A Geek tragedy

I have a confession. I am a science fiction\fantasy geek. I grew up reading The Chronicles of Narnia, Lord of the Rings is my favorite movie, and I am a Star Wars buff. But there is a special place in my heart for Star Trek. I grew up watching Trek, in many different iterations. My mom was a major trekkie, loving TOS (that’s the original series for you non-trekkers.) I remember watching the premiere of TNG (the Next Generation) with my family, which is the one I fell in love with. I have seen all ten of the movies, some more than others, and I can explain the differences between warp drives, tricorders, phasers and photons with ease. So if you’ve heard of it, you might guess that I’m naturally excited about the new Star Trek reboot/prequel movie coming out next summer. It features new actors in the original roles, so we have Spock, Kirk, and McCoy at the beginning of their Starfleet careers. So when I saw the cover story on this week’s Entertainment Weekly, I had a geek overload:

But it was followed almost immediately by a spousal revelation I had a hard time digesting. Joy has never seen a Star Trek movie. She has never seen a full episode of any of the t.v. series. She barely knows any of the character names. She got Star Trek confused with STARSHIP TROOPERS! I am falling into a muted disbelief even as I write this. As this revelatory conversation reached a climax last night, she ended my ability to think straight with this zinger, “It’s all a blur for me. I get Superman 2 confused with the Empire Strikes Back.”
How this hasn’t come up in 10 years of marriage, I don’t know, but is there any doubt that opposites attract? I foresee some sci-fi indoctrination in my home’s future.

Release Valve

I have a lot of ideas floating around. I haven’t written creatively in so long that I can’t seem to organize the various themes and images running around inside my head into any coherency whatsoever. I have thoughts about God, religion, politics, culture, and most prevalently, the inner conflicts between these forces that not only wage war inside of me, but also in the world around all of us.
I want to write, but if I can’t corral these thoughts, I’m left with a disjointed mess. I used to think that is what stream of consciousness was all about. Lazy, egotistical writers who couldn’t be brought down to earth long enough to make their thoughts coherent, and in the public’s lack of understanding, they mistook it for genius. I’ve always thought that it was a case of the emperor having no clothes, and yet here I am, engaging in similar practices just to release the pressure inside of me.
Writing was once described as opening a vein onto the page, to bleed your very essence out in written form. I have longed to do that most of my life, and yet for more than the past decade, I have been paralyzed, unable to cope with what might come out. What if no one wants what I have to give? If my essence is out there and is rejected, then where does that leave me? I have retreated into the financial and mental safety of a “regular job,” where I can easily proclaim that it is just an income producing placeholder until I write the Great American Novel. At what point did it become my career?
At what point did I become so safe inside my carefully constructed lie that I forgot what it was to bleed? If I walk out into the world without a safety net, will I be caught when I fall? There is no question to the falling. I know it will happen-but what then? Where will I be left if I take the one chance I have given myself and I let the opportunity slip through my fingers into the void? Maybe I will be left, floating by myself, done. Is that better or worse than the alternative? Is that the moment that the great hand of God comes up underneath me, to carry me to the mountainside? Or is it a case of His hand being underneath me even now, and I’m not even walking of my own accord, but in fact I’m being carried into this great unknown?
Maybe this barely contained insanity is actually His doing. I feel as if I’m going to explode onto the page, and I need to focus that energy into a controlled flow from my fingertips. A camel going through the eye of a needle, and I am the man, rich with inspiration, who must humble myself to get into the heaven of release and accomplishment.