more reflection

Writing is like an itch... you have to scratch it.

Writing a blog is like having an itch under a heavy cast-- except the cast doesn't come off after six weeks. It stays on forever. Somehow you have to keep scratching.

So scratch I shall.

Thinking back over my life, I've always wanted to achieve big things. When I was six years old-- a wee Iggy if there ever was one!-- I couldn't think of anything better than being an astronaut. My grandpa was an engineer who worked on space travel equipment, and when he wasn't being a rocket scientist he was a professor. One of his students was a young Neil Armstrong. That is not a lie.

So naturally I wanted to go into "the family business". I bought a bunch of books about the universe, space travel, the moon, the solar system, you name it. Well, actually I didn't buy any of them. My parents did. I was six, remember. But I read every word, pored over every page, stared at all the pictures. For me it was a foregone conclusion: I would go to NASA and train to be an astronaut. I even had my mom sew a complete space-suit costume for Halloween one year. (The costume is still in my closet as we speak.)

I'm not sure when, exactly, but at some point over the next few years, the astronaut dream faded.

At the age of eleven I bought a book about becoming a video game programmer-- and suddenly, that was it. I'd found a new Shangri-La. Gone were my fantasies of exploring the galaxy... now I could sit in front of a computer all day, play games, and get paid tons of money! I immediately set about learning how to program in BASIC, knowing I would eventually work my way up to C++ and Java-- "the big leagues". Someday I would make a brilliant game that would transform the industry. And in the interim, life was certainly looking a whole lot more fun!

Wait a minute. You're telling me it's not that much fun to be a programmer? They have to deal with endless amounts of code, debugging and searching for tiny errors, getting paid in peanuts, and during all of that, they almost never get to play games?

Oh.

Forget it, then.

Looking back, it's interesting that I went straight from programming to the "engineering track". It certainly was never a dream of mine. I didn't lie awake at night fantasizing about AUTOCAD and corporate meetings. I just wanted to make some good money, and it was time I pull my head out of the clouds and aim for something I could realistically do.

So why did I give up on my dreams?

I remember being very disappointed by the reality of programming. As I gradually came to understand what it would really be like to make video games, there was a profound sense of letdown-- it was like finding out there's no Santa Claus.

Maybe that led me to think that I couldn't find a job that was fun, so I might as well go for a job that paid well. I stopped paying attention to my passions and buckled down for a long career in the real world.

Now my priorities are a little different. Passion before cash. Meaningful work before stability. Creativity before conformity.

Dreams before regrets.

If you're wondering why I spend so many posts talking about "the history of Iggy" and my decision to leave engineering, it's probably because I'm still scared to death that I made a terrible mistake. Nine months have gone by since I decided to make movies, and I'm still trying to talk myself into it. Having been on "the track" since I was a little kid, it's hard to step off and find my own way.

But at this point I'm more than ready to jump into the film business. Actually, I can't wait!

There is that little matter of "graduating from college", though. I should probably take care of that first.

After that-- the sky's the limit!