12 de Julio, 2019
[A stream of consciousness essay.]
So here’s something I thought I might do as an exercise: A daily, stream of consciousness essay just to loosen up the old creative canon. Be forewarned, I’m not intending for this to make any sense, have any sort of point, or even be logical at all. I just need an excuse to publish something every day and to be more comfortable with making something imperfect. That’s not to say that I want to get worse, but that’s the point. I know that by strengthening my “fuck-it” muscles a little bit, I’ll be better at churning out content, and that’s the goal here.
When I was in LA and wandering the campus of UCLA during career week, I attended a seminar on “Creative Success” or something like that. It was right up my alley, especially because all that wandering I was doing was to try and answer some existential questions I had. It was a panel with a poet, a screenwriter, a producer, a musician, and an actor. Perfect. One thing that the producer told us was the story of the little pots. I don’t know if it was pots because It’s 7am and I’ve had about 3 hours of sleep and I don’t care to check, but anyway let’s say they were pots; a pottery professor conducted an experiment in his class. Half of the class had the entire class period to make one, really really good pot. The other half had the entire class period to make as many pots as they could, no matter the quality. Quantity versus quality. And what happened? The quantity side made the better pots, by far by simple repetition of the task over and over again. By developing their “fuck-it” muscles. “Fuck it, it’s good enough, on to the next one.”
I wonder if the muse works that way. I wonder if in that panicked and fragile state of, we only have one hour to make thirty more pots! mentality their creative juices started flowing and they accessed some deeper part of their creativity they hadn’t done before. I have no idea. What I do know is that this was the rule, not the exception, and I’ve been trying to it since the beginning of the year when I learned about it.
The only thing is, with writing, you do need to take your time most of the time. And that’s the paradox I’m facing right now, and that’s why doing this seems to be some kind of a solution to that. Because as the stories I’m working on, the stories of travel and adventure have started to grow, I find myself wanting to take more time to research for them. More time to proofread them, rewrite them, and make them the best possible stories that I can make. I figured that if I could just free-write for twenty minutes, with the knowledge that I’m going to put this out there and nobody is going to read it anyway so I’m fine, then I can make a whole bunch of little pots.
Like Dan Brown says: “write like nobody’s watching. Because nobody’s watching.”
Seemed like a good idea when I had it, we’re on Day one so we’ll see how this develops so far.
Here’s the thing, I write like this anyway, almost every single day as a free writing exercise before I really get into it, so I figured fuck it, might as well turn that into something. Of course when I know that nobody is watching and I don’t have to censor myself at all then I just end up writing something like “fuckmefuckmei’msuchaterriblewriteridon’tknowwhattosayireallydohatemyself” for paragraph after paragraph in minor variations. I’ve found that I type too fast to accurately vent into a typewriter in a way that is really helpful. It’s far more useful for me to sit down and write that kind of emotional stuff down with a pen and paper. Much more therapeutic that way, and I think that will help me differentiate the two.
Yesterday I woke up at 1:30 pm and felt pretty guilty about it because my alarm was set for 8 and I snoozed it the entire way through. I went to a coffee shop and did some serious bullet journaling and figured out a lot of my most immediate priorities. I think that’s something it would serve me to remember: the final thing is not as important as the next thing. I think I get so worked up over trying to figure out my entire life that I don’t just handle the immediate tasks in front of me. But when I am able to, and just completely focus on the things I’m supposed to do right now, the things I’ve been trying to manifest usually come to me a lot quicker.
I explain this through particle physics. Subatomic particles can’t do anything while you’re observing them. Just like that hot girl can’t text you back while you’re staring at the last message you sent. Just like that plane ticket can’t find it’s way to you while you’re fretting about how much money you have. You have to chill and you have to let go. Detach.
I think by asking myself the question “what do I want to do with my life?” I do myself a disservice. Far better to ask “what do I want to do today?” That is so much more manageable, and all the things I would want to do today are going to need to get done anyway if I want to get to that dream life.
Another thing I head at that panel at UCLA: Life is a moving target. You can’t shoot too specific because, by the time you’ve gotten where you aimed, your target will have moved. I’ve also heard that you have to get on your train with full conviction and purpose if you want to get where you’re going… while being ready to swap lines at a moments notice if you realize train B is where you really want to go but it only connects with your train at this exact station.
And I’ve had plenty of moments like that, moments that require decisive action. And I’m getting so much better at realizing them, pushing through the Flinch as Alex Banayan calls it, and just doing the thing. My gut is right on those decisions a surprising amount of the time. So, that’s what I’m trying to focus on in this next season of my life. “Today”, because I know that the only thing between me and my great tomorrow is a finite number of today’s, so I’m trying to make them count.
On my agenda today: A morning surf, looking for my next client on indeed, going to the DMV, skating to the career center, clearing my voicemail, selling my ticket to IYC, going to islands to dance, and writing a song with Chris. Let’s see what we got.
