I hope this is the right spot to place a non-metal related question like this. Anyway, I've just been thinking a lot about how people change through the years. How one begins (in the best case scenario) as an enthusiastic kid believing that he is closer to the stars. Until that moment when he collides with a sheer number of external perspectives and then things get complicated.

Still, what would your answer be and what prevents you to become what you really want in the first place.

A film director.

I've wrote/directed a handful of short films, and had acted in/produced a few more. I've had (very, very) moderate success, winning a few small awards and getting into some really great festivals. However, there is no money in it, and I've (to this date) been unable to land a grant/funding for my projects. Hopefully my next one will have some backing, as I've been in communication with some Canadian government funding programs.

Metal promoter slash producer. I'd be the goddamn Phil Spector of metal. And none of the modern watered down accessible shit either.

I haven't the faintest idea how to promote or produce, but I'm assuming your OP implies the magic acquisition of the required abilities.

It's very interesting to see how and why people shift their view on what's possible to do with their life between their childhood and their adulthood.

My brother was the same, he even tried it for many years, but last year he finally decided to just get a regular job. He keeps the dream but realised how overwhelming the obstacles are.

I'd like to live in mountain cabin with goats and chickens and make a living doing calligraphy on commission. What holds me back is fear of not being able to pay off my student loans and also the regular cravings I get for the kind of falafal you can only get from greasy trucks parked in front of the med center downtown.

If I could, I'd ask your brother one question - isn't it even harder to not pursue your dreams, though?

A lot of people *have* to work some crappy day job just to get by, to take care of their families. Sometimes folks gotta delay things, but it doesn't mean they have given them up entirely! It's good to be prepared for unexpectedly good things to happen as much as it is to be prepared for unexpectedly bad things.

My dream was to become a successful creative writer and to live from my books. When I realised how unrealistic that was, I took more scientific path in education. Now I see myself as biologist only on paper; my intrinsic personality will forever be artistic. Biology is great indeed, I'm just overwhelmed with it.

Well known graphic novelist in the vein of Alan Moore.

Currently working on that.

Oh, it's VERY difficult, and luckily, Canada is one of the better countries to get government funding for projects. I can't imagine how much artistic people in other countries struggle. When you have no budget, you're at the mercy of other people's kindness and generosity; people working for you just for the love of the project and craft, which absolutely has it's pros as well. I feel fortunate just for the experience I've been able to create for myself.

for what it's worth, I've seen some of jimbies' films and they're/he's really good. I'm grateful for the opportunity to watch them

film director is one of those jobs where you can w**re out your craft to make money, making music videos or tv commercials or sthg that is within your job description and pays the bills, but is not creatively "yours". musician is another, you can go be the drummer in a stupid/popular act and travel the world, make good money, etc, or you can play your own avant-garde psych prog doom metal in toilets for bearded dudes and sell 20 vinyl LPs a pop...

I think that choice is harder than in jobs where you have to "quit" what you want to do and go be a bank teller/waiter/librarian to pay the bills...

disclaimer

I actually wanted to be a comic creator when I was younger. Drawing was my first real love growing up and I even had a series I drew in junior high that was basically a composite of 90s cartoons, video games, and newspaper comics. I probably could've gotten further with actual technical training but I gradually lost interest when I started getting into music. I did go to college for Creative Writing and could conceivably still work on a series from a writing standpoint, but I've not had any ideas that I was interested in completely seeing through.

Going along with that, my current setup actually isn't too bad. I've got a couple different music projects that I'm working on and a day job where the schedule is consistent yet flexible enough for me to have the energy to pursue them. Considering the albums I already have to my name, I've pretty much accomplished what I set out to do. If anything, I just wish that I had more time to get what I want done at a faster pace.

I was full obsessed with Jurassic Park as a little kid. So my dream was either to make that happen , or my second, much less pie-in-the-dream was to become a “normal” paleontologist. I suppose I gave that up when I realized nobody’s gonna pay to fly my arse around the globe to dig up bones.

