collections 5:9

Before I was thirteen, I wrote. I don't remember much of it... looking back, I think it was just some pokemon fanfiction and some eroticism, but nothing I would consider digging out of the grave of old computers. Upon the great tragedy which will be mentioned later in the month that I experienced no later than four months after becoming a teenager, I became a blank slate. A slate that could've been defined by drugs, abuse, and various other things that kids my age were "doing." Instead, that blank slate, in the short few months after the tragedy, were rewritten by popular media. Not just any popular media- Final Fantasy VII was what pulled me out of the dirt. Laugh away, a video game becoming a bible of ideals for a thirteen year old boy? Come now. I guess video games have influenced a lot of people though. There're kids who've stated Doom as their reasoning for shooting up their high school or Guitar Hero as the beginning of their music career. I don't know about all that, but the story of a man who, shrouded in apathy, would break from his predetermined role as a retired military personel to discover a new appreciation for life in the friends surrounding him, each with their own story. Like the bartender who watched her family die, the terrorist who just wanted his daughter to see flowers, the corporate executive who couldn't stand by and let his pockets fill as the world crumbled, the astronaut who sought greater discoveries, the teenage girl trying to bring honor to her family, the monster who sought forgiveness for being unable to protect his love, the lonely warrior who only had his aged grandfather to depend on, and the flower girl who would sacrifice everything to bring light to the darkness of the world. As disaster struck these people, they did not sit around and get high or drunk or look for an easy lay while watching the world end... they took what little they had and they fought, rewriting history and bringing truth to a humanity that was moderately satisfied at the destruction of their world for a little electricity. Although not all of them succeeded in what they attempted, they gave it their best so that they could hopefully retire to their menial jobs and watch the world grow again. I imagined that they would've written books on their adventures, telling stories of journeying to the center of the earth to defeat a fallen angel with an oedipus complex. As it turns out... They didn't. Later in my life, the stories would continue... and yeah, some would continue work while others would take in orphans, tap fossil fuels, create organizations to reconstruct the world, and so on for the sake of continuing to better the broken people who they had once saved. I wanted to be these people, and although you may not necessarily understand this reference or a previous references, I wanted a buster sword to peer at for inspiration. So what you're asking yourself now is, "I get it. Behnam's rolemodel is a video game. So what?" I don't really know... there's no way to know who I would've been had it not been for that video game. I'm not saying I don't drink or fuck or imbibe in drugs on occassion, I do... but I could never make a life out of those things. In fact, not a day goes by that I don't fantasize about acts of heroism- these fantasies, although not real or liable to ever happen, have slowly come into fruition in the stories I write and the tales I tell. I don't know that I was who I am before I was thirteen... I think I had the immorality of a selfish youth in those days, in fact. But I know that at any given moment, I would abandon every social lubricant for the sake of inspiring youth who were once in my position. I don't want to live out the lives of those characters, but rather inspire in my own way.

I may just be in the clouds, but even if I can't be a hero I'll sure as hell try to make one.