At the end of this summer, I put out a piece named “The Art of Redundancy”, a somewhat unfiltered and candid stream-of-consciousness article about how easy and seemingly gratifying it feels to do absolutely nothing. Writing this piece was meant to be an internal call to arms, to tell myself to take action in a destructive, redundant, and horrifically unproductive lifestyle. As a matter of fact, I drafted piece I wanted to put out on my 21 birthday names “An Ode to 20”, basically a middle finger to my 20th year of life, because that’s what your supposed to do the past: look at it and say “I can do better”. Ironically enough, I never posted it. Not because I thought it wasn’t good enough, or it was too personal: I just stopped working on it. Life happened, and in that specific context of my life, life consisted of obsessively and compulsively checking on all my social media outlets, the very thing I have vocally denounced. Make a long story short, however, I feel things are better than they were a year ago, but when the bar is set so incredibly low, mediocrity can appear to be perfection.
There has been so much I have learned this year; of myself, others, and just about the world entire. I can tell you that I finally know what I want to do in this life, but I rather not bore you with a self serving soliloquy. 2017 has been a myriad of things, for better or worse, but among the nonsensical and unimportant, I have discovered and learned one absolute: Indifference is poison.
All of the non-movie related pieces on this blog share one, minute trait among them all; a sentiment that has grown and matured into genuine belief: the dangers of being indifferent. To be indifferent is to submit to nothing. The act of submission is a humble one; to rest arms in service of something, whether that be a higher power, or a painful truth. Many put their faith to a god, given their respective religion. They are submitting to this entity, humbling themselves in an effort to attain salvation. They acknowledge their flaws and wrongdoings, not out of internal spite, but in hopes that acknowledging their own flaws can begin to change their life’s trajectory. Submission, in this instance, is means something.
My morning routine, I fear, echoes and mirrors yours. We wake up, and in an instant, scramble around the bed in search of our phone. We unlock it, with the terribly low brightness shining on our face like a super nova. We open the apps. You know the ones. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat are prominent in our morning routines way before breakfast does. My disdain and conflict with social media has been on record for quite some time now, but that’s the tragedy. I put my pen to paper, announcing my grievances towards the potential destructiveness of social media, as if I were some sort of white knight. Needless to say, I am not the epitome of human morale, nor I intend to be, but if something is inherently wrong in context of my moral compass, I have to act, or at the very least vent. Even if my actions contradict this, I hope, at the very least, that others who read this can learn from my past follies, to remain standing in the times where I fell.
I’ve read a few books this year. As a matter of fact, it’s safe to say I have read more books in 2017 than I have in my entire high school career (thank God for Sparknotes). Not only did I enjoy reading in the vein of experiencing stories in a format other than the cinema, but reading has proven to become a true means to disconnect from the toxic and mind numbing technological aspect of my life. Among the books I’ve read was Mark Manson’s The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck, essentially an anti-selfhelp book, dismissing all the typical BS terms of enlightenment. You’re not special, being in a constant state of positivity is a near-lethal level of delusion, and, most importantly to me, suffering is an absolute necessity. Not only if you want to get that promotion or raise, suffering is a paramount thing to withstand and go through. Through suffering, we change, we evolve and come out of it all the more better for it. I have grown to welcome conflict and problems, whereas I used to actively avoid them at all costs. There is no use to avoid the brutal reality of this world. It’s shitty, and so are we. We are ignorant, self-serving people with a healthy heap of arrogance. Once we accept and understand this, we can then start to be, well, less shitty.
Conclusively, 2017 has been a gem of a year, though it wasn’t without its mind-numbingly repetitive faults. I have, however, came to the conclusion that the countless setbacks are deeply rooted with my indifference. My indifference to meet new people, refusing to go out and opting for the “safe” confines of my room, and being perfectly okay with doing absolutely nothing while everyone else is doing at the very least something can sum up a tragically notable helping of my year. I have a problem. Hell, we all do. But for once, allow me to be the delusional optimist by saying that we can be and do better.
Just Do Something.
Something of Importance* 