Redundancy
One of the reasons I know I need to reduce my doom scrolling is simple:
It’s not that I’m consuming too much new info, but worse, I’m consuming the same info over and over.
If it were positive insightful things that would be great, most of it is not. As an artist, as an amateur comic trying to be a pro, redundancy wounds my mind. It always has and I suspect always will. If you are a creative type you probably already know what I mean.
It’s one thing to have a favorite song, comfort movie etc.. It’s another thing to willingly allow your brain to stand in the river of gray flavorless unoriginal noise that constitutes most of social media. Worn out memes, movie quotes, tik tok trends that need to fade into the sunset, or even worse negative redundancy. People making the same vicious arguments, dunking over straw men and owning this or that group.
That shit is making you stupid.
I’m not the joke police, I’m very far from the most original thinker in any room, and I know for a fact that I have bad taste in movies. But if you are in the business of idea generation, you have to protect your self. Novel for novelty’s sake is not the way, but commonality for commonality’s sake isn’t either.
Here are some examples of things we all say on social media that are so well worn that they are meaningless:
It is what it is
I said what I said
God Joseph Coker is so sexy
Etc
You get it.
Any time I hit a wall with writing, I realize it’s probably because I’ve fallen into a bad habit of allowing my media intake to be redundant well worn bullshit. And my writing time to shrink. It’s the worse possible trade. It’s like skipping the gym so you can focus on smoking.
Your mind is a mine. The best things are seldom at the top. And the more you dig the more you have to dig.This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be spontaneous. I love stream of consciousness in most art forms.
But it’s one thing to be pulling on that mysterious rope that all writers do, and it’s another thing to lazily bang blocks together and wonder why the world hasn’t anointed us as king. I think there is room for cheesy, and every major act has some. But using it on purpose, as a creative decision is not the same thing as doing it because you refuse to slow down and draw from a deeper well.
I have always and will always love Bruce Springsteen. To me he is a master at growing flowers in mental deserts. Cars, driving, angst, family tension, nothing that original there. But he has this ability to lead with the common, then apply one pure drop of pure unique beauty to it like putting perfume on a horse. My constant example is his song Independence Day. If you’ve never heard it, it’s about the tension of a father son relationship amplified by the trappings of a small town.
“There’s a darkness in this town that got the best of us
There’s a darkness in this house that got us too”
So far, yawn
“But they can’t touch me now
And you can’t touch me now
They ain’t gonna do to me
What I watched them do to you”
That one line, in my ear weighs 100 pounds. It’s a universal truth. We see the hurt our parents suffer, and sometimes inflict, and we think about what we will allow and not allow.
They ain’t gonna do to me what I watched them do to you.
I’ve always read that writers should read, and I try to consume books though I mostly listen to them these days. I think part of the reason is that when you experience a master, what you are really experiencing is someone who took great pains to take the elevator all the way down, so one day maybe, they could take the crowd all the way up.
Part of the hero’s journey is bringing back a treasure for the community. The thing about treasure is people can always tell when it’s fake.
Part of my job as a comic isn’t to only write great jokes.
It’s to only settle for great ones.
It may not be today, shit it may not be this decade, but I am here to turn on my little flash light and hammer til I see a glint in the dark.