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Wednesday, January 19, 2011

No Pressure

Waaaaaaay back in December when this blog was still known as Red Sea Pedestrian, the four of us called a post-finals pre-launch powwow at Carlos & Gabby’s in the 5 Towns. The location was chosen so we could eat really awesome Mexican food, and the meeting was arranged to determine, among other things, an established posting rotation. At that time I specifically asked to be the last one in that rotation because according to the schedule we established, my posting week would coincide with two very important events in my calendar.

Event, the First: I just came back from a two-week sojourn in Israel

Event, the Second: Today was the first day of the spring 2011 semester here at NCC

The plan was that I would use the two events as examples of the duality of our natural state-of-being as humans, forever altering between enjoyable and/or exciting pursuits on the one hand and the less enjoyable and often dreary demands of societal existence on the other. Then I would weave a wonderful, philosophical, and quite esoteric tapestry of words based on that idea and conclude with some powerful statement on the duality of human existence and how we must strive to find balance in all things, amen. HALLELUJAH BROTHER!

There’s one catch though: I spent the last 24 hours trying to use that model and create something remotely meaningful and I came up with…nada. Nil. Zero. Zilch.

Considering that, as mentioned above, we now have an official rotation and posting day, I was actually frightened by the thought that it was 11:45 AM on Wednesday of my posting week and I was about to leave to school, not to return home until 8:30 PM, with nothing written past “Event, the Second.” In addition, I received many text messages from my fellow bloggers and some readers reminding me that it’s my week (thanks guys :p). In the car on the way home from school, all I could think about was that I needed to crank something out before the clock strikes midnight tonight or my coach would turn back into a pumpkin…erm…or I would miss my deadline.

I got a phone call from a close friend midway through the drive home, and while describing my dilemma I said “It adds an element of pressure to what should be a fun and enjoyable activity.”

And then I had it.

Interestingly enough, in my lyrics, essays, and more recently, blog posts, I tend to find something to write about specifically when I’m really struggling with what I was originally going to write about, and this time was no different. You see, the above line pretty much sums up my problem: working under a deadline, along with all the pressure that entails, turned something I volunteered for to have fun with into another obligation I needed to take care of before hour x. It almost ruined the experience this time around. A spark of inspiration on the drive home (while talking to a friend in one ear and listening to Pestilence Reigns by Revocation in the other) was all that saved this post from either being delayed or turning into an apology letter to my colleagues and readers.

I think it’s important to be able to differentiate between the fun and the obligation, and if you’re able to make obligations fun, go you. More importantly though I think, is the skill of keeping the pressure of an obligation OUT of the things in life that should be fun. My inability to do so almost ruined this post.

So that’s just something I was thinking about today, and I bless you all that you are able to do this in your daily lives and yadda yadda ya…

…Hey, I guess I did end up talking about that duality of human existence thing after all. BONUS POINTS!

2 comments:

  1. you, i, and calvin have something in common. what is that u ask, aside from being totally AWESOME???
    we wait for the right inspiration: last minute panic

    ReplyDelete

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