What a Job!

I had an interesting realization this morning. I was talking to a good friend of mine about a project I'm working on, scoring a movie for my brother-in-law, when this hit me. This good friend of mine was helping me come up with a song for the end credits of this movie, and he played a song for me that he'd written. The song itself fit the mood I'd imagined for the end of this movie very well, it was catchy, it was emotional, and quite frankly all around an excellent piece of work. On top of that, my friend did an excellent job of playing it on guitar and singing it. All said and done, I really enjoyed my private concert, and decided that he should be a singer/songwriter and be on stages all over the world.

That was not the realization that really struck me. When I asked him if he'd ever thought of making his music his career, he said, "Well, that's the dream."

And how profound is that? Sure, I'd agree with most people that planning on making a consistent living that way is probably not the best career plan ever, and you're gonna want a backup so that you can, I dunno, eat while you're trying to make it big (this particular friend is going into computer science, honestly one of the least musical fields I can think of. Pays well, though). But what about that dream? Some people have the chance, but dismiss the drive they might feel to make something of themselves by saying, "Oh, it's too hard. I'll never make it," or pretending they'd just rather not. But you can plan for your future to be stable and still dream, right? I mean, Gene Roddenberry was a cop for quite a few years before Star Trek ever carried him to success. He just never lost sight of that dream, and when the chance came, he took it (Yes, Star Trek. I went there).

So here's the bottom line. I've got a friend who wants to be a singer/songwriter, a brother-in-law who wants to make movies, a brother who's gunning to be a professional author, and then me, who can't decide between writing books, screenplays, music, soundtracks, or comics. What do we all have in common? Well, first off, I think we're all crazy. But it's that dream that unites us, and it's that same dream that's gonna make some of us a house-hold name someday (I figure the odds are good for at least one of us making it). And where would any one of us be without our dreams? Where do we end up without those lofty goals? Right where we started, I'd suspect.

So what am I gonna be? Probably a teacher. But to create, well... that's the dream.