Things I Wanted To Be/Could Have Been

Ever wondered what a crazy person might want to do with his life?

Ever wanted to take a sneak peek into the vile trash-sty that is the unhinged mind to see its thoughts regarding it's career?

Exactly what might he choose as a profession?

Can an elephant fly?

Will I ever label my posts with something other than words starting with "R"?

Am I an idiot?

If you answered "no" to all questions, save maybe the last, then you're probably sane.

But then again, you're reading this, so I'm not sure.

Eh, it doesn't matter, I'm still going to tell you what my previous life ambitions were. I say previous because as of right now I'm stuck in a full-time nightmare, straight out of Ground-hog Day, with no hopes of getting out. But we'll get to that later.

And no, it's not New Moon playing on an endless loop.

It's close, but it's not that.

You'll probably notice but most of the professions given aren't exactly "orthodox". Well, to that I give the extremely "witty" response of, "Well, I'm not orthodox either."

But you'll see that for yourself shortly.

Now, I know when I promised to talk about an actual topic (which this is, so I didn't lie at least), this isn't what most people had in mind. But the thing is, I'm just so creatively bankrupt that I just can't think of anything else to talk about other than myself.

Which means that I'm either the most interesting personality in the world.

Or an extremely self-centered and selfish jerk.

Personally, I'm pulling for the latter.

But don't worry, I will talk about other stuff sometime, maybe review things, stuff like movies, books, music or maybe some TV.

If I'm sober enough, that is.

Should be one of these days.

Weeks.

Months maybe.

I can bet one year should definitely be enough.

Which reminds me, people seem to have not liked my blatantly spewing my Straight Edge propaganda (Because everyone knows, not smoking, not drinking and not doing drugs is actually a bad thing), so there's going to be at least two liquor references per blog post from now on.

I can see that if I don't start this soon I'm going to start ranting away on the benefits of Straight Edge.

On a side-note, I will delete any comments that don't sing praises of what I write. This certainly seems to be the best way to handle criticism. Who needs "bettering yourself" when you can just delete comments. That's definitely the way to go. I heard that's how they won World War 2 as well.

Deleting comments:




Anyways, let's get this show on the road.

Here they are, in no particular order (except increasing order of drunkenness), the things that I wanted to be in life or that I could have been:

1) Scientist



This is the first thing in my life that I ever remember wanting to be. I was fairly young at the time. Maybe 4 or 5. 6 tops. I didn't even have an idea of what a scientist actually was. I seemed to have confused scientist with inventor back then. All that came to my mind when I thought of scientists was guys from NASA working on rockets and Edison. The first person I ever associated with being a scientist was Dr. Pat Pending from Hanna Barbara's Wacky Races (pictured above). Man, this guy was my favorite character on the series. I remember me and my cousins getting together and watching the show and getting all worked up over who was going to win. Good times!

I remember liking Dick Dastardly second best. Even back then I liked villains better. To me, they were and still are more interesting than plain ol' heroes.

Unless it's Rorschach.

Then it gets interesting.

2) Artist




No, I'm not the guy who made this, although, I certainly am better looking.

Oh yeah, comparing myself to a person who was known for his ugliness, that's the way to self-promote. *sigh*

See, once upon a time I had this crazy intention of wanting to draw stuff. I was about 9 or 10. Since this was the first sign I had shown of not being suffering from the Savant syndrome, my parents happily bought me art supplies. We used to get Kermit channel back then which had a program that taught young people how to draw. The guy used to take his time drawing, so I could easily follow him. What troubled me though, was when he started coloring the picture. I remember tearing many a drawings mid way when I screwed up the coloring process. I followed that show for about two years and the pictures I drew turned out pretty well for a 10 year old, I think.

But I also think that Stephen Colbert and Soupy Sales are the same person, so beware. I used to put those pictures up on my closet door. Then in a folder when I grew up and was too embarrassed with people seeing the pictures and giving me the 'how cute' smile. Then, I lost the folder in one of my many, many moves to other cities. I miss it to this day. *sob*

Good alibi, eh?

3) Comic strip writer



This actually puts two of my ambitions together, one of becoming a writer and one of being an artist.

This bug bit me shortly after I encountered my first comic strip( I'll be covering this in detail in my post about comics, if I ever do get around to writing that. Lousy studies! making me miss blogging).

It was Tarzan in one of the old editions of 'Jung'. I loved all three panels and got excited waiting for the next part of the story. Before realizing, of course, that we got 'Jung' only two days a week.

Not many people know this about me but I actually wrote and drew a comic strip in fourth grade. Since I wasn't exactly "creative" back then (not that I'm any better now), I used the only character I knew about, Tarzan. Since I was extremely lousy with the art (not that I'm any better now) when I'm not aping somebody, (like the guy from Kermit), I drew pathetic stick figures to show the action. And since I was extremely crappy with plot and stuff (you know the drill, still not any better), I used the basic "Tarzan's jungle gets invaded and he has to fight back and save it" storyline. I remember drawing one 3 panel strip per day and filling up my entire note book. Of course, there used to be a lot of fainting (I had to put in some cliffhangers) and fighting and not much in terms of plot movement and dialogue. I remember Tarzan using dynamite to blow up the enemy camp in the end. And by the end, I mean when there were just a few pages left in my notebook. How he got the dynamite, I don't recall. I had that notebook all the way up to 2002 when I lost it another one of my moves.

Curse my many moves!

Note: the picture above compares Spider-Man Masterworks Volume 2 to Spider-Man Omnibus volume 1.

Yes, I'm a comic book geek.

4) Investigator

I put the blame squarely on Ishtiaq Ahmed for this one. When I was about 8 or 9, I couldn't get enough of his books. Reading his books, I thought of myself as investigator extraordinaire. I even bought a magnifying glass that I carried with me. I still have that to this day. Boy, was I stupid.

