Anti-Hero

How about a study in obsession? What about an insight into fixation?

Our hero lives at home with his mother. He lives in a basement apartment, an apparent coup for such an obvious dependent. Despite the illusion of autocracy, he does very little for himself. He is of an age that the law would consider him an adult, accountable for his own actions, at least in a court of law.
She buys his clothes, and fixes his lunch, and does his laundry. She goes downstairs once a week to change his sheets and tidy his room.
Our hero works at a sporting goods store although he has never actually participated in any sport.
He had asthma as a child and although he has grown out of it as an "adult" (and I use that term sparingly with this particular lad) he has never actually exerted himself in any activity that could be considered sporting competition.
He is however an active member of a Live Action Roleplay club, LARP for short. Those are the dudes that you might see at your local public park pretending to be wizards and rangers and clerics. They hit each other with foam swords. They add and subtract hit points. It's exactly like it sounds, dorky.
Our hero is a fan of many sports. He is a sports fan. His is a fanatic.
His favorite team to support is the Texas Longhorns Football Club. He bleeds burnt orange. Much of his wardrobe is burnt orange in hue. Many of his accessories bear the color and the emblem of The University of Texas. He owns several footballs that are UT themed. Some of them are signed by players past and present. Much of the space in his room is reserved for such sports memorabilia.
He attends all UT home games. His mother presents him with his season tickets each year for his birthday.
The season that the Longhorn's won the National Championship was a dream come true for our boy.
He owns a copy of a DVD entitled Live The Dream which chronicles the story of the 'Horns "Magical March" to the National Championship. He watches it every night before he falls asleep. He is obsessed.

That's your boy, that's your hero. How do you think a Joe Shmoe like that would react to a situation that called for bold action and decisive courage? How do you think your boy would handle it if greatness were thrust upon him?

This is a character I would like to explore.
What happens when we vicariously live through sports stars instead of living our own lives?

The me I left behind.

I was reading a blog today. It was someone else's blog but it reminded me of someone I used to be.
This person lives in a place where I once lived and in that place I was someone that I am just a faint shadow of today, here and now.
I left that me behind because he was on a behavioral pattern arc that I could clearly see would someday soon lead to destruction, of that me and this me and any future me there ever is or was to be.
Oh yes, behavioral patterns that were consistent with an imminent spiral of death, not just of the spirit, but of the flesh. I felt that if I died in that place there my soul would always roam, diseased in perennial decay.
I had fun as that me that I once was, oh the fun we had, even though it is debatable whether or not that was the really real me.
Many nights I would stare into a pit of myself splashed against the lights and blights of the city.
I would rationalize the things that I was doing to achieve a state of decadent and amusing enlightenment.
Incantations on wind battered cliffs high above the ocean.
All my arguments seemed very convincing.

Luckily
by some miracle I suppose
I had the insight or foresight to up and leave that place
and in doing so I left that me behind.

The me that I am today is a combination of an ancient me and a newer me with all the wisdom of the lessons I learned as that misguided me that I was talking about before.
But in reading that blog and looking at the pictures of a life and a city that I once lived
I found myself wishing to be back in that life and that me I left behind.
And that scares me.