Are you a well-rounded person?

I'm not.

I'm not even a reasonably proportioned pear. Fact of the matter is, I'm downright pointy.

I am not an intricate map of codetermined and balanced traits, spanning strengths and weaknesses with solid threads of moderation and flexibility. I am not a Renaissance man.

Instead, I am a limited set of vaguely constructive compulsions; I am consumed by three or four obsessions which happen to be useful. I am a tool. I am for stuff. I can be applied to certain commercial situations, and money will result.

It makes a certain amount of sense to prefer pointy tools. They are exact, and efficient.

My question is: what the fuck are well-rounded people good for?


Who Coded the Coders?

Once upon a time our glorious civilisation raised machines who required a specific breed of master, engineer and operator: incisive, analytical, curious and granted with an Asperger-like penchant for autohypnotic levels of obsessive focus.

Whom the flashing blade of television did not destroy it made stronger, minds grown behind calussed blinders to filter the irrelevant or trivial or dull. These survivors found home computers, and milked them. Through the agency of some clumsy interface they reached inside the computers and rearranged what they found there...

Mazes of complexity, reordered at whim, realigning their works to do our kid bidding. (And you want me to stop to go play fucking soccer?)

When my dad would come across me in my room typing line after line into my Commodore-64 he used to say, "I wish I had your patience!"

Nonsense. A quest to the end of a programme can only be fuelled by impatience -- the driving impulse to cause all parts of the thing to submit to your harmony, to fall into line, to become the thing we've mirrored in our minds.

When the first of a series of technology booms hit the market many parents heaved a collective sigh of relief, satisfied that their quasi- or anti-social little boys and girls weren't nerds so much as tools. The geek inherits the world.

When I go back to work on Monday as a visual effects compositor, I will open a project comprised of sixteen nested compositions, each of whose hundreds of layers of transformation information is fed down a chain of a few pieces of instanced artwork. This shot has been dubbed "The Frankenstein Shot" because there's almost nothing real left. It is a tiny slice of invention so life-like it will be taken for photography.

Inside of this slice, I can make anything happen that I can think of.

...Who would want to be well-rounded, instead?


Escaping Escapism

There is a prevailing cultural myth that says that people with a desire to spend cerebral time elsewhere do so for want of more satisfying circumstances in their real lives. Thus, we call it escapism.

I'm pretty sure that is a load of hooey.

Spending cerebral time in some kind of elsewhere is the habit of many people with full, emotionally vibrant lives. I once knew a man who played chess against an alter-ego in his head. I once knew a girl who did mental math to keep herself occupied on the subway. I know scads of people who love books more than they love food.

As for me, I'm a very happy fellow. I laugh a lot, and eat til I'm full. I have really superb sex with my wonderful and engaging wife. I have a toddling daughter who is more precious to me than any previous definition of precious I might have had. We live in a nice house, with many animals. My work is challenging, interesting and rewarding. Seriously: I have no complaints.

But my mind is ever elsewhere.

This doesn't always impress my wife, which brings to my mind yet another lecture from the diminutive Sicilian oil-painter to whom I was an apprentice as a teenage. "You're going to get fucking flack, you understand?" he said, angrily applying a broad layer of transparent glaze to his commission. His girlfriend is slamming doors on the other side of the studio, locking herself in the washroom. "Your woman is always going to be jealous of your other love, you understand?"

I was scraping paint off of his glass palettes with a putty knife. I nodded to the Sicilian, and wondered to myself whether or not that was true -- I was weighing an alternative explanation involving certain misogyny-related personality defects which the Sicilian suffered on others.

But no, it's true.

(The Sicilian wasn't full of shit that day. Sing along with me: but the Sicilian is another story, and shall be told another time.)

When my wife is bored, her first instinct is to chat. When I am bored, my first instinct is to think up a cool movie about robots. I'm sure you can appreciate the gulf that must be bridged.

(Of course, that's a hell of a lot better than when I think up excessively long memoirs involving women from my past, which has so far resulted in a strange, off again, on again feud about whether or not that particular diary constituted an "ode" or not. I'm at my desk at the downtown cool kids' animation studios and an instant message pops up...

LITTLESTAR: Face it, it's an ode.

CHEESEBURGERBROWN: It's not an ode.

LITTLESTAR: An ode doesn't have to be flattering.

