Create Your World

Damn. Tuesdays come quick. Especially when I never post my Tuesday Blog on a Tuesday.

It’s like I’ve unlocked some sort of week-shortening portal to the nether.

It was another fairly uneventful week, but truthfully I am just happy to be back on my feet. (If you didn’t read last week… I contracted the black plague)

But here we are. Back on the up n’ up. Onward.

As part of my standard process (especially when the creative juices are depleted), I place a call to my sister.

Generally, between our two massive heads (and average-sized brains) we can come up with something.

This week - when she picked up the phone, it sounded like she was at a cattle auction. Turns out, she was at a book signing. Same Same, I guess.

It was for Rebecca Yarros, who wrote the 4th Wing Series. #1 New York Times bestseller. (Put it on record that I have never dabbled into said series. Not exactly my type of reading) But anyway, onward.

As we got chatting - we talked about how crazy it would be to be a fantasy author. Especially a popular one, a published one. You know, the J.K. Rowling’s (HP), George R. R. Martin’s (GoT), or Rebecca Yarros’s (4th Wing) of the world.

Authors who have just created a full fantasy world from scratch over the years. It’s truly hard to comprehend what’s required from a brainpower perspective.

Creating all the people, places, personalities, relationships, history, traditions, schools, feuds, spells, naming conventions, and so on and so on and so on. You have to create a new world that never existed and extract every detail of that world from your head, without leaving a single string untied.

And if it’s any good, millions of people will read it, and at no point can someone say, “Wait a minute… this piece doesn’t connect…”

Every last detail has to make sense. All perfectly interconnected and interwoven.

I mean - the Harry Potter series is so good, so immersive, that folks today talk about it like it’s actual history, like Hogwarts is a real place. We’re wearing capes and carrying wands to amusement parks. Cmon people.

(HP world, please don’t come for me)

Sorry for the tangent.

But in thinking about all this, the wheels started turning.

Long story short - I asked myself.. why can’t we do this in real life?

Why can’t we design the life we live?

Well, to a certain extent, I think we can.

I think the choices we make accrue into the life we eventually live.

And where we eventually “end up”, is a direct byproduct of the decisions we make (or don’t make) along the way.

Maybe not where you “end up”, but where you currently find yourself.

To me, “end up” suggests a sort of passiveness, as if you fell through life until one day you became conscious somewhere. It implies a certain uncontrollable fate/destiny.

And outside of chariots and Greek gods, we rarely discuss fate anymore.

(You probably think at this point I’ve gone off the deep end. I am close, people.) Stick with me.

I feel to a certain extent that in modern day, we rarely wrestle with the thought that maybe nothing is predetermined.

Maybe we do have the ability to make important changes, to make hard decisions, and to point ourselves in the exact direction we want to go.

Thus, creating the life we want to live.

After all, it’s easy to reconcile the past with the present. You know - why you are where you are.

The decisions you made, the decisions you were scared to make, the decisions eventually made for you. As I said above, when thinking back on it, they all seem to add up to the present.

What’s harder, is to pin these thoughts/decisions toward the future.

The decisions you will make.

It’s easy to think about where you are (and how you got there), it’s a lot harder to think about where you want to go (and how to get there).

So the next time you’re reconciling the past - stop - think about reconciling your future.

Think about where you want to go, and how you’ll get there.

Think about the future repercussions and effects of the decisions you make today. Think about the future repercussions and effects of the decisions you kick down the road (and don’t make today).

Whether to stay, or whether to move. Whether to take a leap of faith, or just play it safe.

The decisions are yours to make.

Much like a fantasy author, we DO have the ability to create the life/world we want.

It’s just a matter of intentionally pointing our decisions toward the future.

God, that got corny quick, and I’m out of gas.

See you next week!