Even back then though, his biggest creation, Inspector Jamshed seemed too over the top and larger than life for me to like. While, Shoki on the other hand was just my type of character. Vulnerable but still somewhat entertainingly brilliant. Of course, I hadn't seen the "good stuff" back then so I used to think Ahmed was the greatest writer in the world.

Now I see write (get it? eh, EH? Ugh, I'm getting old) through his style. I see his characters as the paper thin one dimensional cardboard cutouts that they were (Mehmood was an effing catchphrase for crying out loud!), I see his stories as the same old rehashed story-lines and plot devices, in use since the days of Ibn-e-Safi, that they were and I see the wacky banter between the characters that I used to get a kick out of in the past as the money-making instrument that it was.

*deep breath*

Okay, let's continue.

5) Lawyer


This is where the title of the post comes into play. Not every thing that I could have been was also something I wanted to be.

Case in point, I've never wanted to be a lawyer. My dad always thought I was a good talker and would make a good lawyer. Hence, he wanted me to be just that.

Many of my friends also called me a good talker, but since they also called me some other things, that makes their opinion, and my friendship with them, void. I've never wanted to be a lawyer in my life and being the (alleged) good talker that I am, I managed to "talk" my dad out of making me go that path before completing my matriculation. Good thing too, considering the current state of this once noble and honest profession that was a thing of integrity in the past.


Oh wait!

6) Secret Agent



Boy, it's downright embarrassing admitting this. Even though it's one of those juvenile fantasies we all have (don't lie) that don't even stay with you two months down the road. What's even more embarrassing is that it's not even the stupidest I-wanna-be on this list. I wanted to be a secret agent fairly early in my life, I think circa 1996 or something. All I remember is watching a Bond movie with Pearce Brosnan ( my favorite Bond, bar none) and being awestruck. It was my first Bond movie ever and I was ecstatic the whole time. I don't remember the name of the movie at this point(by which I mean six shots of Jack Daniels in), but I do remember that it had Bond driving a car from the back seat with a remote control. And being the lazy slob that I am, I've never bothered to look the name up. Back then, nothing thrilled me more than the prospect of me destroying the plot of the enemies, dodging them and then fleeing on a jet-pack. Of course, back then, the enemy I visualized looked an awful lot like my old Social Studies teacher. Oh well!

Okay, enough embarrassment,

NEXT!


7) Writer

This was probably my ambition for the shortest time. I was reading a magazine once and decided that I could be one of them writer nitwits and could get my stuff published. I distinctly remember buying a note book for that purpose, wasting almost three hours waiting for an idea to hit me and then deciding it wasn't worth it and quitting.

Seriously, this is how long this ambition of mine lasted.

Short and painful.

Kinda like my transcript.

8) Professional Wrestler



Drum roll please, we now have a winner of the stupidest-thing-somebody-ever-wanted-to-be contest.

I first saw wrestling in 2000 or something and remember being blown away. Wrestling was and still is one of my guilty pleasures. Wrestling offers a variety of different tastes, from classic technical grappling encounters (more to my liking) to garbage brawling including cages, ladders, tables and chairs and if you're lucky, you might even experience a guy going bonkers and offing himself and his family.


Yep, I'm going to hell.


Anyways, my quest to become a wrestler started immediately after watching my first wrestling show. I was too young (read: too stupid) at that time to know about the predetermined nature of this pseudo-sport. Even though I didn't now the ins and outs of the business back then (I still don't but I like to pretend that I do), I knew that you needed a gimmick to get over with the audience. I thought of the most realistic character I could think of, and that was of a Muslim person who felt racially abused because of his ethnicity and religion.

I developed a ponch shortly thereafter and gave up on my dream.

Yes, that's all it takes for me to lose my focus.

Short attention span eh, what're ya going to do.

Years later, in 2004, they actually used this gimmick with a guy they named Muhammad Hassan. So, I wasn't completely off my rocker regarding the business (note the emphasis on completely).


9) CA



This is going to be the only exception to the title of the post. Doing Chartered Accountancy is not something I could have been (since I'm still doing it, and having a hard time doing it) and it's also not something I've ever wanted to be in life. I've always wanted to go for a vocation that required hard work, was well-respected and was something that paid pretty well too.

But after they turned me down when I auditioned for modeling, I decided to go for CA.

Heh! Joking.

Come on, I just like to have my little fun with CA.

It definitely has it's share of awesomeness (word on the street is that you can actually see its awesomeness if you have a microscope powerful enough!)

What's funny is that CA combines some of the things in my life that I could have been. It puts together my passion of fleeing countries from when I wanted to be a secret agent (if the word of one of my teachers is to be taken) along with my becoming something to do with the Law (CA has plenty of law in it, more than I can bear, actually) and adds it to being an investigator(which, let's face it, is essentially what an auditor is............... I just spit in the face of the definition of an auditor, didn't I?).

Just goes to show that sometimes in life, things don't exactly turn out the way you'd want them to and that you get the things that you least expect to get.

Kinda like my being a part of this profession when this was something I least expected.

Makes you wonder, no?

I just might turn into a Twilight fan after all.

YEAH, RIGHT!

I'm not that unhinged.

Next Time: I actually write about something other than myself. If I feel like it.

Till then,

I'm Umar Ahmed.


Umar Ahmed is a multi-layered person. Many believe that beneath his many dozen layers of immaturity and obnoxiousness, he has some sensibility and sophistication................. beneath which is another few dozen layers of nonsense and imbecility. He also claims to have coined the"I wanted to be a doctor, but I didn't have the patience." joke.