What would my past self think of my life today?

If the Robert of my senior year in high school were to see how my life has turned out now, the first thought might be disappointment. I had visions of a career in radio. Possibly being a talk show host. Comparing some high school visions to my life now is like comparing apples and oranges, however. The world and what they call the media landscape has changed dramatically. What they call social media didn't even exist back then.

Besides a tinge of disappointment, my high school self would also be fascinated in how the world and technology has changed. That self would be full of questions.

My big desire, back then, was to express my opinions and share of my authentic self; something that's done on social media. The ability to share thousands of my photos and observations, on a media channel that's worldwide at practically no cost, was inconceivable back then. I can pretty much say whatever I want without a boss looking over my shoulder, or the need for catering to a market. The audience is, most likely, a lot smaller, however. Again, it's a case of comparing apples to oranges.

Back in high school, I had visions of maybe someday being a talk show host, or a news commentator on a station like KGO, in San Francisco. It had an audience in the hundreds of thousands reaching up and down the entire west coast, at night, due to ionospheric skip.

Today, my signal can reach around the world, but do very many people tune in, given the millions and millions of other channels bombarding the world with their messages?

Transmitter power is no longer as relevant as it was back then; in fact, the entire AM radio band is almost fading into obscurity.

While I had some big dreams during my childhood, I also had lots of doubts and anxieties. I wasn't sure I would even make it through college. These days there are more terms for these conditions such as anxiety disorder and autism spectrum. Much of the time, during my childhood, I felt like I wouldn't be up to the task for great success anyway.

Since those days, I have seen many more flaws in the places I aspired to as well. Touring some radio / TV stations left me with a feeling that they can be stressful workplaces. With my mental condition, I probably couldn't work there anyway. Expressing one's authentic self would be difficult as well. Working one's way up from the bottom of a large organization was seen as a common route to more authentic self expression, after one gets closer to the top. I now have a somewhat more cynical view of the world around me.

Meanwhile, what happened to KGO Radio would be more of a dissapointment. It's kind of imploded, or at least it's not what it once was. It went to a sports gambling format that didn't last long. Last I saw, on news websites, it has new call letters and right wing talk from a national network. See article from my column in a small local publication called The Betty Pages about KGO.

Where I have ended up does make sense to me, given what I have learned along the way. Things don't necessarily turn out the way one expects, but I feel like excepting how the journey has been turning out is, at least, okay.

It has been an interesting journey so I'd hope that my high school self would be more full of questions and interest, in what the future has brought, than full of harsh judgements.