Going through some old papers recently I found a wedding name-plate for me at my brother's wedding. He'd written it and inside he'd written 'here's to the next project!'.
My close family always kidded me about my love of 'projects' and I realise now that they have been a feature of my entire life.
More often than not these 'projects', a furious love and study of something, were sparked off by the prevailing kids' crazes at the time and all of them began in the Sixties and Seventies. In other words my projects were my childhood interests and they've never left me.
Now I'm in my mid Fifties I know I'm being driven by the same interests, an enthusiasm for which I've sustained all my adult life.
I don't like dividing up my life into categories but with my 'projects' its easy so, in the name of science and in chronological order, here goes:
1. Space and space toys [leading to ......yep, Moonbase Central!]
2. Dinosaurs and monsters [and a everything about them: books, films, mags, toys, the lot!]
3. Kung Fu [really began the day I saw Enter the Dragon in 1972: lead to a love of Japan in particular]
4. Heavy Rock [the soundtrack of my youth and best music ever invented!]
5. Fantasy books and art [really began the month I read Lord of the Rings in 1977]
6. Nature and animals [really began the year I lived on a Nature Reserve in 1979]
7. Films [cinema, movies, VHS]
I have flirted with some minor projects, which alas, did not last:
1. Leeds United Football Club [the strangest of my childhood fads as I'm not a soccer fan at all really]
2. Army [I loved to play war and battles as a kid but I'm not keen at all on it now. I think it morphed into my Kung Fu phase]
3. Birdwatching [I still do a bit but no longer take notes and have binoculars with me everywhere I go!]
Not sure what it all means but the list above of 1 to 7 is more or less me now! If I were a toy they'd be my makers' mark! Scary really!
Do you think that your real interests were formed during your childhood readers? Is it the same for everyone?
That's why it's goo for kids to get into interesting things when they're young - they usually stick to them for the rest of their lives. All the people I know nowadays who have drink or drugs problems were starting on that path back when they were about 12 or 13.
ReplyDeleteI have had the same interests all my life, TVSF, model making and, I suppose, science.
ReplyDeleteOh yes, what I am now is what I was then. I am definitely not denying my inner childhood because it never left!
ReplyDeleteSomeone has said that the best time in a man's life is the summer at the age of ten, and that goes spot-on for me. Looking back now, I look at the so-called adult life only as a long detour, leading back to those basics. Everything of interest and importance was already intuitively realized back then, before so-called higher education intervened.
ReplyDeleteSomeone else has said that for the first 20 years of one's life, you are being taught things that you'll spend unlearning for the rest of your life. Could not put it more aptly. The truth was there, in that summer in the 70's.