Lately, I’ve found myself very torn. I’ve held two great dreams in life for a long time now, two things that I always wanted to accomplish. The first is to be a game designer, the second is to be an artist, preferably within the games industry. The two have had me torn at odds for a long time now, Game Design I value more, but I have a harder time completing anything in it, even simple projects. Art on the other hand, I’ve been building a huge amount of work experience with, but still remain hugely limited, like I’m always struggling just to catch up with the coat tails of the artists around me.

The greatest problem though, is that recently a third dream has emerged, and without my even realizing it has completely overshadowed both of those dreams. This one though, is probably the hardest of all to accomplish.

My dream is to build a school, of sorts. I’m sure that most people who know me, and my opinions of the education system, would be very surprised by that. Of course, I hardly plan on becoming a teacher or a professor at a present institution, since the teaching itself is not my dream.

Ever since I was young, I knew I was in the top ten percent of my classes, of my school, possibly even my city. You have to understand I’m not saying that to boast, most of my readers will have probably done as well or better. I was born in a lower middle class family, my father had training in nuclear school while in the Navy, but nobody in my immediate family had, or has yet gotten, a college diploma. I primarily blame this on us all being rebellious fucks, but each of us had… other factors as well.

There have been a number of major roadblocks in my life, my father pushing me out of the school system, and then into college too early, my depression, the simple fact that my family has always been too poor to really afford college, but not poor enough to qualify for any sort of aid. Of course, it doesn’t help that I’m a rebellious fuck as well. ~.^ (I’m also mortally afraid of my own shadow, which doesn’t help.) My thought is… is this really all that uncommon a story? How many gifted losers are there, out there, right this minute. People who, like me, had the smarts to succeed, but not the tools, not the support system, not the environment.

The school in my mind is not a school as the current education system would consider it. It would be open to high school age on up. The curricula would be solid, I actually strongly believe in the importance of basic education, but it wouldn’t be the focus. The focus of the school would be a place for the individual to heal, to be with people like them, to challenge their own personal roadblocks, and to face the world again with a set of tools to support their own unique brands of genius. There would be no regular grading, I’m completely against it. My current thought is tests, though not necessarily the standard variation of test we have now. It’s important to me the atmosphere be non-judgmental, it’s not about when a student completes their courses, or how well. The point is for the student to develop their own wings, capable of carrying them through the rest of their life.

I’m sure there are some who will think my dream is too kind. But having observed first hand the results of wings broken by life, I find the current system too cruel for my taste. Still, I face a significant challenge, how can I form this particular dream into a reality. As it stands… I have no idea.