Interesting.

This is one of the books I bought this week:

http://www.strangewords.com/archive/viriconium.html

Hmm... I've read Gene Wolfe (assuming the writer of that article meant 'The Book of the New Sun'), I'm about to read Harrison, and I'm planning to buy the relevant book by Vance as well, sometime (assuming that the guy who wrote the article meant the 'Tales of the Dying Earth').

There are two things here that I'm interested in. No.1 could be called 'the magnified city'. Wolfe, Harrison, the VanderMeer book I bought yesterday, and China Miéville fit that pattern, as well as many other books. Also, movies like 'Blade Runner', 'Dark City', etc., and probably, in some way, the comic series 'Les Cités Obscures' I'm also planning to read. I have a strong fascination with cities, and their exaggerated counterparts in literature.

The other thing is the apocalyptic theme - or maybe the theme of decadence and decline. All the three books mentioned in the article above are set in a far future, truly at the end of history. And that, also, is something I'm inordinately interested in.

Those two, combined if possible, are what I'm currently most interested in in fantasy and science fiction, I think.

'Finder' also has elements of it (Anvard is clearly a 'magnified' or exaggerated city, and the world surrounding it is one in which civilisation is barely existent anymore.)

It's amazing how as you grow older...

your chances and options decrease, not just because time is growing shorter (I'm not *that* old yet!) but simply because there are deadlines out there, some of them unwritten, for doing or achieving certain things.

E.g. I'm finding myself seriously considering abandoning all academic ambitions I might have had, simply because I may already be too old to achieve them. I'm approaching 28 rather rapidly (four months to go), and I initially meant to get my M.A. before I was thirty. That is beginning to look just a tad unrealistic, especially since recently I'm having great doubts about my study subjects again and am wondering if maybe I should upgrade American Studies to a main subject and drop my other minor subject. But that would prolong my studies, because I would have to catch up with stuff you're supposed to do when you do AS as a main subject but not when you're doing it as a minor subject. I would only be able to take the intermediate examination after catching up, and then I would have to study another four semesters. I think a minimum of another 2.5 years, perhaps 3 years, would be a given. I'd be 31 then. If I wanted to do a Ph.D. after that, I'd have to hurry indeed, but getting funding etc. can take a long time. And getting a Ph.D. after you're 35, frankly, isn't much use. Most employers don't want people who only finished studying after 35. In fact, 35 is pretty old already.

Not to mention the rather shameful fact that I have never actually held any kind of permanent job in my life, so far. That, also, does not look good on a CV.

In fact, there is precious little on my CV that does look good. It looks like the CV of someone who is quickly heading for, at best, some kind of unqualified MacJob, and at worst, for welfare.

And the worst thing is that I don't have the energy and not even seriously enough ambition to do anything about it, I think.

There is, conceivably, one way out for me, but that is so fantastically unrealistic that I can only laugh at it.

That way would be art.

I'm a goldsmith. I have my own workshop. It's not fully equipped yet, but if I invested another 2000-3000 Euros, it would be. Of course, that is quite an investment, but I *have* that money; I would hate to spend it, as I anticipate it will have to pay my rent and food sometime, but I have it. If I were more courageous than I am, I could set up a business. It is entirely possible to work as a goldsmith out of your own multi-purpose bedroom/living room/workshop/library *g* (as I have in fact been doing for the last three or four years, occasionally); goldsmith's work doesn't need a lot of space. You don't need a shop. All you need is word of mouth, really. That, and maybe the occasional fair or Christmas market. Some nicely designed calling cards, a website (sort of like this, just a bit more professional: http://jewellery.allabouthmpf.com)... You won't get rich, but it is possible to live like that, as long as you don't have to support anybody else and are prepared to live very modestly.

But, the fact that I still have some kind of weak-willed academic ambition aside, I am too scared to actually try to do that. And, maybe, I also feel I owe it to my parents, who have magnanimously paid for eight years of increasingly useless training of various kinds for me, to at least *finish* the latest course. Even if I will be too old to do anything really interesting with it by the time I finish it.

Frell.

And so I keep wavering. Keep trying to half-heartedly achieve that ridiculous academic ambition of mine, until one day it will die because I've passed that magical, fatal age line, and then I will be free to pursue whatever fantastic option is left to me with, perhaps, the power of desperation. And perhaps that will even be a good thing. Maybe I first need to exhaust, or squander, all my more reasonable options, before I can mentally allow myself to live the bohème life.

(Note:
Will be offline for a week - meet my parents, spend a few days in the south with them, then go to Blackpool for the con.)