Thursday, January 28, 2016

The dream I didn't follow

Those who have known me or read this blog for longer than a year would surely know that for a long time, my plan in life was to become an architect! Now, that didn't go exactly as I had planned, and I ended up studying engineering instead. What happened? Well. I just failed the entrance exam, and was too embittered to try again. 

No... I kid. While it surely struck a sour blow, I had a whole year to recuperate from that disappointment before it was time to try again. And during those many months, I had some time to mull over what being an architect would realistically mean in my life. And those thoughts steered me away from trying again. I'm not going to delve very much deeper into that, but it was a battle between what I thought, or supposed, was my dream calling, and safety. Engineering certainly wasn't just "the safe option", that's not how I made the choice in the end, but it certainly felt like that sort of dilemma.

Anyhow, last week I had the chance to try out what my life as a student of architecture might have been like! Well, to say I had the chance might be somewhat of an exaggeration. I sort of just did it. I went and participated in a drawing class for architecture students!



Yes, we had a live nude bare-assed model in there! That was a first, and a lot of fun!

I look so happy you might think I'm now convinced I made the wrong choice in education after all. Not at all. It was the first time in I guess about two years I drew anything with coal, and on an easel. And, uh, as confident as I may have appeared, I was just simmering with negative competitive energy. And I think that's fine, competitiveness can be turned into something positive under the right circumstances, but is this art thing that suddenly made me so self-conscious and jittery really something I want to build my career around? Maybe not. It seems like a stressful life.

Don't get me wrong, I had a ton of fun, and I was genuinely beaming. But if that was my life, what was a thrilling and exciting thing would just be reduced to normalcy. There's no guarantee I would be happy in the long run. But all those negative feelings would remain, I'm sure.

Rather I just keep this a hobby, like I do. I think it might be more fulfilling for me that way, too. After all, I'm good enough at other things. I don't have to make a career out of this.

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