Today's a celebration of getting out of old habits.
Like putting off work.
Like putting off exercising.
Like putting off Nanowrimo.
Oh, sure, even with today's work I still have to write 1,950 words a day for the next three weeks in order to meet the deadline, but hey, if I write more than that for the next week, the average goes down.
And that's maths.
Life's... Well, firstly, life's been good to me so far. It's important to recognise that, even though I have no idea absolutely where the hell that song came from - some weird shared musical inheritance, no doubt.
But life's been weird, too. In a good way, no doubt whatsoever, but I feel like some time ten years ago someone proposed a trade to me then wiped my memory;
"Tell you what. You can study, and you can keep studying until you're satisfied. But you'll neglect your body, and you'll avoid relationships, maturity and all manner of adult things in order to do so.
Trade me your dignity and I'll give you your motivation."
It always sounds a bit odd when I try to articulate the trade me your dignity part, because it sounds so histrionic. But by all societal markers, that's what I've done; unlike many of my contemporaries, there's no wife, no house, no mortgage to show that I've grown up and matured. Instead, there's - depending on your classification - between six, twenty-two and thirty letters after my name to prove that, by some definitions, I'm a smart bastard.
Here's the difficult thing, because this is text, and text, by definition, strips out any emotiveness other than the extremes;
I'm happy.
Oh, sure, I've been in a state of arrested development for ten years, in some respects. I got a massive inferiority complex from my first degree - didn't try hard enough and, when I did put the effort in, it was too late - that lasted a decade and two more degrees. I'm not even sure if I'm over it now, but results would tend to support the theory that maybe just maybe I am.
But the thing is... When I look back over a lot of the Diary of a Mature Student entries, and a lot of the other entries on top of that, I see progress.
Kind of.
Well, progress, in that catharsis-mandated way that means we have to talk about our feelings, in that way that British people like me are only just coming to understand is actually useful.
The other thing is that this blog is now, I think, directly linked to my youtube channel, so not only can you see what I've been chattering about as a film student, people who watch the films can also, I think, come here.
Which might explain the eight hits the last entry got, although that doesn't explain the weird pageview stats - like how twice as many people in America have read this blog over time (Hi, American People!) than British people, or who the twenty pageviews from Turkey and South Korea are.
It's weird to have reach to people you don't even know.
But I'm babbling, again, as per usual.
Because there's one more thing I haven't mastered yet.
And that's putting off letting go.
I have a lot of bitterness in my heart about the way certain things worked out over the past few years, and that's... Well, it's really stupid to be the kind of person who hangs on to the bitter only to let it cloud the good.
It's what people in my family do - which is not a criticism in any way, just an observation - so it's what I've learnt to do, because holding on to a grudge gives you something to nurse and look after.
But life's been good, and continues to be good, and to concentrate on the bad is just a way of... I don't know, really. It's just something that we, as humans, are good at - storing up ammunition as proof that we're not perfect, because to be perfect would invite other people to tear down that ideal of perfection.
Look at it this way. It's Saturday night, and I'm writing this having finished a 3,000 word writing binge on my NaNoWriMo 'novel', most of which I'm just making up as I go along in order to fill out wordcount (although it's fun doing that, if I'm honest).
So it's time to admit it.
- If we are what we do;
- If Gladwell's 10,000 hours theory is right;
- And if it's time to finally admit it;
I guess I'm a writer.
But I know my narrative is changing.
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