journal features

have I never dreamt of a life I could make?

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

Vancouver, 2002.01.03

These last 4 months and change have been interesting, but I've been dogged with the feeling that I may be missing an opportunity in simply looking for more work in the same line of business. This afternoon I read a quote by Susan Voelz of Poi Dog Pondering that said: "I think what you unabashedly dream to become when you are 12-16 years old is a true dream for you. [snip] That impulse is your beacon."

It's been plaguing me ever since I read it. Is that what I should be doing with my time? Rather than looking for another IT gig; returning to some lost dream? If only I had some clue what I was 'dreaming to become' when I was 12-16. I hardly remember that time. Lessee, is it too late to become an architect? All I wanted to do in those days was draw and read and play street hockey.... Maybe that's just a differentiator between me and that musician; I've never dreamt of a life I could make. Yikes, sounds horrible when you put it in words!

rand()m quote

Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them. In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.

—Michael Crichton