It's fucked up because I don't even have to think about it, I'd be a stand-up comedian. And the really disgusting part is I don't even want to be successful or famous on any real level. Just making a group of people chortle at an open mic night would be a dream for me. But ultimately I don't have the time or passion to work 40 hours a week at a straight job and pursue comedy.

Thank you so much for your kind words, my friend. I should have something new to share with you in a couple months!

I would like to do one tour with a really big metal band. Whatever the position is it would put me around members of the band for a good majority of the tour. See what really goes on behind the scenes. Enjoy in whatever fun and craziness happens. Or even just see it all happen.

Oh boy, this is going to be a long one folks, but this thread really gave me a nostalgia spike and I have to get this off my chest.

When I was a wee lad of about 7 or 8 years old, I wanted to be a comic book artist. It all started with my older brother showing me some stick-figure "fight scenes" that a friend of his had drawn using panels and such like a comic book. Something about that really struck me, so I did my own in a series of notebooks. I am not kidding you when I say that I did a DragonBall Z-inspired Wrestlemania-like fight scene that lasted at least 50 notebooks. It was absolute pandemonium! A fighting sequence that involved one-on-one fights between Goku and Vegeta, group battles that involved villains like Cell tag-teaming with Janemba, re-enactments of certain scenes from DBZ, and the Saiyan characters not only reaching SuperSaiyan levels 1, 2, 3, & 4, but also made-up levels of 5, 6, & 7 (made up at the time, at least. Remember, this was around 1998). It started out as stick-figues, then I chose to "upgrade" to making fully-drawn, fully-formed characters. Shit took forever to draw!

But then I got bored with that, and I then realized, "you know what would make this more interesting? If it actually had a story!" So in my pre-teen years, that's what I did. I attempted to make a comic book series that continued the DragonBall storyline beginning from the DragonBall GT ending. First time I tried it, storyline didn't feel right, so I scratched it and started again. Second time, still didn't feel right, and now I was beginning to feel discouraged. "Maybe the DragonBall story wasn't meant to be continued," I thought. Then came an idea that was inspired by a silly comment that my brother had made, something about how "every major anime artist has done at least one mech series." Again, a silly comment because that simply isn't true. But hearing that comment, and believing it was "true" (while also watching shows like Gundam Wing and playing video games like Zone of the Enders) inspired me to try writing an original storyline from scratch, a storyline involving mechs!

And so, I ended up doing a comic book series called "The Cybernots." It took me 3 to 4 years to complete this series, with a grand total of about 10 notebooks to tell the tale. And it came out....bad. Like, really bad. Characters were flat and one-dimensional, no female characters anywhere for some reason, a cardboard cut-out villain who just wanted "revenge," and an inconsistent storyline with predictable beats. But you know what? That didn't matter to me. That comic book series is still one of the most important things I've ever done in my life. Why? Because I never gave up on it, I was determined to finish it even though I knew half-way through that it really wasn't any good. I even tried to fix it throughout as best as I can to try to iron out the storyline so that it didn't have so many holes; to the point that when I reached around notebook 7 a year or two later, I ended up throwing out notebook 1 and redrawing each and every panel while adding and deleting panels so that I could create more of a consistency with the rest of the storyline (that is why the drawing quality takes a fucking nosedive from notebook 1 to notebook 2). In other words, I George Lucased that shit! Another thing that made that comic book special was the fact that it's the only thing I've ever done in which it was done for the sake of itself. I wasn't getting any money for it, I wasn't doing it for anyone else, and I knew that no one was going to read it (my own immediate family members knew I was doing the comic book, but they showed zero interest in actually reading it), but all that didn't matter. I started it, I kept with it, and I was determined to finish it at all cost, and finished it I did!

After finishing up that comic book series and taking a graphic design course in my first year of college, I realized how much I hated drawing. I was pretty good at it and it was fun at certain moments, but it also frustrated the hell outta me and I knew I wouldn't be able to do it consistently (which is important if you wish to create a living out of it). But creating stories was still really fun to me, so I started writing Wikipedia-like treatment summaries of made up tales. The first one I finished was a story called, "The Gravelands." A post-apocalyptic tale that involved the remnants of the American government traveling across what was once the USA and retaking what they think is rightfully theirs. Chaos ensues involving guerrilla units and terrorist organizations, and that's where the story takes place.

