I’ll start out by saying that stories have helped develop my imagination. This imagination has helped me visualize things that I learned about in meteorology class, or even the code that I write in my computer science class. Imagination has helped me find solutions. This imagination has also allowed me to escape reality. I do that too often, I think. Maybe I did that too often when I was younger… or now. Perhaps escaping reality has helped me find my calling. Is that how I found purpose? By escaping the real world? Probably not… maybe. I find myself doubting the fact that what I create in my head can turn into a practical career. If anything, my journey with language has consisted of a conversation. An inner argument of whether I can turn my childhood interests it into a practical career. This piece will represent a reflection of this argument.

            Now, when I escape reality, I think of the weather. However, the weather is reality and it is all around us. Sometimes, I go to my memories. To my childhood. Star Wars and popcorn and Charlie Brown and Pokémon. Charlie Brown reminds me of my father, who gives me unending support and who I love to spend time with. I would stare at the screen and appreciate the animators who poured their heart into what I watched annually. I guess the animators’ purpose is to create memories. Star Wars made me think about our place in the universe and how we explore planets. Planetariums did that as well. Video games and museums put me in awe. My appreciation for those places is very real, not imaginary. The same wonder from those places, I experience when my memories take me back to the snow on our back porch. Now, I know how snow forms and why it was happening. That, I find beautiful. Maybe I find that beautiful because it gives purpose to what I am learning or knowledge on how snow forms could one day have practical use in reality. Now, I know that what I find beautiful in the weather isn’t practical, or at least that is what I tell myself. Perhaps romanticizing something as scientific as the weather is not a good idea if I want to have future career in the field.

            People often tell their stories with the weather. How their houses were destroyed by a tornado or hurricane, or they got struck by lightning. These stories are very real and they often bring people back to reality, where they can stare into the face of financial ruin. For me, thinking about the weather is the same as escaping reality. However, the damage to homes from severe weather is costly and the stories about weather disasters, again, are very real. This is the opposite with any book, or with stories about Charlie Brown or Star Wars. They can help people remember what they love by escaping reality or remind people of their place in the world. Maybe the books that we escape into can give us interest that will turn into a career. Either way, if they don’t bring purpose to someone’s life, books bring purpose to a world, whether it is real or imaginary. I let the language in books shape my imaginary world more than how I see the real world, however. That’s at least what I tell myself. By this, I mean that I try to find beauty in the real world, through real stories. Yet, that is not practical. Nothing I do in my imagination seems practical, because that’s how it’s supposed to be apparently. Escaping reality is not practical, at least that’s what I tell myself. I talked about books and the weather. Both of these things are in what might be considered reality, especially because people have made a living off of both. If people have made a living off of books and meteorology, maybe it’s more practical than I tell myself.

            Growing up, I never had to worry about what reality was going to be like when I was older, which is probably why I don’t have a clue what reality consists of or how to handle money well. At least I know that the weather is part of reality. Another reason I don’t know what the “real world” (adult life, I guess) will be like is because I never focused on it. I have always focused on YouTube and video games and school (which I pour almost all of my attention in to nowadays). I guess all of these things can teach me about reality or how to handle money, now that I think about it. Nevertheless, I watched videos about what I was interested in. Science and computers and books. Nowadays, these are the only things I focus on. Well, I focus on what science and computers allow us to do: understand and communicate with others across the world and perhaps with others across the universe (the Voyager Golden Record). When I was younger, I would spend more time watching videos about video games or books than I would actually spend enjoying those things. I never cared, though, because all YouTube has done is help me develop a passion for the weather and computers and language and music. Which, again, are all topics that one can turn into a practical career. Right? Can I be sure that watching YouTube or reading books can keep me interested in something, helping me decide my career path? That’s what I am asking, and I don’t know if I have an answer.

            One of those YouTube channels is run by a guy named Tom Scott. Some of his videos focus on linguistics, computers, and how both of those things change the way we see reality. He is also an accidental emoji expert. This is going somewhere, I promise. One of Tom’s videos is on how he became this accidental emoji expert and about the Unicode Consortium. The people at the yearly meetings for Unicode are responsible for internationalizing what we see on computers, including the way we see our own language on the screens that we are constantly looking at. They also handle emojis. That’s all that people care about. Think about how the people at the yearly board meetings feel. They are making some of the most important decisions about language and how we see it, but all the press cares about… is whether there is going to be a condom emoji (Scott, Tom).

            I mentioned this video because it talks about the way we see and use language on a daily basis, beyond emojis. The people at the Unicode Consortium have provided a way for people in the United States and other countries to talk internationally through their phones and computers. Books written by authors across the globe have been translated in such a way that I can read them and escape to another world. If it were not for YouTube and the translated stories that I grew up with, my memories that I am constantly reminded of, I wouldn’t have a story to tell now or a passion to share. I couldn’t learn today. I don’t know if I would care about learning, or what an integral was or why lightning occurs. I don’t know if I would have a place in reality. Or would I have an idea of what I wanted to with my life, without YouTube and my memories? I don’t know.

            Maybe this part of reality I’ve been talking about, the part that helps me escape reality, doesn’t matter. The things that can give purpose to someone’s story and passion don’t seem to be important. That’s why I like to escape reality, to my mind palace. Where, apparently, I don’t contribute to society whatsoever, but I find my passion and my spark and learn about what I want to focus on in this confusing world.

Citations

Scott, Tom. “Accidental Emoji Expert: Tom Scott at An Evening of Unnecessary Detail.” YouTube, uploaded by Tom Scott, 4 April 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OPkGQoPeHk.