Where's the 'ol mind headed this morning? I've been scrolling through the approximately 2000 movies I've downloaded, sprawled them across my hyper-defined television screen so I can see hundreds at a time. I started saving larger file sizes as I've grown less concerned about saving hard drive space. I've gone through and edited every one to just display the name (maybe in its native tongue in parentheses) and year. Today was otherwise me blowing a hole in the idea of spending very little money this pay cycle because, not just with insurance, but my plate registration has ballooned. I watched Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, bought some tools online that will help me lay linoleum, and spent too much money eating out. Yesterday I bought tires, almost wholly paid for by $150 I got through my work health program for doing a screening and taking a survey. I've cut out a very comfortable, practical, kind of existence where, even if debt remains, it's reasonable to think it will be gone in months, as always.
I'm still fighting the desire to trot faster as I approach that evenly-broke home, not unlike what I'm told horses do when they return to familiar surroundings. I can taste the liberation that paying the internet bill for a year will feel like. I can see the foundation for the next room of my house. I can taste the needlessly expensive drink after I've dragged myself out to a bar, alone, and slowly digest my deliberately expensive meal. I'm old enough that 3 months doesn't feel like 3 years, but I'm mentally arrested by the notion that even a day is too long! When I lay off even the hum of urgency, I just feel broken, old, and tired. Like, I don't know if it's psychological, but the random pains and weird little spells, like I almost passed out doing yard work the other day, that shit is real.
During the movie, there were a lot of scenes where this relatively famous movie star was alone, singing to himself, rehearsing lines, or otherwise working through his brand of existential crisis. He marries a trophy wife seemingly on a whim. His best friend is his stunt guy who he seems to show just-not-quite enough respect sometimes, but you're confident both men know who they are to each other and themselves. I saw myself there. Too much money and time to worry about things that aren't worth worrying about. Getting into arbitrarily dangerous situations and wishing nothing more than to ingratiate myself to a neighbor with something I want. It didn't look bad, but it didn't look good.
I'm finding myself asking more about what it is I want. I think fundamentally I want to dick around. I want things to be fun and creative. I've been thinking about the kinds of excuses I've used to not do things. Why don't I write music? I don't want it to suck. Why don't I do stand-up? There's so many voices out there already. Why don't I just read or watch at least x amount each day? I hate splitting my attention. All of it comes with the presumed idea that with focus and time, I'd readily dedicate enough of myself to any one of those endeavors to make a respectable stab. More simply, I just feel like what I want to do when I do it, and don't when I don't. I don't really need a reason or excuse beyond that. I don't know why I want one.
I want reasons, right? I don't want to be a mindless mass of impressions thinking my first idea is my best and most convincing idea because it's first. I want to dig out a beating heart that will go right along pumping the reality of my how and why even when I'm not looking. I want to continue to tie together the long story of my actions into the kind of future I imagine. It's a future I'm starting to live in already. I need so little to keep me on track too. Let me get my floor done, and I'll spend 2 days riding that high. Let me get the grass mowed and things will really seem to be picking up around here! Let me get things a little better organized or cataloged.
So much of my time I feel is sucked up by “transitional” periods. Can't just wake up and do anything strenuous. Can't just be done with work without the drive home. Can't clean and organize without adding to the trash yet to be burned and laundry still needing to be done in town. That is, my experience is still mostly dictated by things that have to be done more than I've chosen to do them. They eat time and mental resources. They cost money. They leave me talking about them at 1:21 AM, instead of going right to sleep or discussing some new interesting thing I've explored or built. The movie tonight was a reimagining of the past. I merely rehash the present.
I think about the notion of “everyone being a critic.” It's why I'm not actually worried if music I create sucks, or it takes me longer than I believe it should to get a laugh trying stand-up. I watched some writers pick apart a book which they loved, but they had to voice how it seemed to short-change black women, maybe. One of the critics is like 300 pounds and looks like an overstuffed prize at a haunted carnival. Was she moving the needle for the broader culture forward because she appeared on VICE and offered her salient opinion? How is anything that anyone says in criticizing art valuable? I don't mean you can't question norms or ideologies, more than, what has it ever served to talk about the, literally everything, any single piece of work can't or didn't do? I've honestly never understood that as a criticism. “That's a great song! But not enough bass...” “I kept wanting to read more and more, couldn't put it down! But did he have to be so cliché?” Umm, hello, there are cliché people and perhaps the masterful dose of them is why you kept devouring.
Sometimes artists have reasons, sometimes they write parody songs. They're all driven to create in the face of their hits and misses and the millions that have come before. That's what I want to focus on. Whatever the medium, I don't want to stop desiring seeing the world around me change or watching my ability increase. Even if it's just recognition, oddly enough, as I promise you being open to watching everything does not mean there was anything that stuck. There's certainly irony in the fact that I wish to be saying something in the things I create, but I'm willing to accept impressions from everything until something arrests my focus. I think it's a testament to a few things. One, there's only so much you can really focus on even if you have myriad interests. Two, a lot of shit really isn't worth that much time and attention, and sped up is going to give you the same takeaway. Three, it's comforting to think that most people, most of the time, are going to have as nothing an attitude about me and impression of what I create as I have with them. If my recent lesson in celebrity and sordid past of making people hate me very hard are any indication, I'm going to call the third one aspirational for anyone who shares the language.
I know I've been too comfortable for too long. I'm out of practice in being hyper-vigilant and motivated and accountable. My day job lets me be lazy. My transitional time was influenced hard enough by my general flighty thought and action patterns before life's obligations. If it were up to me, I'd get done writing this, spend the next few hours playing guitar and watching something, sleep in, and try to make some headway on taking inventory. But nonsense safety staffing and mandatory training beckon. I get things delivered to the office because the self-imposed surcharge to persuade the mailman to come to the house until I can build a large enough box annoys me. I've signed up for some 30 hours of sitting around a smelly ward for those with developmental disabilities in what some might describe as a cynical cash grab as I'm not paid enough to “entertain” the kid who seems to only get in trouble when he's bored. Yeah? Well, take a number.
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