Couple years later, I'm talking to a cousin of mine and I express to him how I wish someone would draw for me (I still wanted to do a comic book series mostly because I find comic books to be relatively cheap, especially compared to making a film or TV series. I wanted to keep it small and manageable, something I could maybe finance myself). I knew he had some drawing ability so I ran the idea by him. He was intrigued, and he expressed to me of wanting to do a storyline that involved talking monkeys fighting against a "naturally occurring" calamity. A goofy idea, but I ran with it. Ended up writing a story called, "The Sun Warrior." The story involved a grand village within a valley that's inhabited by anthropomorphic primates, and the only opening out of the valley is blocked off by 3 great walls (Think "Attack on Titan"). Beyond the walls is a world that is covered in a mysterious mist, a mist filled with (yep, you guessed it) monsters. Legends tells of a great fireball from the sky landing within a certain mountain range at least a century ago, and from that area came the dreaded mist. The Legends also tells of a prophecy that involves a great monkey warrior with golden fur called the "Sun Warrior", and this warrior who would rally up all the remaining primates and lead them to destroy the mist once and for all. They've been waiting for over a century however, and the primates that reside within the village are all that is left of their race. A group of teenagers however are sick of waiting, they've noticed that the creatures within the mist have been exhibiting characteristics of hyperevolution and are getting smarter throughout the years. These teenagers knew that it was only a matter of time before the creatures figured out a way to get passed the walls. So they band together and go beyond the walls to go directly to the mountain range where the meteor fell with a determination to solve this problem themselves. In their travels however, the teenagers eventually realize how naive they were in thinking that they could solve this cosmic problem themselves and that they're clearly in over their heads. Shit gets dark. Never finished it.

And that was the last story I attempted to write, and I stopped because I simply couldn't figure out how to get the comic book out there. I had the money to finance the product itself, but to market it for mass consumption? That was something else, and I just became overwhelmed with the thought of figuring it out so I stopped. Felt bad for I let my cousin down, and quite frankly, I feel a little bit of regret for giving up on the project.

So yea, I would be a creative writer.

Interesting thread. I'd probably be one of those Hollywood artist types like Jared Leto and play music/act and direct. Or be a screenwriter. I'd dig the creative vibe like a Tarantino as well. So Jared Leto Tarantino?

Full Time Dreamer.

An artist?

With the hot body that I have, a fitness model definitely, haha.

Wow, this is exactly the question I asked to myself 2 years ago!

I'm 46 and I never knew what I wanted to be (leaving aside the rockstar dreams ), until I started hosting solo travelers in my house.
I changed so many jobs, places and lives in all these years (as many Italians do) and in the end I was so unhappy about everything (as many Italians are).
2 years ago I quit my job, I quit my long time relationship and I literally locked myself in my house for 1 month. I realized that the only things that always made me happy in my life were Rock & Heavy Metal, hiking in my Dolomites (Italian North-East mountains where I was born and lived for my first 20 years) and walking in Venice, the dream city where I'm living now.

I also realized that the only 'absolute certainty' that I had on my future was my love for hosting travelers and showing them the beauties of Venice and of the Dolomites, while (possibly) also talking about Rock and Metal.

I finally ended up to be what I really wanted, which is in my signature below... and I'm feeling so lucky!

Venice is one of the most magical places I've ever visited. I was there in 2013 and have travelled all over before and after, and still haven't found anywhere like it.

Totally agree, that's why I decided to stop here for the rest of my days! If you come back one day, keep my contacts because now you have a Metal friend here, ciao!

Rich. As hell.

I wouldn't want to be anything if I knew for absolute certainty I'd make it. The adventure is the fun, not the destination.

