Cartman, I'm like the French

Growing up I had the hardest time being good at things. More specificially, I had trouble being as good as, say, my little brother at, say, computer games. Even with the age advantage, he would soon top my best scores in everything but the text-based games... and those games didn't even keep high scores.

With such a humilating defeat, I decided that computer games just weren't "for me" and went off in pursuit of other things, like writing. In a nutshell, I did what Cartman accuses the French of doing in "Make Love, Not Warcraft" and "quit playing".

This rather immature response started a thought pattern that eventually led me to a freeing truth: I'm a different person and so I should be good at different things. It's not important that I wasn't a good football player. Why? Not because "football sucks" or anything as juvenile as that, but because I'm a swimmer, not a football player.

I'm sick of hearing about how I'm "special" and "unique" so I shouldn't feel bad that others are better than me in certain areas. That is hardly uplifting. The reason nobody should ever feel bad when comparing themselves to others is due to the simple fact that we should not compare ourselves to others because we aren't them.

The truth is that I am "unique" and therefore "special", but the way it is presented normally is more discouraging than freeing. If you are having trouble feeling good about yourself, you need to stop looking at the things you can't do that others can. You need to "quit playing" if that's what it's going to take. That doesn't mean you can sit on your butt now. No, you have to go out and do your thing. What do you like to do? What do you feel you're good at doing? Do that.

I'm currently in the process of trying to get another children's story published that covers this same idea. I think it's important that kids realize this a whole lot earlier than I did so they can stop getting their faces pushed in the mud, and rather shine in their area of skill.

By the way, I do play World of Warcraft now. And since I know that I'm more of a social player, I don't mind that my wife hit 60 before me. Well, I don't mind too much.

~Luke Holzmann

Yet another Blog...

I seem to be amassing Blogs like... umm... broken appliances (yep, the microwave died last week, that after needing new tires for my car and a toasted Tascam US-122, not to mention the laptop...).

But because I'm trying to get up and write every morning at 6am, I thought having another outlet may help. It will probably just be one more distraction so I don't get anything done, but here's hoping.

This will become the Blog for thoughts, insights, and whatever else. Don't forget that TomySky.blogspot.com is my poetry page.

And if you want the basics of video production, check out Production Now.

That's all for starters.

~Luke Holzmann