The Super Indecision 3000

DAY ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY-NINE: The Pauper Waits

“Waiting is painful. Forgetting is painful. But not knowing which to do is the worst kind of suffering.” - Paulo Coelho, By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept

This quote was brought to my attention last year by a dear friend of mine.  We lamented unrequited loves over a bottle of whiskey while sitting on my back porch.  And the thing about a really great quote isn't just that it captures an emotion so spot on, so personal that it feels like everything you have ever wanted to say but didn't know how to say it, but that it does it so eloquently.  In the way only a true writer can.  For this reason, writers are essential cogs in our emotional journeys.  They tap into emotions we can't express ourselves.

But the beauty of this quote touches on a thematic string I've been circling since I left my job last fall: decisions.  Life is about making decisions.  Something perhaps not made common knowledge in our collegiate studies.  You can turn left, or you can turn right.  You can take this job, or you can wait for the next.  You can say yes, or you can say no.

It takes a certain amount of poor decision making to understand the heft of this knowledge in your life.  When I made a decision in 2009 to accept a job to make money instead of searching for a job that would make me happy, I had no idea that the consequence would be four years of personal flatlining.

But awakening my senses to the weight of decision-making means I have to be cognizant of every decision I make.  Even something as simplistic as plans with friends becomes list of pros and cons.

As the quote states, it's the in-between that truly drives us crazy.  The inability to make a decision.  Do I wait?  Or do I forget?  Do I turn left?  Or do I turn right?  How do you know what is right?

You never do.  Because no matter how much prior knowledge you use to formulate your list of pros and cons, each instance is different.  So what dictates a good decision?

I think I have finally figured out the only right answer to this question: conviction.  Because when you have the courage to stand up and say that you made a decision that you 100% believe in, it can never be wrong.  You simply have to accept it.

And if you had the cajones big enough to make a firm decision, then you should always be rewarded with knowing you made the right one.

Real vs. Reality

DAY ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY-SEVEN: The Pauper Escapes Reality

One of the biggest issues I have dealt with in my exploration since starting at Second City has been pursuing my dreams.  (But Hannah, that's what this blog is about.  Let's try to be a little more original and less obvious.)  But not pursuing in the physical sense.  Not writing more.  Not quitting my irrelevant job.  Not performing.  I'm talking about the mental roadblock that comes from being raised in a world where being a realist is the only way to logically navigate life.

But reality is boring.

How many times have you thought, "Man, if they made a reality show out of my life, it'd be nothing but marathoning Scandal and spending 10 minutes picking out the pint of Ben and Jerry's I want to binge on whilst I binge."  There is a reason reality television is fabricated.

Reality is boring.

As for the scripted entertainments, they make the doldrums much more interesting.  Joseph Gordon-Levitt is really upset that Zooey Deschanel broke his heart.  Let's montage day-drinking and pajama wearing and set it to a catchy little Spoon tune.  (From here on out, Spoon can only refer to their music as "Spoon tunes".)  It's fun to watch other people's misery on screen, and it can even look endlessly fascinating to watch a week in the life of an unmotivated Jason Segel culminating in a staff-pounding Lord of the Rings rage burst.  But when you are doing it yourself, well...

It's boring.

Aside from basic essentials of biologic life (food, water, air), what do we need to survive?  Because, let's face it, spending day in and day out cooped up in your apartment eating, drinking, and breathing does not a life make.  So what else do we have?  Companionship?  Sure.  Without human contact, we have no one with whom we can share our highs and our lows.  But that puts the cart far before the horse.  Because how can we have highs and lows without what I believe is the most important non-biological element of human life: dreams and ambition.

If we live our lives firmly planted in obtaining the most tangible elements, we are denying ourselves the pleasures of pursuit and reward.  I wrote an entry in December about the hopelessness of hope that is fabricated by many films.  But two months later, I'm here to quash that idea.  Hope is the fuel we need to pursue our dreams.  If I don't hope that one day I will be a famous writer, then it will never happen.  In the same way that I used to watch romantic comedies and hope that one day a prince charming figure would sweep me off my feet, I am now able to watch excellent pieces of cinema and hope that one day it will be mine that people ogle over.  I have to hope because the moment that hope dies, the ambition and the dream die with it.  Because in that moment, I succumb to reality.

And reality is boring.

For Every Leader...

DAY ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY: The Pauper Resumes

To say that life has its ups and downs is not only obvious, but such a cliche that it has no purpose in a writer's blog.  But to ignore my blogging absence also has no place.  So to be brief: life has had its downs.

When I started this blog, I swore it would not devolve into Livejournal like updates about my mood.  So I will simply gloss over my absence by saying, life has been difficult on a personal level.  But to gloss over would forfeit the benefit of honesty.

People who write about depression in a captivating way deserve some sort of Pulitzer.  It's difficult to toe the line between self-serving and honesty.  And I don't pretend to believe I can do so without falling into the latter.  So all I will say is that, Chicago winters (especially this one) deserve a special place in Hell for what they do to people's psyches.

Now that's out of the way, where do I begin?

While "Damn It, Janet" resurfaced during Chicago's 13th annual Sketchfest, I met someone whom I bonded with enough to start a professional writing relationship.  And today, while working on a treatment for our screenplay and on a two week respite from drinking, I realized my new dependency: writing.

This is a funny revelation to anyone reading a blog about someone who quit her job in September to pursue her dreams of writing.  But you never realize what you need in life until you hit your bottom and are salvaged.  Today, I was salvaged by working on a treatment for a screenplay.

The high I got from being creative was far more powerful than alcohol or pity.  In the midst of winter sickness and woman troubles, I some how dug myself out.  And through the power of creation, I was able to find myself the happiest I have been in 2014 on none other than February 14th.

But for some people, being a self-starter doesn't cut it.  And I won't pretend to be one of those people.  Not yet.  Not while I'm starting out.  Maybe one day.  But for right now, I'm dependent on the bottle.  The bottle of dependency.  And that dependency is looking to someone else to kick my ass into gear in order to feel better.  Because there's no better high than personal validation.