Wednesday, April 30, 2008

afraid to fail

My older brother has a blog entitled Cursed with Ambition. This title, he says, reflects what drives him despite his preference for sloth. The title of this blog is meant to point out one of the many ways in which my brother and I are different. I am not cursed with ambition. Some will argue that I simply must be having done well in school, become a physician, and married the girl of my dreams. Those people are wrong.

A crippling fear of failure, rather than ambition, has been my driving force. I did not study my ass off in college because I was driven to be the smartest or most successful. I did so because the prospect of losing my scholarship inspired visions of hell that Dante could not bring himself to entertain.

Let me put it this way. My brother is like Han Solo. He doesn't want to care. He doesn't want to help. He doesn't want to be badass. But he can't help himself. He never had a chance of NOT swooping in to save Luke's ass at the Death Star.

I am like Luke Skywalker in Empire. Afraid to fail my friends. Afraid that I can't accomplish my goals. Afraid of my father. I hope that at some point in my life I become Luke from Return of the Jedi, but that script has yet to be written.

That explains the title of this blog. What remains, however, is to explain this blog itself. Future installments will look nothing like this initial post. For this sort of rambling, pointless self-examination you can see my other blog, where you can be sporadically treated to everything from warped revisions of children's book classics, to treatises on comic books that no one reads*, to rants against the Veterans Administration Medical Center. With the occasional picture of the prettiest girl in the whole wide world for good measure.

This blog will be entirely different. Every Wednesday for 52 weeks there will be a post (unless I am on call on Wednesday, in which case posts will be on Tuesday). Each post will consist of a strip from Charles Schulz's Peanuts with the punchline replaced by a quote from my dad, who is eminently quotable. If I feel compelled I will provide some context for the quotes used in the post.

This may be really dumb. It may be hilarious. We'll find out, starting one week from today.

And for those who know my dad, if you have any quotes you'd like to see featured, leave 'em in the comments. (I already have a list of 52 quotes, but I'll remain open to suggestions.)

* It's the treatises that no one reads. The comic books are actually quite popular.

9 comments:

Snake Diggity said...

Ojo = Han Solo

Llogg = Luke

Me = Salacious Crumb?

Btw, I can already tell you this is gonna be hilarious. One way or the other, it's gonna be.

Ojo Rojo said...

I have received two compliments in my life that I will always remember. One was from a guy I don't know really well who was describing me to someone else. He said, "He's the kind of guy I'd like to have along in a Red Dawn type of situation." The other is in the first post of this blog.

We were having a conversation once when I was in law school and you were in med school and we were talking about studying. I was describing how I had learned how to study, had studied hard and studied well. But sometimes I just COULDN'T study anymore. I didn't have strong study stamina, I thought. Noting your strong academic work ethic I sought out your advice and perspective on studying. That's when you laid the "afraid of failure" line on me. I never really knew. You certainly don't give off a "fear of failure" vibe. Anyway, I learned something about you that day. "Afraid to fail" is certainly your analogue to my "Cursed with ambition."

Really funny - I have been wanting to post all of dad's most memorable quotes for a long time but never took the time to compile them. How did you come up with 52?! I could only come up with a dozen or so. (Incidentally, "cursed with ambition" comes from a direct quote from dad. But you knew that.) I'm afraid to spoil the fun by making suggestions here. You've probably got them all already anyway. I'll send what I've got by email to you and Jake so you can pick up any ones you've missed.

Hilarious.

Ojo Rojo said...

Jake,

You're Nien Nunb (co-pilot of Millenium Falcon in Jedi).

http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:VuPXkI0VX3sJ:www.starwars.com/databank/character/niennunb/+co-pilot+millenium+falcon+in+jedi&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=3&gl=us

Rimas Kurtinaitis said...

Snake, exactly.

Ojo, I had to reach a little bit to fill out the list of 52. They're not all home-run, which is why I've opened up suggestions in case I missed some good ones. I'm also struggling with the order to post them. I want to post all the really funny ones up front, but then there might be several weeks that aren't quite as good. I'd rather ration the good ones like a coke in the back-seat between Johnny's and Victoria.

Snake Diggity said...

(really Benjesque laugh that ratfish looking dude does after Lando and he blow up the death star)

Rimas Kurtinaitis said...

Snake, I've been thinking it over and you really don't fit any single Star Wars archetype. I'd say mostly you're closest to Anakin, but with something of Salacious Crumb as well.

Snake Diggity said...

This post has me thinking about my "life's slogan". If Ojo is "Cursed With Ambition", and you are "Afraid To Fail", what am I?

I haven't thought about it all that long, but I keep coming back to "Born With It". A tribute to both my laziness and the fact that everything good in my life has come with very little effort. If you were to ask anyone who knows me to describe me or list anything cool I've done, most likely they would tell you something that came very easy to me.

Ojo Rojo said...

Dingdingdingding!!! We have a winner!! "Born With It" it is!

I've got another Typepad account that isn't being used.

Just sayin'.

Rimas Kurtinaitis said...

Yeah, Snake, it's high time you resumed blogging. I'm not sure that "Born With It" is exactly the most apt "slogan", but it would make a good blog title.