Thursday, April 01, 2010

Pay Off

It's strange how it can feel like you have all the time in the world and at the exact same moment feel like you are running out of time. I have nowhere to really be today. I am waiting to hear back from a couple of places to see what I'm going to be doing for the summer. I have a month to construct another show. I am leaving for a trip on Sunday. I have delayed choosing my courses. There is a lot happening and yet, not really anything.

It's kind of funny to see how everything is essentially busy work. I am just filling my time. I have wanted to go back to school not because I love to go to school, but to get a new degree so I can do something different. I originally wanted to find a job that wasn't Rogers for the rest of my days. I want a job that I can tolerate. But that job will be doing the same thing. Filling my time.

I am so bored with life. I mean, I get to spend my days sitting under a tree and working in my book or reading, but it loses it's tranquility after two days. I am just filling my time. I don't care to play video games that much anymore. It's all the same. You go around this that or whatever and it's the same. It's just filling time.

I have all this time to spend with people and I'm starting to get bored of people now, too. The conversations start to look the same. The only thing I am interested in is the things other people care about so that I could give some insight and perspective. Tackle it like any other problem. Here's the thing, when you have something you care about, then you have something to do. When someone is bothered by something and doesn't know how to tackle it, I can give some advice and I am engaged on behalf of them.

With what is happening, there are plenty of good things. I can start over and get a chance to reconstruct the game, but it is also putting me into the scenario that I have come to truly hate. I have to invest in something. Time, money, care, whatever it may be into something to make the thing worthwhile. A good story involves giving you a payoff for investing your time into the story. It builds and builds, bringing you into the story and then when the conclusion comes, it pays off.

I think the reason I hate investing in anything real, is because the pay off rarely has been worth the investment for me. Whatever it may be. I mean not all the time for sure, but rarely. I've felt that I have made a lot of wrong choices. Not necessarily bad choices, but ones that just turn out to be the wrong ones. Usually, it will be one of those things where it could turn out awesome or turn out not awesome and for whatever reason, it lands in the not awesome category.

I remember back when I was younger and the pop companies would have the instant win under the cap of the bottles every once in a while. And it would be something like a 1 in 6 chance of winning a free drink. Here's the thing, I would buy their brand of drink just in the hopes that every once in a while I would get a break and get a free one. Obviously I didn't think I was going to win all the time, but just once in a while. I easily bought twenty of those things and I had maybe one win. Meanwhile, my buddy Erik seemed to win something like 1 in 3. I swear, it was ridiculous.

I see this silly example of how things I have invested in has gone. I tend to take big risks and those losses have been hard. Whether it was Mr. Chapel or dating a girl or signing a lease on the hopes that I can find a roommate. Thus this has led me back to being bored. I don't want to invest my time and money and heart into people or projects. The chances of it paying off, doesn't seem to be in my favor. Yet, if I no longer want to be stuck in a purgatory of filling my time, I have to find that thing that I will care about.

"How to keep people at arms length and never get too close
How to mistrust the ones who you supposedly love the most
How to pretend you're fine and don't need help from anyone
How to feel worthless unless you're serving or helping someone
I'll teach you all this in eight easy steps
A course of a lifetime you'll never forget"
- "Eight Easy Steps" from Alanis Morissette's album "So-Called Chaos"

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