Already Settling In

I am now home, both physically and mentally. I’ve returned to a comfort zone, and I go into tomorrow knowing what it will bring. I’ve restarted a job I’ve had for the last three summers. I’m back into a familiar routine.

Crap.

Seriously, that’s not supposed to happen yet. If I learned one thing in London, it’s that I’m at my best when faced with uncertainty or pressure. (I certainly learned that in every turn-it-in-at-midnight journalism assignment!) A routine, or at least my traditional mindless variety, doesn’t provide any uncertainty or pressure.

See, I’ve historically been a creature of habit. While other kids kept up with the latest movies and music, I tried to memorize Apollo 13 (success!) and listened to the Beatles anthology (at least part two) once a week. I always did my homework first thing (well, that got relaxed a bit in the latter years of high school), I always watched NBC Nightly News and Thursday night’s Whose Line Is It Anyway?, and I started every lazy day at home with three hours or more of Civilization III on the computer.

I’ve kept some of that today: I start every visit to the Internet with Time.com, IU e-mail, Yahoo e-mail and Facebook, and I often watch the same videos over and over on YouTube. When that automatic progression through things moves from Web usage to the daily passage of time (and regrettably, that happens a lot), I miss the small gems and large opportunities of life. Worst of all, when that happens I don’t have to think. When things seem so familiar, there’s no need to regain your bearings or find a different (and often better) way to do something.

Barbara Tuchman drills this point home in her book The March of Folly. Through the example of the Renaissance popes provoking the Protestant secession, Britain’s disastrous handling of the American colonies in the 18th century, and the U.S.’s 25-year involvement in Vietnam, she talks about people getting lost in what simply has been done before. Once the pattern was set at the beginning, nobody at the top levels of the hierarchy stepped aside and said, “Hey. This is messed up. We should do something different.” …Well, someone would, but the higher-ups wouldn’t listen. They would just do what they knew how to do (build up riches, tend their horses, or work the machines of bureaucracy, depending on the time period) and not reevaluate their path to folly.

I read this over this summer, mind you, so I had that lesson stuck in my head the whole time. I honestly think that made my time in London better; with a constant reminder to stay on my toes, I saw, experienced, and enjoyed more in the last eight weeks than I have in any of my 20 other summers. I don’t have enough of the reminder anymore, though, so the effect is fading away and I’m falling back into mindlessness.

…Okay, I’m selling myself short a bit. I’ve been more on my toes since I got to IU than I was before, right from the get-go. Without a frequent kick in the pants from myself, I wouldn’t have gotten out much or started all the things that have changed me for the better. I still, however, feel that there’s room for improvement.

So, is that what this blog is for? To keep me writing and on my toes, and maybe to pull back from my mind a bit and see my thoughts from the outside? I already do that in FreeWrites (more on that in a later post). Honestly, I’ve found that with my personal writing, setting a goal sets me up for failure. I have something to strive for, and anything that doesn’t reach that point loses value. Whereas if I don’t set a standard, then whatever will be will be.

I don’t expect anything specific out of this blog, then. Neither should you. (Whoever, and however many, you are.) I could write long-ish essay-like posts, super-short observations, photos, or (my favorite) stories with photos. I could do anything, so expect nothing and everything. Hence the name of the blog.

Oh, and beware of lame attempts at humor, or what would more commonly be known as “jokes.” Like this one, which my father has told me about 10,000 times (or thereabouts):

What do you do when your nose goes on strike?
You pick it.

Comment if you haven’t heard that one before. With the number of times I’ve heard it, I’m still surprised that there are people new to this joke.