Good lord, am I feeling scrambled right now.
More so than usual, I mean. Even on a good day, I am confused and disoriented by default, but for some reason it’s worse than usual today.
I mean, at one point, my plan was to make a meal for myself and eat it at my computer while blogging, like I normally would.
Eating while blogging is my standard mode.
Except that it’s Wednesday, which means I am going to comedy tonight, which means not only am i going to eat there and not here, I will be leaving at around 7 pm, so that would be a very bad time to start blogging.
Plus I have had to check the clock to reorient myself in time twice. As in I had literally no idea what time it was. Is it the afternoon already, or still morning? Have I eaten lunch, or is that what I am supposed to do next? Why are time hurts?
I swear, when it gets that bad, I am lucky if I can even remember what planet I am on.
Wait wait, don’t tell me…. it’s that blue one, right?
What blows my mind is that there are people in the world who never wake up feeling like an alien abductee, except without the fun butt stuff.
Dear Abducting Type Aliens : Please abduct me. You can do whatever you want to my butt. Just hold me afterwards.
`Oh well. It’s probably just a side effect of catching up on sleep and/or oxygen.
In other news, finally beat Borderlands 2 today. One hell of a good game. Fast, fun, and funny as fuck. The humor can be a tad dark, but as luck would have it, I am a dark and twisted son of a bitch in a way that matches their brand of humour perfectly.
This means (SPOILER ALERT) that I finally killed Handsome Jack, the main villain. He’s one of the best/worst villains I have ever experienced in anything ever because he is the ultimate magnificent bastard type villain.
That’s a villain who is extremely evil and yet also has a lot of non-moral male virtue, like charm, wit, personality, looks, and so on, so you end up hating him extra hard because, against your will, part of you also admires him.
It made him fun to hate, and finally clawing through all the bullshit to confront him, defeat his monster, then put a cap in his ass (or rather, shoot him in the head with a rocket launcher) was very, very satisfying.
Hmmm,. That might be where I lost my combobulation, though, because in order to beat the game, I played at a pretty high level of intensity for like four hours plus in a row.
And well past my usual bedtime too.
Yeah, that’s what probably did it. Used up a whole lot of brain energy, and now I am mentally fried like right after a tough exam.
And being the sack of loose infirmities that I am, it’s taking a while to recover.
More after the break.
Part II : The Partening
Comedy went fine. There was only three comedians -Dane, Chris, and Felicity. And absolutely nobody in the bar was paying attention to the acts except the comedians and their entourage (aka Chris’ girlfriend and me”.
But what the hell. This is the bottom rung, folks. It’s how all comedians start off. Doing terrible gigs where nobody is listening and you don’t even get paid.
These shows are the currency in which your dues are paid.
I keep on thinking of getting up there. Every time I go to this comedy night with Felicity, i get a little bit closer to having the nerve to get up there and do my thang.
Tonight, I had actual bits of mine running through my mind during the show and the urge to get up there was tugging gently on my sleeve.
I know I belong up there. I know I have it in me to be a great comedian. I know that starting off in comedy could make my whole world change.
But still, I am scared. It’s like I am on the high dive board and looking down at the water way, way down there.
In my head, I know I can jump.
But tell that to my vertigo and/or that terrible sucking feeling in the pit of my stomach and the base of my balls, like I swallowed a black hole.
So now picture me creeping very, very slowly forward on the high diving board. Getting closer and closer to the edge without actually committing to jumping at all.
Eventually, I will run out of room to go forward, and I will either have to admit I don’t have the nerve… or jump.
Well, might as well jump.
Was pondering advice I would give to your artists, writers, and other creatives.
I would definitely tell them “waiting till I am in the mood” to do their art is bullshit. Toxic, soul-destroying bullshit. You will never feel like it. Why? Because it will always be work. It will always take effort. It will always be unattractive compared to all the fun, easy, less scary stuff the internet puts at our fingertips.
So fuck waiting till you are “inspired”, or till you are “ready”, or till you “have a moment” or any of that galloping horseshit.
The only way to do it is to do it. Sounds like a tautology but you’d be amazed at how much creative potential is wasted by people who are positive they will do these things “some day” even though they are doing absolutely fuck all to make them happen.
It’s like they want to skip the hard part and go straight to the bit where they have done their art without having to do their art.
Also, do not expect instant gratification from what you make. Odds are, it will be terrible. That’s because the only way to get good anything is to keep doing it, and you haven’t done much of it yet.
Do not judge your future output by the quality of your current work.
It doesn’t work that way. The world is not divided into people with a magical thing called “talent”, for whom art is easy right from the get-go, and everyone else, who is “no good” at it and should just stop trying.
The real divider is persistence and persistence is a choice. You can choose to give up when things get hard, you can choose to keep going in order to see what comes next.
Lastly, the most important thing for you to remember is that if you are serious about your art, you will work on it. Not play at it. Not fool around with it. Not indulge in it,
WORK. As in, doing things you do not feel like doing. Your art is no longer a hobby, a game, a diversion, or a pastime.
It is work.
And it always will be.
Make peace with that and you might make it.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.