Weekly Ketchup 06 - The Big Cs: Career, Creation, and Children

Earlier this week, as I do on a monthly basis, I changed the profile picture across all my social networks.

This prompted a visit to one of my least used accounts: LinkedIn. And lo! I came across a job opening with a list of qualifications that perfectly matches where I am in my career: Associate Creative Director for a global firm based in Makati with headquarters in New York! Although I wasn't really looking for a job and I had no plans to leave my current company anytime soon, I thought I'd update my LinkedIn profile anyway. I realize then that it hadn't been updated with all the additional responsibilities I've been undertaking the past couple of years - the same responsibilities that made me eligible for this new opportunity.

(*Sidenote: Funny how I edit my job title on my profile and LinkedIn interprets it as a new job - I got a barrage of congratulations from my connections because of it.)

I really found myself really getting excited about the possibility. I started gathering my portfolio and I even contemplated filing my resignation letter already because I was so sure I could nail this position.

This week's fun discovery: Furrocious!

But then, something hit me really hard: A career in advertising was only supposed to be plan B. The next option. The fall-back.

That's the reason I never aspired for the big agencies and was content with being a small fry. I even wrote about it on a Facebook note sometime ago. I wanted to get into something that I had the proper training, experience, and passion for just so I can afford my hobbies. But I didn't want it taking up much of my time because I still wanted to pursue my main interest: Stories.

What suddenly scared me about this opportunity is that taking on a bigger responsibility means practically giving up the dream. That I won't have time to do anything else. For the most part, I've been lucky that the company I currently work for allows me enough time in the day to pursue other projects. That my office is so close to my house is a bonus since I don't spend that much time on the road.

But then, something hit me even harder: In the four years since I've been with the company, I haven't really produced or written anything in my spare time (and I'm pretty sure I had a lot of it) that has anything to do with the stories I want to tell. My head is constantly swimming with ideas to the point where I'm practically drowning in them, but none has yet to materialize.

While daydreaming is nothing new to me - I've been doing that since my conscience and consciousness materialized, the difference between me now and me of more than four years ago is that I have all the means I need to condense my vapors of ethereal ideas into a deluge of corporeal stories. Now I have the means to produce graphic and animated projects, in addition to the traditional short stories and novels.

To be fair, I have racked up quite a folio of published works this past few years. I've been fortunate enough to get a variety of writing gigs and other creative endeavors, all of which I'm proud of, most of which paid. Most recently, I got published in UNO Magazine and I just received a new assignment from Planet Philippines, so all is good on that front. This past week I also developed a bunch of studies for a new campaign for an old client, all of which I particularly feel strongly about, so I know I still got it.

Yay! I'm in this issue!

But I still want to be known as a creator. Not just as a writer. Definitely not an advertiser.

With that realization in my mind, I let the new opportunity go and spent the rest of the week trying to jumpstart any of the numerous projects I've had lined up to define my life's work.

And once again I failed.

I would come home and not turn my laptop on, just to avoid the weapons of mass distraction, but my mind keeps going on different places and tangents and I just couldn't bring myself to focus. I would start working on one project and then immediately think of ideas for another. Then there were days when I just want to curl up and daydream.

By the end of the week, the voices in my head were arguing thus:
"Can't I make you understand: You're having delusions of grandeur?"
"I'm through accepting limits 'cause someone says they're so."

This frustration has led to a bit of a drinking binge this past week - and that's not good.

What I think I need is a system. I need to set deadlines, just like with any job that I have.
I also need to get off the Internet and technology in general. For that reason, I bought a pen. Yes, this thing has gotten so bad that I felt the need to make something grandiose out of something so mundane!

Wish me luck. I hope that by writing about it and sharing it with the rest of my world, I can hold myself accountable - just as I did in a previous blog.

In other news:

I didn't go to Relik Quiz Night last Tuesday to work on my endeavors that spiraled into a depressing, frustrating, drinking binge instead - but I did go to Amici Quiz Night last Thursday just to break the cycle. We lost but it's about time, if you ask me. Winning every month has gotten a bit stale.

It was also Lemon Montejo's birthday. We were in Jon's car on the way home, singing along to the Lion King soundtrack - and I realized that the movie is actually older than her! Damn! How time flies!

Speaking of friend's children, I forgot to mention that since we spent the Chinese New Year with Jon's family last week, we also got to spend some time with his son Darren who introduced myself and Alec (who he calls "Uncle Carmine") to a new card game that neither of us knew how to play but won anyway. He is now sporting facial hair. Meanwhile, his sister just went to her JS prom.

And today, I'm off to have a little picnic with a few friends - and their children.

If there's any indication that time is running fast, it's that: The next generation is here and I have yet to pull myself together.