Losing my religion (two)
So, how do I explain Him?
Well really, it's by not explaining him, at first anyways (sorry for lying).
To fully explain Him, I have to explain some other aspects of my life first. As such, I believe the best course of action would be at first to explain myself, something that really should have been done at the beginning of this book to hook you (the reader) into continuing this story. Or perhaps not doing so has left more intrigue. Who is this narrator? Are they trustworthy? I wonder if they are as handsome/beautiful as I am envisioning them to be?Unfortunately for both you and me, I am just the average mid-20s AMAB bloke. Sorry to kill your imagination, and the perfect version of the ‘Narrator’ in your head. Sadly, this narrator is Joseph Rylard, 24, six foot three inches tall, carrying a medium sized dad bod, and zero children. Brown hair which curls, hazel-green eyes, and whose favourite video game is the adaptation of the 2006 animated film Barnyard.
Now that that image has nestled tightly into the wrinkles of your brain, let me get into the more advanced section of this fact presenting portion of this experience.
Growing up, like most kids in the 2000s, or at least the kids I knew, I became obsessed with video games, and more uncommonly for kids my age, books. I can pat myself on the back admitting that my imagination is one of vividness, and this absorption of media was just what my little brain needed to create the thing that drives us all, the one big dream. One night at eleven years old, after a day of playing Skyrim and now a night dedicated to re-reading all the Beast Quest books I had (it was A LOT, Beast Quest at the time was the Bible to me, which made sense since, well you read the previous chapter), I decided what my dream was, the one thing which would push me into the upper echelon of household names like Adam Blade (which, after some research, I have found is actually just a pseudonym for a bunch of ghostwriters. Whoever you all are, thank you for my childhood):
I was going to create something that people would love.
This is a feeling I carried all through my educated life. I was quite lucky to have a few select motivators for this endeavour.
Sitting at the time around I’d say middle-age, Mrs Strommer was a somewhat tall woman (then again at the time I was indeed a small child, so everyone was tall) with blondish hair, and a demeanour which fluctuated between friendly catholic school teacher, and a rage which seemed to channel the end times mentioned in Revelations. She was scary when mad. Even today I can vividly feel the fear I would have when she would yell at us all. Making eye contact with her during this, you almost saw the flames powering all that rage inside her. And then, it was gone, and it was back to singing the three times tables. Anyway, when not genuinely terrifying, she was an excellent English teacher, and encouraged her students in a form of foolish creativity. This being that no one is a fool in what they write if it comes from a pure creative imagination. A great sales pitch if you ask me, and it worked too. You see, during primary and secondary schooling, religion seemed to be tact onto most of the subjects there when I was a kid. Mathematics had too much time table hymns, Science always felt as if the teachers were trying to disprove what they were teaching. English though, that came from you, the student. Of course, looking back, I think I just didn’t like Maths or Science (and I mean looking at my GCSE’s after highschool, that much is evident), however at that age, I felt an affinity to English, a pure, honest enjoyment for writing, not yet tainted by any form of ego or want for fame.
Yet even with this, I didn’t want to be a writer. Well, of course I didn’t, I was ten. When once asked during a special ‘careers’ lesson what I wanted to be, I said a WWE wrestler, because “the music they walk out to is cool, and they are strong”. Safe to say even at ten, that got a few laughs from my peers, who each said ever increasing ridiculous options, from Spaceman (no, not astronaut, Spaceman, as in a man who lives in space), to an actress, specifically for the Lelly Kelly shoes adverts.
No, my desire to create as a form of job didn’t come till the end of high school. From there, I spent two years, from sixteen to eighteen, in a games design course at the local college.
I come to think back on that time, as the worst decision of my life thus far.
