August is the Sunday night of the summer. It is the month where the illusion of believing a two-month vacation will last forever is fatally impaled by reality. It starts the internal sobering up process after months of developing an inverted sleep cycle and forgetting how to adult. As for myself, such is the case. I remember finishing my final final, feeling liberated from the heinous workload of college and the stressful undertakings of my job at a retail pharmacy. I finally had the chance to do whatever I wanted! I thought of so many things to do, but over time, those promises made to myself met a slow, crushing demise. I was supposed to be a pro at guitar. Now? I’m pretty good at solving 500 piece puzzles. I’m actually working on a 1,000 piece one on based on artwork from Breath of the Wild, genuinely one of the best games I’ve played in many, many years, so not all is lost, right?
If I haven’t lost you yet, (which is pretty likely by now), allow me to indulge and loathe over the beauty of a two month vacation while also hating the very concept of it. This is a rather reactionary piece so parts may be off-putting for some, but as a “writer” who likes to think he has a shred of integrity and decency, believe me when I say the following is completely and utterly genuine.
A few months ago, I posted an article about Snapchat filters and how detrimental they can be. After posting said, umm, post, I was on a creative and productive high, something that seldom happens. I like to think I’m a productive person, but by no means a consistent one. Pointless side statement aside, I felt compelled to write on a consistent and constant basis throughout the summer, an idea that seemed attainable and by all means practical.
“I will do a weekly blog!”, I internally declared. “The spring of redundancy will be no more! (yes, I legitimately thought that. That actually developed within my mind and I unironically liked it)”.
The result of this epiphany? A review of Midnight in Paris a whole TWO MONTHS later. An article, of which, was entirely situational that would have never been written had I not seen the film on a whim. Needless to say, my crusade to become a summertime writer died, not from the extreme Texas heat, but the sheer toxicity of redundancy.
It’s easy to be in a creative rut. Not only as a writer, but in any facet of life that requires an ounce of productivity. This case is further proven when a whole chunk of time, once used for schoolwork, is completely free of such burden. The sky is the limit with free time, but only if you use it wisely. Redundancy is a fatal sin that affects not only society, but the very foundations of a person’s life. To do fruitless tasks on a consistent basis without passion or investment is a startling concept to me. I once wrote how “practicality is a sin”, and while I truly believe that within my heart of hearts, I am not ashamed of admitting that I don’t always practice what I preach. I was fully cognizant and aware of doing monotonous actions, a heartbreaking revelation that was met with even more monotony. Redundancy commenced its silent cycle and made me a leper, chipping away the flesh of any creativity and ambition. It ate, and it ate, and I just accepted it. This not only applies to this instance, but of my young, involuntarily adult life. Whether it was a video game or the volatility of social media, redundancy has a fully realized, sentient part of my life that no matter how aware I become of it, nothing is done to combat it.
And it’s still like this to this very day. No matter how much I tell people to rid themselves of conformity or complacency, I can be seen falling into the very actions I condemn. I can drive home after a long day and declare that “today will be the day. Today begins the rest of my life”. Either reincarnation exists, and I’ve lived hundreds of the exact same life, or I’m full of shit.
In any event, who knows where we’ll end up? You can quote scripture all you want, and feel like you’re doing right by an omniscient being (which is great), but you may be depriving yourself from controlling your own destiny, no matter how pretentious that sounds. It’s been the same song and dance for me, soaking up the familiarity of things that were once new and exciting, but now are overlong and flat-out boring. I’ve embraced repetition, because it was familiar and within my comfort zone; a well intended action, but a gutless, lethal attack on the very essence of creativity. I hated it, I still hate it, and I will forever damn the idea of redundancy, because I’m good at that: declaration, talking about the action, failing to realize the vision all the way through to completion. Always stuck at square one, playing with the spectacle known as ideas.
Aye, there’s the rub: Ideas. The very anecdote that can act as a catalyst for change. Ideas hold such powerful potency that can change an entire life. They can shake the very foundation of a person and cure them of conformity like holy water to leprosy. they can also get you out of bed in a respectable time. It can also rid you of that obsessive, compulsive impulse to check your phone every five minutes, a luxury that has gradually become a lost art. If you get anything out of this overlong piece, I would hope it’s this: time is valuable, so much so that no form of currency can grant you more of it. Checking on meaningless affairs on a constant basis lessens its value and can lessen your place in this world. Ideas don’t mean anything if they’re not acted upon in time, just look at my love life.
Something of Importance* 