become then? Teacher? Historian? What does a historian do anyway?

No, I didn't manage to be too structured this time. But one thing is clear for me, I need to get a plan as well as a real dream, and the sooner I get it, the sooner I'll be happy with school, life and spare time. Which I need, desperately. This is one of those weeks when motivation is rationed.

I'd like to end with a poem that, if I know whose reading this blog, you're all familiar with.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood
and sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveller, long I stood
and looked down one as far as I could
to where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
and having perhaps the better claim
because it was grassy and wanted wear;
though as for that, the passing there
had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
in leaves no feet had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I --
I took the one less travelled by,
and that has made all the difference

I really need to find which way to take.

Yours as ever,
Snugglie

1 kommentar(er).:

Anonymous said...

Yeah, knowing what to do *is* very hard, I'm not sure at all what I want to work with, so I've ended up reading equal amounts of natural sciences and social studies since I can't settle for one.
I guess historians would normally write a bunch of things about history, like essays and stuff, but if you tried to find some kind of job where you could connect history to modern events? And why not diplomat? You seem to be interested in that and have considered it before?
And btw, I like that poem =D

 

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