I don’t think I’ll sleep today — just seems like the right thing to do. It’s too late/early to try. Two major slaps in the face these past 24 hours — maybe too much for me to handle. One being a reminder that things aren’t real and I shouldn’t be as affected by them, and another even bigger reminder that things really aren’t real and that I really shouldn’t be affected by them. I’ve been up writing about this a bit. Seems like a waste of time.

It all started about 4am. Chris was upstairs asleep, as she usually is this time of night and I was down here just having gotten out of a raid in EQ. I don’t know why I sign up for those things - I don’t have the stamina, I don’t have the attention, and I don’t have the interest. But if I didn’t show up, the guild wouldn’t have its guild leader present and the next thing you know the rival guilds start /telling my members about how quality can their guild be if their leader doesn’t even show up for a raid to get a member their epic weapon. Whatever. I was there for that. What I didn’t sign up for was the Kael blast for the 5 hours afterward. That damn lizard with the disease AoEs is annoying enough. Blah. It’s when the fight broke out with the other guild when I left. Unplugged the cable and looked LD. Tanya called me a few minutes later to see if I was going to get back on. She figured I had faked it.

I was hungry. It was late, and so I made a hot pocket. TiVo had grabbed the new Stargate while I was in game earlier, so I decided that I would check that out while I ate. This was the beginning of the problems. Because about 40 minutes later, Daniel Jackson is dead (wasn’t he what the show was originally all about - finding his wife?) and I was stunned at the fact that one of my favorite non-EQ escapes seemed like it was doomed. And that compounded into the fact that it was pathetic that here I was, living in my parents basement, resorting to EverQuest and Stargate SG-1 as my only real mediums of entertainment, while my girlfriend is crashing upstairs (because she wants to be closer to me, albeit unfulfilled, even though she has an apartment down the road) and my only real source of friends is in an online game behind a bunch of goofy looking elf characters and I’m not in school and I’m not working out any grand plan and all I ever really do is dream up these huge goals that will never be attainable in anyway at all whatsoever. I’m a stereotype and I need to cut my hair.

So, there I am at nearly 6 in the morning, aware that most people my age were most likely just getting home after the latest hookup and too many pitchers of beer to count and here I am winding up the whole definition of what I felt and thought about myself into this metaphor of the death of Daniel Jackson and crawling around the internet trying to get the latest gossip, the most recent news, the latest and greatest on whether or not he would be returning because it all seemed that if there was hope for Daniel Jackson, maybe there would be hope for me after all — and as soon as I came across it (savedanieljackson.com) I realized something that blew me away even more: that most of the world had known all about how much of a motionless loser I had become all about Daniel’s death since it was broadcast on Sky One like back in January.

The latest news? He had left the fantasy realm to pursue a career doing independent films…

Sometimes I wonder if God is talking to me. Directly to me. No one else. Everything is for me to make some sort of statement that was attempted but failed to impress like 7 years ago. I know, it’s kind of dissociative and if I had a therapist, I would probably be committed - but sometimes, it just makes sense. My friend Paul (ed: Adrian) has this very persuasive argument about the state of existence. We’re just all floating around in the ether somewhere, that’s what he assumes. Out of boredom or some sadistic eagerness for a challenge, we inject ourselves into this cold, cold world after planning, working and devising out a scenario that will push us to the brink of madness just before pulling us home again. That everything is made up, everything is an illusion and everything is here, everyone is here as a strategically placed element in order to serve as some sort of reminder, influence or some other sort of gesture to help clarify what the original challenge was before we all got sidetracked. Everything is an illusion except me. I am an illusion to him. He is an illusion to me. This is my world, and all actions that seem beyond my control were actually designed to point me in the right direction, or throw me off.

He had left the fantasy realm to pursue a career doing independent films…

I’m supposed to be a filmmaker and I’m sitting on my duff. I have a handful of scripts that I’ve never put a camera to. Somehow, somewhere I thought that killing Daniel Jackson on some obscure television show because the actor who portrayed him wanted to go out and do independent films would somehow serve to remind me that I shouldn’t be here wasting my time in a computer game waiting for Fridays for Stargate to be on, but instead should be out there in the world doing what I want to do regardless of the paralyzing fear that it generates in me if ever the thought comes to execute.

I don’t buy it either.

And then it got worse.

By 8 am the news was found. Daniel Jackson’s filmmaking career led me to searching for my own. And in the dizzying stupor (and unadulterated clarity) that severe fatigue seems to bring, I really couldn’t find a clue. I tried to google myself in search of statement of my future, but all that came up was references to web design. And I tried to google my favorite things — the things I dream to make movies about (as if I really will someday) and I found one reference. And it turned my stomach even more strongly than Daniel Jackson’s death had:

MYST (4-hour miniseries) - Inspired by the best-selling CD-ROM adventure game of all time, this four-hour SCI FI miniseries sends us on a journey to discover what really happened on the island of Myst. Along the way, we uncover an ancient civilization that existed for thousands of years beneath the surface of the Earth–a civilization that created magical books allowing one to travel to other worlds or Ages. Using these “linking” books in MYST, characters defy the boundaries of space and get entangled in the intrigue and mystery of undiscovered worlds. MYST will be a Mandalay Television Pictures production for SCI FI, executive produced by Elizabeth Stephen with Rand Miller and Susan Bonds of Cyan in association with Columbia Tri Star Domestic Television.

Someone has beaten me to it. Someone who, most likely, is not spending the majority of their time playing EverQuest and trying to figure out how to reconnect with their loving girlfriend without having to admit to how much of a failure they have proven to be.

I just spent about a half hour ranting with mom about the whole thing — and she’s just as angry as I am (even though I’m not sure that she entirely gets it - and I may have been talking too fast for her to really understand what the hell I was saying anyway). I’m just glad she listened. I wonder if Christine will care. She’ll most likely have this whole hearted concerned and offended look on her face, half surprised that I really ever believed that I had a shot in hell, and half saddened because somehow some part of the little girl inside of her still thinks that her boyfriend can do anything. She won’t have a clue as to who Daniel Jackson is.

Mom said maybe it won’t happen, maybe it’ll fall apart and I’ll have a shot in a few years when I have my s*** together. Maybe I’ll find something else to dream up as the big accomplishment, like Narnia. Something tells me though that she’s really wondering if her son will ever do anything will his life other than think up big dreams and always execute them tomorrow, because he has something to do in a computer game tonight.

10:31 am

tags: chris, daniel jackson, dreams, everquest, failure, myst miniseries, narnia, stargate