I’m trying not to take this so seriously. I’m just playing around, I say to myself in the mirror over and over until blood pours out of my eyes and nose, I’m just playing around!! It’s not only convincing, it’s also self-soothing, and then I go to bed without even looking at my phone at all:)
I’m trying not to take this so seriously. I’m talking about writing, but I’m also talking about everything that isn’t writing, like walking down the street or cooking dinner or putting clothes on my silly little body. I’m flailing, obviously, for control, and now I’m finding myself writing about that same sensation again. I don’t need to pathologize myself to you: you likely know that I’m about to graduate with a BA in English and a BFA in Theatre, which sounds like a joke in a movie about being in your twenties, but is the actual truth of my life. And I’m trying not to take it so seriously!
One feature of taking it too seriously and agonizing over it, and then agonizing over how much I’m agonizing, is that I have somehow divested entirely from the thing I actually care about for fear of it stabbing me in the gut. What if the exact moment I try is the same moment I realize I’m characteristically doomed at it? Unsurprisingly, the thought kills any creativity I had left after all the agonizing, and it’s done before it’s begun. The thing I dread is the same thing as the thing I hope for the most: that I’ll do something.
Haley Nahman said in her substack that she will chase away unwelcome thoughts by throwing her head, as if to shake water out of her ear. What I like about that is that she identified a habit I already possess, and vested it with the healing properties I didn’t acutely know I already used it for. It got me thinking about other subconscious ways my nervous system tries to prepare me for success.
I can be a very focused person, but never on purpose. I can get very lost in things, mechanical things, like vacuuming or untying knots or playing games, but when I want to do something creative, no matter how badly I do sincerely want to do it, I have other things I have to tend to first. I think it has to do with, say it with me now, taking it too seriously. I take all the energy I wish I would invest into the thing I care about, and pour it into the least related thing. Today, I told myself I would finish the first act of a script; instead, I wound up gutting my old record player with kitchen scissors and a screwdriver, and building a treasure chest. I tore out pages from books and plastered them all over the case, found a deck of lotería cards and threw those on too, and filled the inside with seashells and stacks of birthday cards tied together with ribbon. I found a manifesto I had transcribed from Taylor Mac’s website my freshman year, and taped it to the inside of the lid. Then I closed it up and put it on a shelf where I wouldn’t accidentally see and need to fuss over it. I cleaned my room, pulling cat hair from the rug. I made my bed. I straightened up the books on my nightstand. I sat really still, then, and thought about everything I’d just done. I couldn’t remember what I was distracting myself from, but I realized that I hadn’t thought about how I was feeling in days. Not to mean I hadn’t felt anything, but that whatever I had felt, I hadn’t thought critically about and couldn’t remember it now. The realization made me feel far away from myself, and my immediate guess was that I must’ve been very unhappy. That’s not it- the unhappiness was happening now, now that I couldn’t remember or identify my emotions. What world was I (the person) living in, and where was I (the observer) while that was happening? And who is asking these questions?
I like to make things nice. I don’t know if you’ve already noticed, but I try to find things pretty romantic or hilarious most of the time. It’s a stretch often, but it’s good for me: I feel at the mercy of my moods a lot of the time, and this is a needed reminder that I’m in control of my perspective. Not in a lululemon tweeting “choose happiness” way- not to correct or manhandle my frame of mind- but just to change the lighting or the background music to my experience and track the effects. But thinking about my new treasure chest and shaking the droplets of negativity from my ears, I’m newly aware of the game that I’m making for myself here, like I’m my own babysitter tricking my toddler-self into wanting to brush my teeth and get in bed. I’m giving myself the “here comes the airplane” before a spoonful of mashed-up carrots. I’m walking around a neighborhood which is literally labeled on the map as “Rat City,” looking for light to admire, telling myself I’m already admiring the light. It’s easier than asking my brain for a new emotion or opinion, and more effective.
What I’m not doing is setting the stage to create a masterpiece. I’m chasing the stage-fright away by deciding not to feel bad, but to feel good instead! Duh. I don’t do the laundry because the dirty laundry would distract me when I Sit Down To Write, I do the laundry so that I don’t end up having time to sit down and write. Doing the laundry does not bring me closer to writing; making my weird little treasure chest does not bring me closer to finishing the script; noticing the light does not make me fall in love with the place I’m in. But doing these things does remind me that I have some degree of choice, cuffed as I might feel to my little tasks. And!!! Part of ~*~*NOT TAKING IT SO SERIOUSLY~~*~*~* is that I don’t need to moralize my every habit, to round up when weighing my distractions to find some unexpected gain from my procrastination. Part of ~just playing around~ is actually playing around. Finding it laughable. Going for a walk, and pouring into the walk every intention that would go into writing if only I had something to talk about. Forgetting that I was going to write something. Remembering, months later, and wanting to.
<3 more soon