It took me quite a few years to realise what I want to
do with my life. I am sorry to have started with such a cliché, and really limiting, restricting
one as well, I might add. I don't want to sound like I agree with the idea that all
people must devote themselves to some higher calling and then just pursue that
one goal until the day the die. Otherwise on that infamous day, the one that
will always strike you by surprise, you will realise that you're done with second chances and, well, everything else, and feel the remorse and regret
filling your last moments on this miserable world like a sticky play dough
explosion at the hands of a three-year-old. I don’t think life ought to be like
that: you can do one thing all your life, you can do dozens of different
things, or you can take a risk and do nothing at all. Dealing with uncontrolled play dough is frustrating at any time, let alone when you're about to die.
I,
however, have a feeling that there is a thing that I’d like to do. I might come
up with more things along the way, who knows, but now, at the immature age of
22, I have finally understood that writing might make me as happy as it is
possible for me to be.
I
was born in a distant, northern country and lived there until recently. It’s
been about a year since I decided that I didn’t want to live there anymore, packed
up my most important possessions and with a rucksack on my back, took a flight
to Dublin. At first it was amazing, what a wonderful country it was that I had
moved into! Then the fairy-tale turned into reality, as it would've been sensible to expect, and I realised that life is not so different here. People are friendlier
– even when you’re stranger, or especially then; hot chocolate with marshmallows
is fairy-tale-like in a certain lovely
café in the core of the city; garlic and cheese chips are a true promise of a
better life after a night out drinking cheap wine and playing inappropriate card
games (Cards Against Humanity, that is). Regardless of those definite benefits of
living in Dublin, the everyday life doesn’t differ that much – still, I’d say I’m
happy here. Hot chocolate and chips always make everything better, and I’ve also grown
accustomed to life without rye bread and salty liquorice.
During
all this excitement as well as discovering and exploring the world of potato dishes, I’ve
slowly started to understand that I couldn’t imagine my life without writing.
Obviously, I could graduate with Master of Arts in English and become a barista
in a café as all other English students, or work as a technical support like I used to. I’d brew and serve coffee all day or advise people to restart their phones, and
then go home and write my silly stories. I strongly suspect that wouldn’t be
enough, though. I want to challenge myself in my work; I want to be suffocated
by the chloroform of uncreativeness and conventional ideas until I come up with something
new, even if it’s insignificant or meaningless.
I
want to have a small (yet preferably bigger than my current place of sleeping and eating), cosy flat for me and my future cat(s). I have pictured it
as precisely as I have allowed myself to: the furniture would be second hand,
both original and environmentally friendly, I’d have colourful cushions on the
sofa and non-toxic plants as the cats – the villains – would eat them anyway. I’d
have a bedroom and possibly a round bed, lovely sitting-room and bookshelves
nearly crashing under the weight of all my books, and finally a small study
where I’d keep my laptop and notes for all my stories.
I
know that’s a bit romanticised. I might end up sharing a house forty-five
minutes away from the city centre with three other foreigners. No cats, no
plants, no study, just a small room in an old house on a dodgy street where
drugs are sold and gangs meet up for fights. (However, I might find interesting
material to unapologetically exploit in my novels.) I also know it’s rare to
make a living only by writing novels. I am prepared to write other things as
well in order to afford my hot chocolate and chips.
The
other day, I happened to find a graduate course perfectly suitable for me: creative
writing. When I think about it, I get nervous – more than nervous, I know I’d
die if I fucked that up. It’s a combination of perfect bliss, heavenly happiness
that’s nearly beyond possible and incomprehensible fear that slowly kills all the cells in my body one by one. Unfortunately, there’s
nothing else that can level up with writing, or provide even a shallow equivalent.
What
if I actually can’t write? What if I live in some sort of a distorted imaginary
world where I think that with some time and practice I’d become a half-decent
writer? What if I’m merely a brain in an advanced alien study of lower life forms? As for being part of an alien study, that’s cool: I’m slightly terrified
but rather excited. I believe I’d also be able to cope with being a horrible
writer, somehow, eventually. It’d require long, sleepless nights crying inside
a nest built of my robot sheets and days lying on my kitchen floor staring out
the skylight. After weeks and months of dramatic mourning, I’d get over it and
start developing a new dream that I might or might not find likewise unrealistic
and impossible.
However,
I don’t want to think about that now, being a horrible writer. Alien experiment
on my brain, on the other hand, is quite an interesting topic and I’d like to speculate
that more but I will try and leave that for the next time (a sign of a bad
writer, isn’t it? – Rambling on completely unrelated matters). I need to try
and see if I am utterly hopeless as a writer or do I have some, even little,
hope left. There’s another possibility as well, and it’s my favourite one: a
spectrum – nothing’s exact, precise, unambiguous, and you can move from one end to the
other. I still have two and half years
until I'm done with my Bachelor's degree, I have plenty of time to think and practise and most importantly, figure out some back-up plans.
Also, I need to remind myself that I'm just slightly planning ahead and might want to slow down and perhaps focus on issues relevant right now, such as that I still have to write 500-1000 words for a coursework by tomorrow. Funnily enough, my current wordcount is 0.
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Niin, niin. Halusin kokeilla, minkämoista englanniksi kirjoittaminen on. Onhan tässä tullut yhtä jos toistakin kirjoiteltua englanniksi viime aikoina, mutta suurimmaks osaks koulujuttuja ja halusin koettaa, tulisko mitään, jos jotain vähän erityyppistä raapustaisin. On vähän semmoinen olo kuin kävelis maaliskuisella jäällä ilman naskaleita ja ei tietäis, kuinka paksua se mistäkin kohden on.
