Ambition
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The funny thing about ambition is how it doesn't always seem to fit the person. My own ambitions, realistic as they probably aren't, include fronting a successful rock band and authoring a published novel, to name just a couple. Sometimes this surprises people—particularly the first one. I suppose I'm a fairly quiet person, so the idea of me taking to the stage and performing, for those who haven't seen me do it before, is probably quite implausible.
It might surprise people further to know that musical ambitions aren't limited to 'rock music', even though this remains my preeminent fixation. Since my passion for music extends beyond the boundaries of heavy metal, I would also love to perform an acoustic set for a more intimate audience. Or perhaps, should my ability to play the instrument improve beyond the amateurish chord bashing I am currently limited to, I might one day perform a set from behind a piano. While my ambitions might once have been of super stardom, these days I feel I'd be just as satisfied just to be recognised by my peers. In fact, if anything, it would probably mean more.
As for my authorial goals, I have been told to "write a book" by several people in the past who were perhaps completely unaware of the pre-existing flames their words were fanning. I have a few story ideas I'm working on at the moment; one of which—a story called The New Creator—I've had in mind for well over a decade but have barely scratched the surface of in terms of actual written output. In fact, it's only recently, with the encouragement of a close friend, that I've started to take my writing more seriously (outside of these blogs) and begun to properly commit words to the page. Thus far I've managed to get 11,000 words written for another story called The Moving Moon, but I know there's more to come.
As both of these ambitious paths sometimes elicit reactions of surprise from people I know—sometimes even those I would consider myself closest to—I could perhaps be forgiven for worrying that my 'talents' in either field are a little too 'well hidden' for anyone to believe I might actually be interested in taking them further. For the sake of my already fragile ego, however, I'm taking it as a sign that the introduction to this part of me is simply a new facet of my personality that each individual expressing initial surprise had yet to meet.
On the subject of ambitions, Oscar Wilde is noted as saying:
"Ambition is the last refuge of failure."
But as much as I admire the man, I'm afraid I am inclined to disagree. To me, having ambition must surely be preferable to having none. That said, I know of a couple of people who, by their own admission, have no ambitions at all. By Oscar Wilde's definition, it could, therefore, be argued that these individuals will not be exposed to failure. What I would hasten to ask, however, is, without ambition, would they ever be exposed to success?
A child, with his or her whole life ahead of them, aspiring to be an astronaut is no less credible than an employee aspiring to be a team leader. What sets us back is not the size of the ambition, but the obstacles we put between ourselves and those goals. What stops us achieving our goals is giving up trying. Personally I don't see anything wrong with any honourable ambition, regardless of how 'out of character' such things might appear for a person. It was the novelist, Joseph Conrad, who once wrote:
"All ambitions are lawful except those which climb upwards on the miseries or credulities of mankind."