I was doing some writing using speech to text and accidentally captured this conversation with my wife. She asked me…
“Do you ever feel like George Bailey, like you gave up all your dreams?”
“Well, like what dreams?”
“Do you feel like you had to sacrifice your childhood dreams for duty or something else?”
[Sweeping the living room floor] “What the heck happened here in one night?”
“Pizza night!”
I really want to get a new couch. It’s not just that it looks so bad. This one is so uncomfortable. That bar that runs through it.
Ransom smacked me in the cheek.
Okay, clean up in there, I have to put Journey to bed.
You just ruined this for all of us.
No he didn’t I was just about to tell you. And if anything it’s your fault for hitting him.
I think that my path in life has been more complex but different than George's. Yes, I feel like him a bit, there's a connection. Yet you noticed that with George, it started with a sense of duty but…
Go. Go. Kingsley, into your room.
His dad died and they didn't want to keep the business going but…
Get your bed made.
But he stays to fight Potter. Maybe the way I used to look at it is poor George never gets to live his dream or whatever but he chose to stay and fight Potter. Maybe it was for his dad's reputation or whatever but George could have said, “I'm going to go build the cities of tomorrow in my dad's honour. My dad was doing his little thing here…
Kingsley, I told you to go make your bed get up now. You were told to do something. I don't care what the kids are doing, you're disobeying.
But George does get all caught up and tangled up in the system.
I just wondered if you felt more like you were giving up things that you would have done if you hadn't got married had kids, done the usual thing. If you ever realize you'd given up something for something else.
Yeah, well, you always have to sacrifice something no matter what you do.
Okay, what if our band had made it. What if that summer the drummer didn't quit and the van didn't break down and we toured across America and we became something?
In that moment, sure, that's what I wanted, but then I look at the life I've had since then and I go, “Well, would I have wanted to be in a band for 10 more years or would I have wanted to go to university?” And, I'm thinking didn't I get something a lot more out of Tyndale then I could have out of the band?
What if instead of being married or at least instead of having kids I had gone on to finish an MA in a PhD and now I was a professor or something like? And I think to myself would I have wanted that versus this?
Even though in the moment I wanted the PHD and to become a professor - not saying I wanted it over family. But, yes, in the moment I wanted that - just like in the moment I wanted the band workout.
What are you laughing at?
[Doing push ups] I can’t do this! Like I physically can't!
Stretch yourself out more. Keep your knees where they are.
The problem is you should be keeping your body straight from your knees to your shoulders everything should be straight.
You should start with wall push-ups and then do these knee push-ups that you're doing now.
Kingsley, can you pick up the pizza crust from under t table?
That’s reassuring to know now that we have the rest of our life before us. I wonder, “how many dreams does he have left to fulfill and are there any that he didn't get to that he's wishing he had?” It's like if I was Mary in It's a Wonderful Life I'd be saying to George, “If you want to travel the world, why aren’t we saving our money so you can go do that?”
Ransom, can you please help him sort through for McQueen.
Well I think that's kind of what we're doing. I'm not going back in my mind and saying, “What did I want to do with my life?” Because then I would be going back and playing in the band. And, it's like, really, is that what I'm going to do? I don't think so.
Then I think, “Do I want to finish my MA?” No, I don't.
And do I have any childhood dreams I didn't get to live out, whatever they may have bean? No.
And yet there is a sense like what I'm doing now is saying, “well what do I want to do now with my life.” I'm not in a place where I'm stuck at a job that I don't want and I'm saying, “I always wanted to make a big break with my art and be a professional artist.”
Yet what I want to do now is connected to who I was when I was a kid.
A mature version.
Like when I was a kid and I wanted to grow up so I could do whatever I wanted, which implies I just wanted to be free, with nobody telling me what to do. But also that whenever I had a good idea I want to do it. I wanted my baseball card shop or my fishing bait shop or my dinosaur museum.
So now I want to spend the rest of my life doing the constructive kinds of things that I want to do. But even if things got weird and I just had to have a factory job and then raise my family the best I could that would be the most important thing - raising my family the best I could. If I had to work in a factory or on a farm then so be it.
But insofar as I get to control what I do for work I want to do whatever - so this year is about writing. It's about getting the Revelation project done - which I really hope to have a draft in a couple of months. This week it's all about thinking through the basic structure. I’ve got 50 pages of notes to go through…
I’m curious why you put the memoir aside?
I didn't put the Memoir aside I only resting from it. I've been reading through it slowly and only have one last chapter to read, then I've done a complete read through. But I'm trying to forget what I've written. I'm trying to approach it with fresh eyes. Once I have a solid draft done of this Revelation thing, I'll go back to the memoir. I have to get better at thinking through story logic and writing worthwhile sentences. My plan is to rewrite one page per day. To just think for a day about this page.
I don’t care. Did you actually make your bed?
So it's quite possible that by the end of this year I'll have Revelation done and I'll have the Memoir done and I'll be able to say I finally figured out writing. At least well enough that I can do stuff.
Like I'm not that great of a photographer but I'm capable of taking a decent shot. And I don't need to be an award-winning writer if there's something important and I can put the words together.
So if I get to spend the rest of our life like this - we're entering that chapter now where it's like, “Okay you better…”
Yeah, you better…
Better do it now.
And I'm thinking, “Okay, whatever it is - because you know me, I just have to wander into the unknown and the chaotic and the dark and learn something and produce something - so I can't say what I'm going to do, I just know that I'll know it when I encounter it in the dark.
But I'll have the tools - the photography, the ideas, the writing. And when I see the ideas I need the ability to connect ideas.
Did you make your bed? You need to stop crying about everything.
Kingsley, pick up those cars.
Liberty, did you make your bed?
I can see toys under all the furniture. I want all the toys out. Do your best to reach what you can and if you continue to argue you’ll be mopping as well. Then you can dry the dishes and put them away. You could have it done by now if you stop freaking whining.
[Shuts off Garmin watch] I’m just done for today.