Some of my submissives and friends know how I feel about this, and others do not. But I have this very strong drive to go down in history as someone important and/or for creating something important. I do not have kids and probably won’t, and I am also an only child. So, what lives on of me will be through writing, art, what I do on the internet, what people say about me, etc.
This “need” I have, to go down in history, is kind of annoying. I feel, at 33 years old, that I am in a rush to do something or be someone really meaningful, but I do not even really know what it is I am going down in history for. Is it my erotic work, online? I have been referred to as a “famous hypnodomme.” I make good money, and have a pretty big following of humiliation fans, tease and denial fans, feminization fans, lipstick fetish fans, hosiery fetish fans, and financial fetishists. And I do things my way. But am I doing anything exceptionally out of the ordinary or innovative? I don’t even know, because I do not listen to or watch the work of other Dommes.
How about my writing? I used to really want to be an author, and have had some fiction, poetry, and essays published in literary magazines. But nowadays, I only really enjoy writing journal entries and the occasional Femdom or fetish-related article for publication online. I mostly worked on becoming a writer of fiction. And I basically decided that I no longer wanted to be in the head space required of me in order to write well. I’d have to change my whole “voice” if I wanted to keep writing fiction and still remain sane.
Since I’ve returned from Italy and quit smoking, I’ve been working on painting and collage-making. I must say the stuff I am coming up with is looking rather cute. I am not sure how far I will really go with it, but I see the potential for growth, improvement, and possible success.
A lot of famous people have said things such as, “As a child I always felt like I was ‘special’ and would become someone famous or important.” I felt that way as a child. I thought I was going to be a singer. My exact words were, “When I grow up, I am going to be a singer. Like Debbie Gibson, but more popular.” *giggles*
I am not sure where I am going with this; I just feel the need to express this feeling I have to my fans and friends. How I think about this a LOT. I think about death a lot too, and am uncertain about what happens after life. And I’d just feel overall more comfortable about life and death if I knew for sure that I was making progress towards whatever my “big purpose” is. If I knew for *sure* that I’d live on in the earthly realm on a relatively large scale, even if just in a subculture/cult sense.
Anyway, everything I do nowadays is with this feeling of needing to rush but also to be excellent. I wrote a bit about my Need in one of my blogs at Goddess Worship. The Need played a very strong part in my creation of that site. I wanted to reach out to and work with other women who I admire; to associate myself with other women I hold in high regard.
And I would really like to know how long internet stuff lives on. Like, when someone dies, and their domain names expire, someone else can just buy them, I suppose. I feel like I need to write out a will to make sure all my internet work goes in the right hands. Not that I plan on dying ANYTIME soon, lol. I do wonder, however, about the life-span of internet publications. You know; in this new era of electronic devices.
When I was a kid, it was about getting published in books and magazines, and having your artwork show in galleries or bought to hang in people’s living rooms. Or about your erotic material being sold in an adult book store. So for those of us today, who do most of our work online, will our publications live on for a longer time? A shorter time? Will they get lost in the jumble of everything ever online? Things I wonder about.
Rapscallion
Some things remain in cache for a long time, especially with search engines. But I think that it will live on longer as your reputation than your actual articles. I imagine that once the domains are gone they will eventually be replaced by new caches and then what is left of the articles will be limited to what people have saved.
If I were inclined to have my articles really survive, I’d still probably rely on a physical book form. And there are plenty of places that will publish things on demand (hell, I think cafe press does it now), no cost to the author for the huge, in advance book orders. I imagine your fans would buy something like that. I have this romantic image of those books becoming prized artifacts one day… Fantastic collectibles.
I feel your need, too, though. And I don’t think it matters so much that what you do be meaningful or profound, but that it be true to yourself. I get the impression that you are most certainly that. As for being creative and innovative and all that, most certainly. I wish I had as much time and energy to devote to this lifestyle. Hell, I’d settle for being able to produce enough content to play with you ladies over at Goddess Worship. 😉 But you know, I had a long soul-searching about this very thing and the conclusion I came to is pretty simple. We will not all change the world. And that’s actually ok. We can make our mark without being saints or saviors, just by being authentically ourselves. I think you are doing just fine, better than fine.
lycia
Very excellent advice, Rapscallion. Reminds me of my favorite Bettie Page quote:
“I was not trying to be shocking, or to be a pioneer. I wasn`t trying to change society, or to be ahead of my time. I didn`t think of myself as liberated, and I don`t believe that I did anything important. I was just myself. I didn`t know any other way to be, or any other way to live.”
nc111
Dear Ms. Lycia,
To a large extent that is the realm of religion, as many religions hold that there is a life
after this life and things we experience in this life can contribute to the
life there… I myself am a christian, and believe that we can have reconciliation
with our Creator through Jesus Christ, whose stories can be read in the Bible.
If you only think about making a lasting impact on humanity in this world,
getting a book published would be your best bet. Even then, there are so
many books, many of the published books may not have much impact on humanity,
either. What you could do, is make some contribution to science or scholarship.
E.g. if you would describe your practices in a book, with case studies of
people who make use of your material, that could be interesting from a
scientific/scholarly point of view.