I'm about to turn 22 and slowly my past is coming back to me. I'm at the age where I analyze everything that happened in my youth that made me who I am today. I feel stuck. I feel like I am being forced to become something that I am not. People view me as lazy, and a slacker, but I don't think that is the case and it depresses me. From my toddler days I have memories of 3rd grade and constantly staring out the window. I really had a problem with attention. Nothing inside the classroom could keep my interest long enough. I wanted to be outside. I wanted to learn hands on. I wanted to build things. But this isn't want the teachers wanted from me, they wanted me to conform. One teacher resorted to putting me in the corner, away from all the other students. I wasn't allowed to talk to anyone for half the year. It was horrible. It seemed like no one knew how to handle me, that I was this burden that no one could take care of. They made the decision to do whatever was necessary to make me act normal. It's funny because today I know what they did was wrong. But back then, they made me feel like what I was doing was wrong. I was a kid, I didn't know better. When I was around ten my family acquired a piano. Though it was mostly just for show. Anyways, I took a keen interest in the piano over everyone else. With what little books and information we had I tried my hardest to learn what I could. I thought maybe if I impressed somebody that they would find someone that could teach more, or at least notice me. I showed my Dad what I had learned, absolutely no interest from him. My Mom said she would try to get me piano lessons, but of course that never happened. I tried so many things. When I was thirteen I tried to build a telescope completely on my own. I tried to learn guitar completely on my own. I tried to learn to program video games. They all failed. I had no one to guide me, I didn't have the abilities to learn on my own. There's so many stories just like this from my younger days. Eventually I reached seventeen or eighteen. This was a breakthrough age for me, because I no longer needed help from anyone else to learn anything. All in a span of one or two years I learned guitar, programming, astronomy, etc. But I feel its too late. I'm too old now. I feel like the talent is wasted. The extreme creativity that was once there is now just mild. My inner soul destroyed by the society around me.

When did gamedev become an outlet for people's rants against society for their own personal failures?

Honestly.


You're 22 and acting like your 5. You (hopefully) have at least another 50 years ahead of you. Live.

We are a product of what our past made us, sure, but we aren't bound to be what our past has made us. We are intelligent, adaptable, capable of personal introspection. Knowing the problems you face are the first steps to solve them. Instead of blaming your past, rebel against it.

I often look at youth who have done amazing things and think "if only my parents had fostered my desire to blah blah blah", they didn't. That doesn't mean that I can't do something amazing now.

I don't know why you are saying you are too old at 22. I have found that my creativity has increased as I have gotten older, not decreased. But I guess everyone will be different.

Also, it sounds like you have some anger towards your parents for not helping you with these things. It sounds like you probably had a better childhood than some do, so don't look too much in to it. Your parents were probably just worried that as soon as they got you lessons and you were put on a schedule and forced to do something that you would lose interest in it, which is the normal child response. I would not blame them for not fostering your talents. Just work on what you want to work on now.

EDIT: And where exactly is the failure of society in this? Society is everyone, and I don't see how everyone failed you in your story.

If it helps at all, when you're 30 you'll wish you could go back to being 22 and get another chance at all the opportunities you had back then. It's not a question of opportunity, it's a matter of attitude. Are you paralyzed? Do you have a flesh-eating disease? Are you able to communicate with the people around you? Do you have enough to eat? Plenty of people would kill to have your youth and opportunity. The richest pharoahs of Egypt didn't have the chances that you have, they didn't have the technology, or the education or the security that you enjoy every day.

Turn down the whining and keep plugging away.

I've been out here on my own in the adult world for almost as long as you have been alive. And as I'm turning 40 next year, I suppose I should spell out how you truely have no idea how good you have it...How your childhood was so much better than some, how the angst you currently feel will pass, how life is what you make of it.

But it's a wasted effort. You won't take to heart anything I say, anymore than I would have 18 years ago when I was in your shoes and given advice by some "older than dirt" 40 year old guy. So...

Blah! Damn kids! Get off my lawn!

Quote: Original post by bgilb
But I feel its too late. I'm too old now. I feel like the talent is wasted. The extreme creativity that was once there is now just mild. My inner soul destroyed by the society around me.

Yep, it's too late. It's time for Carousel.

Meanwhile, read this and get over it.

Quote: Original post by Iron Chef Carnage
If it helps at all, when you're 30 you'll wish you could go back to being 22 and get another chance at all the opportunities you had back then.

Yeah instead you are unemployed and live at home with Mom and Dad! That stinks.

Kid, you are 22. You have your whole life ahead of you. So ease up.

You're at your physical prime and just coming into your intellectual peak. You live in the richest country in the world. Seriously, stop @#%&ing whinging and get off your ass.

Life is so unfair, etc.

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