2007 (d) - How do you measure a year?

Here I am, days left in 2007. Looking back on all the things that have happened. I started the year on an entirely different note than I began it. I began the year hoping that I could make something of myself. That I could do something worthwhile. Now, ending the year, I've done something and I'm about to do a whole lot more as I march into 2008.

And maybe that's really the biggest thing I've taken from this year. Quoth the Connor: There is no future but what we make for ourselves. That contains within it all truth. All importance. All potential.

I'm still prone to angst, especially right now when winter's descended upon everything and it's dark so much. But I don’t bother with indulging it. What would it give me to do so? Nothing at all. Instead, I've decided to say 'the hell with it' for all sorts of major procrastination and struggling and waiting. I was never gifted with patience, why did I think that I needed it? That's a foolish lie. People don't need patience, not really.

I wanted to be a writer. Now I am one. I wanted to achieve something. Now I have. I am. I will. I wanted to feel worthwhile. Done that. I know the truth, now. The truth is what I believe it to be. That's been proven to me time and again, and I've finally accepted it. I wasn't a writer until I believed I was. I couldn't accomplish anything until I believe I did.

Finishing a novel and writing two more to completion is a good accomplishment for the year. Getting a new job and figuring my issues out has been a great accomplishment. Getting over a lot of my baggage has been a necessary, painful experience, but I feel a lot better for it.

This year has seen the birth of my LRS-philosophy. The Literary Rock Star title isn't just something for laughs. It isn't just me wanting fame and fortune (though those would be nice, don't get me wrong). The Literary Rock Star is a philosophy for life. For writing, mostly, but for life in general. The Literary Rock Star is taking no prisoners and making no excuses. It's dreaming big dreams and making them real. It's excess turned into energy. It's getting up on stage, no matter how coked up or exhausted or whatever you are, and rocking out. A Rock Star has a job to do. His job is to be larger than life. He dreams the dreams that others don't dare and strives to make them real.

I've discovered my EELOW. The EELOW is Tony's term, and I love it. It stands for the Ever-Expanding List (or life, I suppose) Of Wonder. The EELOW is my gift and my curse. The EELOW is what drives me ever onward and pulls me away from things I should be doing. The EELOW is what happens when I want to do a thousand things at once, when I find new things to capture my interest every day. When my goals are constantly fluid and insane and I can never settle onto anything. When everything I do is the most important thing in the universe at that moment, and then is suddenly insignificant. The EELOW is a tornado ripping through the mundane and banal.

Look out EELOW!

The future is what I make of it. And I'll make it real. I'll dream big dreams and throw them together out of whim and air and ignite fire into them and they live. This looks, to an outsider, like either incredibly hard work or goofing off. It depends on who's looking, how deep you see. And it's both, you know. And its neither. It's incredibly hard work, and I drive myself near to exhaustion time and again because of it. It'll only get worse. It's also goofing off, because at the end of the day it's pretty silly to do many of the things I do, if you're a normal fellow on the street.

But I'm not goofing off. I'm deadly serious. I'm also just kidding, it's all a big joke, hey dontcha have a sense of humor about these things, what's your big deal, lighten up and laugh a little.

I laugh and joke and I mean it. That's a pretty amazing thing, if you ask me.

So here we are, at the end of the year. The fires are hot and so are the irons. I will strike now. Strike again. Strike forever. 2007 began with hope and died into a whimper and nearly went out entirely, but it's become the roar of the tides. The tsunami of revelation. The fires of rebirth. The fancy metaphor of proving my point.

I'm ready for you, 2008. You better be ready for me.

Tomorrow: Looking ahead to the New Year