Yes, not pursuing your dreams is dreadful in the long term. I have a litany of unfulfilled dreams, so I'm largely scrambling to accomplish any of them now

As a kid I wanted to write novels and short stories, write and direct films, make video games, be a cartoonist, and ... a scientist.

Early on, I realized scientists had to be smart, so I nixed that dream.

My parents didn't support me being a game developer and I didn't know to fight back. So that dream languished for ages. Now I'm scrambling to figure out what to do that might get somewhere. I just want to dive into my creativity and make a living on it. I want to be Stephen King, Bill Watterson, Gary Larson, John Carpenter, and S. Craig Zahler. At best, right now, I have a couple books on Amazon Kindle and not sure how to get further with them. My comics currently have just over 700 followers on Facebook, but only just started the Instagram page for them.

I'm a partner in a game dev team currently with releases on Steam, Wii U, Switch, PS4, and Xbox One, but those haven't been enough to push us into independence.
My books don't have sales.
I have a small Redbubble shop of random stuff.

I still don't know what to focus on. I just want to wake up every day able to work on my own stuff. Write, draw, make game assets, get the game concept outlined, get a film put together.

This is a neat little thread. I'd be an astronaut.

Professional surfer and international touring musician are close behind, but it's not impossible to get experiences close to that, I've had amazing waves, I've played fun live gigs etc. But the highest I've been, like 99.99999% of the human race is in a 747 at cruising attitude which is a pretty poor substitute for low earth orbit! Just floating around over the earth and shit would be magical, and it's probably the only thing that if I'm being honest I won't be able to tick off my bucket list. Everything else is achievable or I've already done. Space is fucken expensive, yknow? And from what I recall if you're over 182 cms, which I am, you don't fit in the rocket capsule thingo they use to get you up to the ISS. But that's an old factoid I read from who knows where and it might be completely wrong.

Anyway, yeah, good question, easy answer.

A hermit. Or an international adventurer.

For sure. I can't quite articulate it, but there's something about stand-up comics that really intrigues me, on a human level. I'm not that deep of an enthusiast, and I don't really know how to discover new talents, but still, I'll often find myself just wanting to know more about them, especially just as human beings - what makes them tick, what goes on behind the scenes, how they relate to their work, what life is really like when they aren't performing.

I gave a best-man speech a while ago, which was (astonishingly) well-received - I really don't consider myself particularly funny, or a gifted humorist, except when the material and inspiration are there, which is extremely rare (the best-man speech took a couple months to write, and was drawn from a decades-long friendship); but once I got a roomful of people laughing, it was the most amazing thing I'd felt in years. And I was just reading the damn thing from a sheet of paper, for goodness' sake. People liked my writing but also my delivery somehow.

So, yeah, it seems like it'd be a really interesting thing to be able to do, and perhaps extremely rewarding, but I vaguely sense that there's probably also a dark side to it, professionally, personally, psychologically...which again intrigues me.

Writer / Author

Friends with Ritchie Blackmore AND Malmsteen.

You'd have to know that you could do it, otherwise it'd be the biggest waste of time.

I've often been told that I write good. Not that I ever tried actually writing anything with the intent of publishing but ever since I was a kid and up until my many essays at university I've heard good things about my writing. So there has been a seed in my mind that I would someday try to actually write a book. I'd love to be able to write philosophical fiction in the style of Ernst Jünger, hermann Hesse or Albert Camus. Deeper than a regular work of fiction but not purely academic work.

Mech pilot

And both Gallagher brothers from Oasis!

I sometimes think I'd like to be a dog breeder. I'd just need the space, like a former farm. And instead of those unhealthy purebred dogs I'd breed mixed breeds exclusively, different mix each time, and mixing the mixes with other mixes, get all that inbreeding out and a ton of new shapes and colours.

Crossbreed large mixed dogs exclusively. Call it Heavy Muttal.

Somewhere I once saw a pic of a Rottweiler-Pomeranian crossbreed. Pretty dog, but... I don't even want to know the physics of it.

One of those dogs was very uncomfortable. But the name Pomweiler just writes itself.