Why I Am The Nameless Dreamer.

I tend not to think too much about my life, especially my childhood. I had a fine childhood, all things considered; we were poor, but there was a lot of love, I had good friends, access to (some of) the things I wanted or needed, a decent academic career (high grades, but not too high), and a bunch of very understanding adults.

Despite all of that, I feel now that I have been set up for failure. Please allow me to explain.

I live now, as I have since I was born, in a tiny, rural part of the states, far from everywhere else. My parents moved to here from where they were because the land was cheap. I'm proud of them for making as much out of our home that they have, but they could not have forseen the ramifications of their choices. See, we lived up on the side of a mountain, where no one wanted to lay cable. As such, we had no access to any sort of TV or entertainment that wasn't on one of the 3 channels we had access via the huge tv antenna we needed to get anything at all.

"TV isn't that important," you say, "lots of people grow up without TV."

But we live in a connected world, now more than ever, and even back then we were connected through television and radio. I had so little access to things that piqued my interest that I clung for dear life to anything that was even remotely interesting. I wanted something different, something that was there but so distant it might as well not have been real in the first place. I craved sci fi, fantasy, mystery, things that take you to another world. So starved for that stimulation I was, I read and reread my favorite books, watched and rewatched my favorite movies and shows. My family grew sick of reruns, but I didn't even care that I had seen it a hundred times before, I liked it and there was not enough of it for me. I eventually found video games, and that was a balm. No more did I have to engage passively with my media, it engaged me right back, a conversation of button presses and visual stimuli. But they were still not scratching that itch, not yet anyway. I began to tell myself stories, ones that I liked way more than the stuff on TV or in other books. I loved these little head plays, and often acted out scenes in my room alone, worlds of pretend in a 10' by 8' stage, player, director, and audience all in one.

In school, I was ridiculed for being different. Because even I didn't know where I belonged, I was alone most of the time. I think I made about 4 friends in my time from kindergarten to grade 12. In this place, this cold and isolated part of the world, you either liked what everyone else liked, trucks and dirt bikes and sports, or you were wrong. Not just different, wrong. It wasn't, "oh, you like Nintendo and not Sega? Then you suck." It was more, "You like anything other than what we do? Then you don't exist." That's not to say there weren't other nerds in my school or even my class. It turns out that they were deep into the stuff I really wished I had been subjected to as a young person, computers and nerdy shows and thought provoking books. But because I didn't know what they were ever talking about, I was refused a seat at that lunch table too. I wasn't nerdy enough to be a nerd.

I was so different no one wanted to be around me. People literally treated my like I had a disease, and back then, I thought I did. What was wrong with me that I couldn't see it and they could? I didn't have friends outside of family before school, I didn't know how to make friends with folks I have no common ground with, no social graces at all really because everyone I knew before then was obliged to like me because I was family. I was so punished for trying to make friends that eventually started to lash out at people that tried to get close, I had no trust left. I'm still working on that.

When it came time for me to decide what I wanted to do with my life, I bounced back and forth a bit before landing on creative pursuits. I wanted to write, to bring to life those stories I had in my head, to draw and make these visions real in some way. I was told it was rare to succeed as an artist, but I didn't care. I just wanted to learn how to make the things I loved, and most importantly, share them with everyone. Maybe if they saw the beautiful things I did, they wouldn't think I was so bad.

I got some pushback on that from the beginning. Neither of my parents wanted me to have this as a career. They wanted me to find something stable, something more attainable. All they wanted was for me to be happy, but they thought I would never be happy as an artist. They asked me, time and time again, "Do you really think you can do this?"

I had talent, mind you. I had been writing for a very long time even then, as far back as 1st grade. I took art classes even when I ran out of classes offered at my school, doing independent studies in place of teacher-directed learing. This was something I had been trying to make my life from a very young age, even though I had no idea I was doing it. I went to a school that gave me a degree I am still very proud of, a bachelor of interdisciplinary fine art. I could mix and match my different artistic endeavors, and had the paper to prove that I could. 

But I was chased by doubt. My teachers told me that I was good, and would be even better if I just commited myself to what I wanted. But those words from before tingled in the back of my mind. "Do you really think you can do this?" I doubted every project I made, and never put my whole heart into it. "It's good enough," I always said. "I won't waste time if I don't have to. After all, I can't really do it."

I have not been able to commit anything. I start reading a book, and stop halfway through because reading is a waste of time. I find a show I really like, and have to quit because it's not productive. Playing games, it's rare I take the time to complete even ones I truly love because I'm not playing them right and never will. I gave up on drawing because there was no way I'll draw as well as I need to succeed. I have yet to finish one of my many stories, even ones that I've had plenty of time to work on. It burns inside, ready and willing to be let out, but it's never gotten a chance, because I never think I'm ready because I Don't Really Think I Can Do This. 

I can, of course. But I don't know how to convince myself of this now, because it's been so long since I was proud of my work. But why write when I could read? Why read when I could watch? Why watch when I could play? Why play when I'm not good enough? Why try? It was only going to be a waste because I D O N ' T T H I N K I C A N D O T H I S.

I'll tell you what though. I've fought with myself for years, because I didn't want to see what was in front of me, because believing I couldn't was far too easy. But now I see, with just a simple look into my past from a moment of clarity, I've always been able to do what I need to do to succeed. I've had the passion, the inspiration, the drive, the skill, the urge to create all my life. I grew to love the language I work with, I pound the raw metal of my ideas with the hammer of grammar. I still love to draw, and even more so now since I recently rediscovered how much it helps me visualize the shapes of things that are only in my head. I am the only thing holding me back, because despite their doubts, my family believed in me more than I knew. My friends don't look down on me for not doing what they did, they just want to understand me so they too can help me succeed. 

I was too young to understand what my name meant when I discovered it. Not my birth name, the one I found that made sense to me when I heard it. Nameless Dreamer.

My identity is so out there, so wildly out of the scope of my world, that I cannot describe it properly. I lack the lexicon to express what it is that makes me me. I cannot name myself, therefore I am nameless.

But the world I see beyond this one is clear to me, when I can see it. I get fits and bursts that splash through into my waking days, and seep quietly into my mind's eye when I am not actively thinking of it. I walk there without form, without malice or intent, finding something new with every turn. The world of dreams has never come to me in sleep, but in those times I am ready for it.

I convinced myself long ago that people would not want to hear my stories, they were not ready for them. How could they be if I wasn't ready for them myself? But I can only make what I want to put into the world, to share a deep love of the mystery and excitement of the dream world we all call fantasy. No one is above a well told tale, and I can tell one as well as anyone can. Only I can tell you the stories I have always loved, the ones in my little thought plays from so long ago, stories that have grown and changed and matured in the same way I grew, changed, and matured. They are me, I am them.

I am the Nameless Dreamer, and I want to tell you a story.