My Resolve

I've always prided myself in being able to find amusement in creating things instead of just watching others people's work. It's something I picked up as a kid, whence I found myself rarely able to get the day's rage in toys I was left to find substitutes using what toys I had (lego, being a flexible toy helped out a lot) and a good dose of imagination.

It is that same drive that convinced me to try out writing novels, doing comic books, writing countless articles in this blog, trying to write for print, creating my own website, creating my own programs, games, apps or what not, trying my luck in doing standup comedy, creating music, poetry (albeit sucking at it), working on videos with friends, doing business, and finding out ways to earn a living beyond what I'm expected to be doing. I succeeded and failed in varying degrees in each field, but the bottomline is I just had to try. I was able to push through because I was with people who had the same ideals, though unspoken, could be seen in the way they worked the world.

A lot of that has stopped in the last few years, and I also lost contact with a lot of the people I worked with and shared my dreams with. I have the best excuses. I dont have time anymore. I need to focus on more important things that will matter to my future more. I have a different set of goals now. I figured, it's alright. I'm trying to become an adult, and maybe the lot of those things is just part of being young and wanting to do everything.

Tonight I got to thinking again. Am I really losing time because of what I think I am doing? Half of the time I say I'm pushing through with work, second work, and other boring adult stuff, I'm just leafing through my usual site feeds. I'm watching videos on youtube. I'm thinking of one liners for Facebook or Twitter. If I'm not in front of a browser, I'm playing video games. Or I'm watching TV or a movie, or just reading some random book. If I'm outside, I'm hanging out with friends. Or going out on dates with my girlfriend. Or being out of town, chilling out in some far remote location, probably inebriated half of the time. Those aren't really productive things, but I keep on claiming, I'm being choked with work. I'm not.

I took a look at the monstrous stream of people's activities in Twitter and Facebook. They're basically doing the very same things. There's something inherently wrong with the idea that so much devotion is spent in entertainment in our generation. I seriously doubt our parents spent this much time on amusement. Even less so for the previous generations.

And for my part, I'm beginning to feel the toll that such a lifestyle exacts on my ability to create. The short bursts for twitter and facebook are hampering my ability to write full articles on this site. One liner quotes have taken over the ability to create full dialog, characterization, and even plot. It's the distraction that's starting to chip away at what's supposed to be the main attraction, and it's scaring me.

Without me realizing it, I've become the ideals that i used to hate. I have become the audience. Those who just sample life without ever wondering what it's like to be on the stage. I dropped my pen to write and picked up the papers to read.

But it's not too late. I have my resolve left and I vow to overcome this rut. Here are the things I have decided to start with:

1. I'll reduce posting bullshit oneliners in Twitter and Facebook fishing for random online countenance (or whatever is the equivalent of it). It's won't matter to anybody in the long run, and I can make use of those ideas better in bigger projects.

2. I have to uninstall distractions on my PC. Call off the feeds. Remove my bookmarks. My life is understandably short and I do not want to be doing accounting at the very end of it to find out I had pissed the lot of my time on entertainment alone.

3. Stop forcing myself to do things out of social contract. There's gotta be a golden mean somewhere, and I will have to strike that balance soon. I don't want to live like a hermit either.

4. Reassess again what I want to do. This will probably take the longest of the steps but I know it's the most necessary as well. I resolve that being an adult doesn't mean I have to let go of the things that I love to do. I just have to find out a way to squeeze the most of them in without compromising my ultimate goals.

It starts now.