Long before I started a blog, I had this plan to write a book where each chapter was dedicated to a person who had somehow influenced my life's direction in chronological order. I started a draft of it on the first computer my family owned when I was in 6th grade. Somewhere on a Gateway hard-drive in the back of my parent's basement is Chapter 1. It's about a girl I had a crush on in pre-school whose name I couldn't remember until I met her again when she was on my sister's softball team 7 years later. I offered her half of my last piece of gum. True chivalry. She declined.I had a conversation this weekend with someone I had just met who asked about why I moved back to Chicago. I gestured to a group of my friends and said, "People." The rest of the conversation went something like this:
Him: You moved back here for them?
Me: No, I moved back here because I wanted to spend time with them.
Him: And because you wanted to give up acting?
Me: I don't remember saying that.
Him: But you're not acting.
Me: Correct.
Him: So what are you doing?
Me: Spending time with them.
Yes, I was purposefully trying to be a dick, but I feel we too often complicate the reason we do things, or rather, complicate what we think we should be doing.
For instance, people who crave soup. I'm not trying to generalize by saying that everyone who has ever said they're craving soup is full of shit. However, I think most people are afraid to say, "I'm feeling fat, so I should keep my calorie intake under 300," or, "I'm broke-ass, so I shouldn't spend more than $3."
But to be clear, nobody craves hot water with vegetables in it.
Today as I was on my run (because I don't want to be fat and have a poor body-image), I began thinking about what an influential man had once taught me. You have to know exactly why you're doing something in order to get any real fulfillment out of it. Rarely is that reason complicated. Unfortunately, we often feel pressured to make it so. You want artistic fulfillment? Great, but if you really just want to be rich and famous, you won't get either. If you could just admit you want to be rich and famous from the get-go, you still might not get it...but you'll at least expedite the process of false soul-searching and approach it with the necessary drive.
Why am I doing what I'm doing? Because I want to be happy and have fun. My life since graduating college has been a clusterf*ck, but every decision I've made has been in the pursuit of fun. Sure, some people see that as noncommittal and irresponsible, but everything I've done, I've given it 110%.
I also want to be rich and famous and have everyone think I'm really pretty. But, we all want that.
What do I need to achieve those dreams? People. We all need people. And you might as well like the people you need, because if you don't, it will feel empty every time they tell you how pretty you are.
Now let me skip the false soul-searching and say this: I will continue to make a lot of sporadic and off-the-cuff decisions in the pursuit of myself. But oh my GOD is it fun. If it weren't, you probably would've stopped reading this piece of shit blog years ago.
But if you stick with it, there might just be a chapter reserved for you somewhere on a Gateway hard drive.
I'm off to eat some soup because I'm feeling fat and broke-ass,
TJB: Making It
