January 27, 2013

TWENTY SEVEN


Day Twenty Seven:  Life is waiting for you

Why is there no post-secondary option of Writing: whenever, wherever, however?  Why can’t I just take a year off and write in a tropical location?  Wake up at two in the morning to write five hundred pages and then nap the rest of the day?  If I make a portfolio, and get published, and then get advance payment or a sabbatical of sorts would this happen?  Can this happen now?  Why can’t I just work on my novella’s and make that my living? 

Not saying that I’d ever in a million years just want to write and travel, I would love to continue community involvement and all that jazz, but it makes me so much more happy.  Don’t get me wrong, on those good days I enjoy university and enjoy the readings and enjoy the classes, but every other day I would get more out of life with less bullshit and more input.  More creativity.  That’s why I write here, but unfortunately my imagination does not get me a useful degree.

Some people believe theirs does, it doesn’t.

My ability to dream up characters and situations and poetry will never pay my bills, but it makes me happy.  Why must we choose between making a living or the feeling of self worth and happiness?  Some people love what they do, and I intend to love whatever I end up doing, but could it not just be something that I really enjoy doing that also happens to help people?  And is this degree necessary?  If I read the next twelve pages of sonnets, and understand why they were written and what it reveals about the human condition, will this really help me in the future?  Potentially, but ultimately it’s just another uncomfortable obstacle in my adventure of undergraduate studies.

I don’t mean to say every class is useless, or that any class is useless, I just really want to write.  I don’t want to spend my time being too busy to enjoy anything.  Is that good for anything?  Good for humanity?  The economy (eventually)?  Health?  The environment?  Maybe at the end of all this, in hindsight, it will make sense and I will understand, but I’ve never felt so motivated by the fact that there is two weeks until reading week, and after that week there are only four weeks until classes are over, and then two weeks until I’m done this semester.  Yes, I spent a good two minutes figuring out the exact countdown until I no longer have to do these courses.

And these are the courses that I enjoy.  I like to learn about drama in the nineteenth century.  I like listening about the craziness that is Queen Elizabeth I, and the 1960’s have always been a favourite of mine, but why is it that I can’t get through it this time? 

The fact that I just came back from a term thousands of miles away from home in the most amazing city in the world and I learned more half-assing it in those four courses and seeing the world than I do here?  Probably.  I feel virtually helpless, like I can’t even begin my life until I can afford anything in it, or maybe afford the time for it.  I can hardly find time to write this blog, let alone enjoy a coffee with a friend, or read for pleasure.  Hell, going to get physical activity would be wonderful if I could spare the damn time away from readings and preparations. 

Maybe I’ve never liked university, maybe I’m just stuck at the moment, as much as I drone on and on about enjoying the term, I just want it to be the summer.  After I graduate. 

x

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