jammerxd's blog

So I just watched the movie Rock Dog - and the movie itself is pretty bad. But the overall message of the movie is clear. A son wants to leave the home and the town to go find what their purpose or their spark or fire is. Call it a spark, fire, passion, purpose, desire, we all have it. We all have the things that drive us into the future and give us hope and joy and make us who we are. A lot of us will spend years looking for it or trying to find it is, and most of us will find that idea, that sense of belonging and then find a reason to not take it.

For me, the part about wanting to leave the safety, familiarity and comfort of family is hugely relatable. I am the first born in my family and that means I had to do everything first. Elementary school, learning how to ride a bike, getting my driver's permit, getting my car, graduating high school, I had to do it all first. I never really did and still don't understand the significance of those moments in my life, and I'm only in my mid 20s.

I knew from a young age I'd go and want to do something with technology and computers, something my parents didn't really understand or know about, so I think for them, it was scary for me to go off and do my own thing and find my own way. See, I grew up in a small town where everyone knew everyone. My parents knew my teachers before I knew them - it didn't help my dad was a high school teacher and taught in the same building as my high school and that the elementary school was right across the street - literally a 300ft walk with connected parking lots.

I knew my parents were scared and worried and excited when I moved to college and then eventually to where I am now where I do development for shipping software, something our world desparately needs right now. I'm not sure what my parents wanted me to go into or go do - one of them is a doctor and the other is a retired teacher so maybe I was supposed to follow in those shoes?

I guess for me the other super relatable part is when the son is running in an open field and a plane drops all this stuff from the sky as it flies over (on accident) and one of the items is a radio and after messing with the stations for a while, he tunes into an interview with a super popular rock star and the rock star goes and says - "Don't ever stop. Even when your dad tells you to. Don't stop. Ever." And I guess that's kind of what I did and what this son in the movie did.

I think my parents were and still are scared of the unknowns and such, I mean they grew up with pong, I grew up with laptops and Mario and Windows XP. Technology has come so far in such a short time that a lot of people really still don't understand just how far we've come. And even I think that's scary - both that and how far we've gotten. But, I guess that's what I would say to anyone facing the struggle of doing something their parents aren't sure about. Don't stop. Ever.