The Blandfill Blog

Dear readers:

I find myself at a unique point in my life. I’m overwhelmed with things I’m expected to do, and even when I throw my best effort into the fight it seems like I’ll inevitably fail at something. I feel somewhat uncertain about how things are going to go.

Can I do it? Can I find within myself the discipline I need to face the coming onslaught?

The pressure, even when I handle it gracefully and without stressing myself out, has the terrifying effect of separating me from my soul — as if in a magnetic field, experiencing strong Zeeman splitting — and if this continues for much longer I fear I’ll have lost a part of myself. On the other hand, maybe this separation process is good for me; maybe I’m becoming organized, gaining the ability to transform myself at my own will into a homework-crunching robot, thereby becoming more time-efficient and freeing up hours to devote to more introspective, exploratory things.

The fear, of course, is that once I’ve gotten used to locking myself into robot-mode I’ll be unable to snap back out of it. I value my expressive side so much that I’d give up the chance at a more productive, successful future if that was the price for retaining it — in short, I will not sell my soul to further my career. My passions run deep but they are founded firmly in my thoughts and beliefs and ideas about what it means to be human, to exist as we do in the Universe, to have such a short amount of time to experience all of life. I don’t like the idea of numbing my emotions just to make myself a better worker.

This is a naive view to hold, I realize. “Tom, think about it for a moment – if you stay the same undisciplined procrastinator you’ll never grow as a person and you won’t be able to pull yourself together confidently enough to achieve your dreams.” And I agree with this sentiment. I don’t want to stay lazy and disorganized.

But artistic vision and creativity are born from an innate frustration with status quo and a deep, personal desire to make things different. The process of disciplining oneself necessarily kills off a big part of spontaneous fidgeting that could act as creative seed for unconventional ideas. It’s somewhat ludicrous for someone like me, a student of science who’s never created art nor is on track to do so, to declare to the world: “I will never cease to be expressive!” — what could possibly be the point? If my goal was to make a big impact on the world by having the best, most original artistic vision, I’m pretty fucking far behind in that race; any art I am ever to create (in any sense: writing, music, drawing, whatever) will be invariably dwarfed by those among my peers who have actually devoted their lives to what they make or do. So — why do I persist with this seemingly futile endeavor? Why, when I’ve already established the detrimental effects this wandering exploration might have on my career, don’t I give up?

It’s because the way I see the world is fundamentally shaped by whether I make an effort to have a creative mind — to be conscious of details for their own sake and for the way they interact and make things interesting. I like this creative process. I like learning about all the different things I encounter and trying to understand how the world works, and I also like trying to recombine ideas and objects and observations in new and interesting ways. And when in life I find myself in crappy situations, it’s incredibly satisfying (if not remedial – though it’s far from a panacea) to be able to channel raw emotions into some kind of medium.

These are ideas that I never really had until this past year. I cannot really describe where the transformation came from (or whether it was in fact a transformation — maybe I’m just getting better at capturing ideas that I had held in some vague form), but I think it’s tied to all the new things I’m experiencing. Seeing more of the world, getting into new and unusual social situations, reading about new ideas, taking on different responsibilities — in more ways than one, I’m learning, and I’d like to believe that I’m expanding my mind as well. I guess I’ve picked the right time in my life to do so.

Getting back to my original question: Can I find the discipline within myself to achieve my goals? Only time will tell. But one thing has begun to interest me; perhaps in spite of my waffling, rambling thoughts on being disciplined versus creative, I’ve started to notice that simply by bringing these ideas out into the open I can clear my mind, figure out what I want to do, and then do it. I’m still not perfect, and will never be, but I’m curious to see how far this cycle will go.