CHEESEBURGERBROWN: It's not a fucking ode. Get over it.

Later, I will receive an e-mail with no subject featuring in the body only the lonely word "ode!" And all this based on just the title -- she hasn't actually read it yet. Mercy.)

(Now, you might be saying, what's the use of thinking up cool movies about robots if you're never going to make them? But I will. They just might end up as stories, or radioplays, or cartoons. Nothing's wasted.)

(Wow, this is some pretty indulgent bracketing. Look at me Ma, I'm Joseph Heller!)

If I were to put my finger on the one thing that begins most fights my wife and I enjoy together, it would be my escapism. Second to that would be my ability to ignore distractions. Somewhere betweenn the two would be her taking issue with my definition of what constitutes a distraction. Um. It's true -- my definition isn't always good. If what I'm thinking up is particularly yummy, I'm unlikely to consider stepping out into traffic sufficient grounds for heightened awareness of my surroundings. Frankly, it's a miracle I'm still alive (actually, it isn't. God is dead).


My Untwin Brother

I have several siblings, but among them is my untwin brother, Isoceles Cat. Isocat and I share the same birthday, but we were born five years, five hours apart. We look somewhat similar. We move and speak identically.

When we have both separately enjoyed the same book or movie, I know at precisely which points he got gooseflesh, or what element of the craft particularly inspired him. In this way -- with regard to the consumption or production of creative works -- we can read each others minds.

My brother is also not a well-rounded person. He makes music, but so far no one is paying him very much to do so. During the day, he pushes a mail-cart at a law firm, his mind ever elsewhere.

(We are twins in a certain kind of space, but not in time. The mirror will always be imperfect, because I came first. If he had been first maybe he'd have a burgeoning musical career and I'd be pushing a mail-cart.)

My brother's wife and my wife have a lot in common, with regard to complaints about their husbands. "I was talking for twenty minutes about the reception and he didn't hear a single word I said," says my brother's wife. My wife smiles and nods. "I asked him what he was thinking about that was so important and you know what he said? Doctor Who!"

My brother really likes Doctor Who. He doesn't really like receptions. I can see the math his brain is doing.

Most men can relate, I'm sure. You're thinking, "Who doesn't tune out when your wife prattles on about...you know...wife crap?" The difference here is that our version of "tuned out" is more solid than that of the av-er-age bear. It's a trance, and snapping out of it can sometimes bear physical blows.

"Hey!" I say, rubbing my arm.

"Weren't you listening to anything I just said?" demands my wife as she drives.

"Um," I say, looking out the window. Surprised, I add: "Wow, we're almost there!"

My wife is annoyed. My untwin brother would understand. He also dreams while he is awake. We are both absent-minded and clumsy. My wife calls me "Mr Bean" and his wife calls him "Mr Magoo."

When I first think something up and I'm wondering whether or not it's interesting, I ask myself: what would my brother feel at being told this story?

(Meander, meander, this diary meanders...)


Priorities

Would I leave my wife if my life with her threatened to strangle my ability to output creative works?

I don't know.

The fact that I don't have a definite answer is the just the sort of thing that horrifies my wife -- not because I'm about to go anywhere, or that she's about to strangle my output -- but because for her people always come before things or ideas. The idea that they could even challenge on another on the same scale is ludicrous to her.

...Which is a hard point of view to argue against, especially when you've got a little baby girl. Would I not aside anything that I was if it were somehow threatening her? I think I would, but that may be a conceit born of comfort.

People do come first, I know, but I can also acknowledge that it's still a choice. I know I have the capacity to make a different choice, even if it is the wrong one. I guess it is that capacity that frightens my wife. For her, caring is fundemental. For me, it is...less so.

I care, but I also could not. Evil is a choice, always there. My wife's heart is too strong to see the reality of the possibility, but my heart is just black enough to see how closely evil waits in the wings. Evil is easier than I think my wife will ever know.

It is in this one regard that my wife is naive, and I pray she remains so. By the actions of anyone.

Especially me.


Summary & Conclusion

I am pointy, not well-rounded. My skills are long, not wide. But I'm useful, so leave me be.

If my trances are too threatened I fear I may withdraw altogether, if not elsewhere in mind than elsewhere on the moral compass. This world only gets one chance for me to play nice.

Spit and fire, farts and acorns...

Well-rounded people are fucking dull.