Playing God
September 15, 2025
The first time I remember being asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, I said I wanted to be a vicar. For a child who wasn't particularly religious, it was a strange choice. I don't know now what I thought the job entailed or what attracted me to it, but I pretty soon decided that I'd rather be a ballerina instead. Then I found out that you had to start dance lessons by the time you were seven and wafting around the living room like a cross between a demented pixie and a bulldozer was no substitute.
You can blame watching too many Errol Flynn films on Saturday afternoon television for my next ambition: to join the navy. Strangely, all the Western series that were on at the time never tempted me to be a cowboy. The navy ambition only lasted until I discovered that women weren't allowed to go to sea. (How the world has changed!)
Next came the goal of being a superhero. I didn't invent superpowers for myself, but in my imagination I travelled the world on my trusty horse, saving people and righting wrongs. Of course, the world I saw myself in was more like King Arthur's court or The Avengers than Z Cars or Coronation Street.
Reality was beginning to draw nearer by the time I went to grammar school, but not that near. My next choice of career was to be an actress. Not much more practical than my earlier choices, as my parents pointed out. They weren't too worried as they expected me to marry someone whose job would allow me to stay at home and look after the children. Until that happened, they would have loved me to get a job as a bilingual secretary, a telephonist on the foreign exchange or (the ultimate) a teacher. I can't say that any of those options ever appealed to me, but by the time I left school I still hadn't decided on a vocation.
Throughout all this time I had always enjoyed writing stories or plays, but being an author seemed as impossible as all my other choices. I went through a series of jobs, but the desire to be an author stuck. The reason is probably obvious.
When I was made redundant, I completed a careers office survey that suggested I should be a music conductor. The conductor of an orchestra gets to make all the decisions about how a piece of music is played and how it sounds; to create the world as they hear it. Writing is similar. It can be agonising, but it also allows me to escape into other worlds and lives that are as simple or complex, humdrum or adventurous as I want to make them. It gives me a chance to be anyone I want–even a vicar or a ballerina and on the whole all the people–characters, that is–behave as I wish. In other words, writing allows me to play god.
Before anyone points it out to me, I do realise that my godlike abilities are all the product of my imagination. Unlike politicians, it seems, I can tell the difference.
You can blame watching too many Errol Flynn films on Saturday afternoon television for my next ambition: to join the navy. Strangely, all the Western series that were on at the time never tempted me to be a cowboy. The navy ambition only lasted until I discovered that women weren't allowed to go to sea. (How the world has changed!)
Next came the goal of being a superhero. I didn't invent superpowers for myself, but in my imagination I travelled the world on my trusty horse, saving people and righting wrongs. Of course, the world I saw myself in was more like King Arthur's court or The Avengers than Z Cars or Coronation Street.
Reality was beginning to draw nearer by the time I went to grammar school, but not that near. My next choice of career was to be an actress. Not much more practical than my earlier choices, as my parents pointed out. They weren't too worried as they expected me to marry someone whose job would allow me to stay at home and look after the children. Until that happened, they would have loved me to get a job as a bilingual secretary, a telephonist on the foreign exchange or (the ultimate) a teacher. I can't say that any of those options ever appealed to me, but by the time I left school I still hadn't decided on a vocation.
Throughout all this time I had always enjoyed writing stories or plays, but being an author seemed as impossible as all my other choices. I went through a series of jobs, but the desire to be an author stuck. The reason is probably obvious.
When I was made redundant, I completed a careers office survey that suggested I should be a music conductor. The conductor of an orchestra gets to make all the decisions about how a piece of music is played and how it sounds; to create the world as they hear it. Writing is similar. It can be agonising, but it also allows me to escape into other worlds and lives that are as simple or complex, humdrum or adventurous as I want to make them. It gives me a chance to be anyone I want–even a vicar or a ballerina and on the whole all the people–characters, that is–behave as I wish. In other words, writing allows me to play god.
Before anyone points it out to me, I do realise that my godlike abilities are all the product of my imagination. Unlike politicians, it seems, I can tell the difference.
Posted by K. S. Dearsley. Posted In : Biographical
